Clip from "Biography" (1970), episode 4 "Beethoven" (Michael Jayston) - Michael Jayston, Judy Parfitt, Edward Hardwicke.
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Short filmTranscript
00:00Look.
00:02What is it? Yours, your work?
00:04Some of it's drafts, notes, that sort of thing.
00:06Yes, but what is there here?
00:07Two symphonies, some sonatas, a trio,
00:10piano concertos, a lot of other stuff.
00:12I have no idea.
00:14All of it unperformed.
00:15Oh, no. Some of it's what you've heard already, but most of it.
00:20I showed some to Haydn.
00:22What happened?
00:23Oh, he didn't like it.
00:25You know the terrifying thing about Haydn?
00:27In his day, he was a musical revolution.
00:30A daring innovator.
00:31Now look at him.
00:33The year I studied under Josef Haydn was the most boring of my life.
00:36I don't know how I survived.
00:37The same goes for all those other teachers.
00:39Albrechtsberger, Horster, Schenk.
00:41Doll.
00:42Doll.
00:43A lot of them.
00:44Still, that's Vienna for you.
00:45And the Viennese.
00:46Horrible place.
00:48What are you laughing at?
00:49Nothing.
00:51Mind you, there's no risk of them ever joining the revolution.
00:54Not why they can stuff themselves on black ale and sausage.
00:57Though they might cut up nasty if they're right short of ice cream.
01:00But you're not going to give up performing.
01:06What?
01:07I was only...
01:08I can't keep up with you.
01:10Are you well?
01:11No.
01:12No, I'm not.
01:13What is it?
01:14Headache.
01:15Bowels.
01:16But it's not that.
01:16Are you eating properly?
01:20Here.
01:23Over there.
01:24I didn't understand.
01:42Again.
01:42Oh, wait.
01:48Now.
01:49Again.
02:04Again.
02:05Again.
02:05What?
02:14But surely...
02:15I'd be grateful if you could find out the names of the best physicians in Vienna for the year.
02:20I've been unable to bring myself to do so.
02:22But you've not seen anybody about this?
02:24Not since Bonn.
02:25And it's getting worse.
02:27Month by month.
02:29There's a reason, you see.
02:32There must be a thing like this.
02:35It's not an accident.
02:38You won't tell anyone about this.
02:40I have enemies.
02:40The deaf musician.
02:46The deaf musician.
03:10Mozart.
03:37Yes.
03:38The greatest musician that has ever lived.
03:43He gave me lessons, you know, when I was 17.
03:45And Vienna, which he enriched so much with his genius, let him die in dingy poverty.
03:49And buried him in a common pauper's pit.
03:52I went looking for his grave when I came back.
03:54There's nothing to be seen.
03:56Nothing.
03:58It's not even a very good likeness.
04:01It's a death mask.
04:02Yes.
04:02My husband took it.
04:04And there's the clothes he dyed in.
04:05And they come and see this, now he's dead.
04:08In their hundreds.
04:10Sublime Mozart.
04:12They hate any man of genius.
04:14He's too disturbing.
04:15And he shows up their own mediocrity too clearly.
04:18They're appreciative to you.
04:19At the moment.
04:21Look at the thing.
04:23It's pretty.
04:24Genius isn't pretty.
04:27It's squealing in a trap.
04:32A sheer, naked defenselessness, inconceivable to other men.
04:36There's no will, no choice in it.
04:38You lie stretched out between what humanity is and what it could become.
04:42Twisted and racked between those two things.
04:44Singing out.
04:45Oh, the greatest wisdom.
04:47Like he did.
04:49He gave us.
04:51Music.
04:53And then when you're barely 35.
04:5535.
04:57Just beginning.
05:01Of course it's not at all like that, really.
05:04It's bloody hard work.
05:06Your husband.
05:08Your husband must have been a remarkable man.
05:10Oh, he made a lot of money abroad, making casts and things, and put it all into this.
05:14He married me partly to try to slip back into his social plane.
05:18But they wouldn't have us.
05:20It's the children I feel sorry for.
05:22Yes.
05:22Though now he's dead, they are being accepted, slowly.
05:25And you?
05:26I dare say that will come.
05:28He.
05:29He will alter all that.
05:30Bonaparte.
05:31When he takes Vienna.
05:33Our moribund social order.
05:36Though anyone who spends their evenings in the company of Genghis Khan, Charlemagne, Marie Antoinette.
05:41And Pius IV in the larder.
05:43Pretty well connected.
05:45Not doing at all badly.