In Search of Mozart
                                                                                                       
Director: Phil Grabsky
Year: 2006
Rating: 8.0
This rather wonderful 2-hour documentary on Mozart meticulously details the journey of his life from being a child prodigy in Salzburg and having his father take him all over Europe to play for Royalty to his later wandering through the continent as an adult trying at times to scratch out a living and constantly asking friends for money. In between his performances, being married, having children he managed to compose about 800 works that are still played today. And then suddenly he got sick and soon died. His last words apparently were how the drums should be played in his final work, the magnificent Requiem. He was 35. 35 years old. 800 works. Many of which are considered the greatest music ever written.  Fuck me. How did he do it.

In those days composers and musicians made a living at the whim of a friendly sponsor, usually a nobleman who wanted you around for bragging rights or to lead the orchestra at a ball. Or you would be paid for a specific piece of music - an opera or a string quartet. Mozart spent much of his time looking for work. And still composed 800 works. Damn him. The year he died in 1791 in Vienna was the year that Beethoven came to Vienna to study under Haydn. Perhaps the three greatest composers all in Vienna at the same time. They should have hung out.  Had a Schnapps at the local café.

This is a fine documentary focusing of course on his life and his music - of which a lot is played. It is so pure. There is never a note of his music that feels out of place. Calm and yet underneath it is a swelling emotion. It took Beethoven to bring that to the surface. Lots of talking heads dissecting his music and how it related to his life at the time. But what really got to me was listening to the musicians talking about how much his music means to them and how they are still astonished that a man could have written it. Mozart was also a prolific writer of letters to friends and family and many of them are read. He comes across as quite funny if at times crude. My favorite sentence to his wife who he wrote these incredibly romantic letters to "On the very first night (home), you will get a thorough spanking on your dear kissable arse and this you may count upon."