In Search of Haydn
Director: Phil Grabsky
Year: 2012
Rating: 7.5
This is the third of the In Search of documentaries
about classical music composers that I have seen. Beethoven and Mozart being
the other two. Highly recommended for folks like me who are deficient in
knowledge about classical music, but feel we should know more to be civilized
men. I was fairly familiar with the music and lives of Mozart and Beethoven,
but definitely not Haydn. But he is one of the main building blocks of classical
music of the 18th century. He became friends with the much younger Mozart
and extolled his music and he became a teacher to Beethoven. This documentary
of 100 minutes goes through his life, his musical evolution and has bits
played and talked about.
He was astonishingly prolific composing
104 symphonies, 24 operas, piano sonatas, concertos for various instruments,
invented the string quartet and a few oratorios. In those days, you composed
to eat. For many years he was sponsored by the wealthiest family in Austria,
but besides performing and heading the orchestra, you were expected to compose.
But this also gave him the freedom to experiment and as he aged, his music
became more innovative. He composed some of his greatest works in his 60s.
My father had a large collection of classical music that I digitalized way
back. Just looked and saw lots of Haydn's music, but not his Creation Oratorio
that sounded amazing. At a playing of it, Beethoven got on his knees and
called Haydn his master.