Beethoven

I just watched the first 2 episodes of this wonderful series on Beethoven and am looking forward to watching the last episode. I have always loved Beethoven's music, especially his orchestral works. But this series makes me appreciate his music even more. The inner struggle he went through in life is portrayed in his music. The narrator, composer Charles Hazlewood, explains specific works in detail and how its essence was a reflection on his struggles during life. Paul Rhys, as Beethoven, portrays brilliantly the many moods of this musical genius. A fantastic acting performance. I do like that it's part documentary and part drama. I even like the mock interviews he does with the people involved in his life. The quality of this series make a compelling and must see for those who love classical music and especially Beethoven. After watching this series, I still haven't seen the 3rd installment yet, I will never hear a Beethoven composition without thinking what was going on in his life at that time. This documentary is a masterpiece.

I expected this to be really good due to the high rating given it by others. However, both my wife and I found this very disappointing. We felt the mix of drama and documentary didn't work very well. The drama was rarely believable and was so long-winded that it left very little time to discuss the music. How many times, and for how long do we need to see Beethoven looking grumpy or shouting? I also never found Paul Rhys believable. I've seen other Charles Hazelwood documentaries and they seemed to be much more informative. At the end, I felt that I had learnt very little.

Immortal Beloved may have been inaccurate, but it seemed to communicate the character and passion of Beethoven much better.

I didn't understand that why the movie shows Beethoven as having leprosy. I think that even IMDB didn't understand the same thing and put only Karl's photos as photos of the movie. Beside that there was a lot of good comments about Beethoven's music at the movie.

As someone who is passionate about Beethoven's music, I really enjoyed this drama documentary about his turbulent life. I hope that the BBC will realise what a gem it is and repeat it. I thought that Paul Rhys portrayed the Maestro very well and it was very poignant to see Beethoven's frustration and near-despair at his increasing deafness. He could be a difficult man but also very warm and giving. There is so much feeling in Beethoven's music, his very self in fact. When you see the life he had, you understand why. I liked the way that the titles of the main pieces of music were displayed. I have a large Beethoven collection but it is by no means complete and some of the pieces were new to me. PLEASE BBC put this on again.

As the previous reviewer questioned.."Why did this series not catch on?" "Beethoven" or "Genius of Beethoven" is a very compelling account of Beethoven's life, legend, love, and most of all music. Probably the most accurate portrayal of the master's life, albeit Paul Rhys doesn't look exactly like Beethoven (according to most descriptions), but the acting was very good.

After watching the series, I've come to realize it's challenging to understand any piece completely, unless you understand the context in which it was written. This movie teaches and explains the awesome intricacies of each major piece of Beethoven's works and allows you to experience the music from the most accurate perspective.

Only small criticism I can point out is that there are some musical scenes that are too drawn out. e.g. if you really don't care about Beethoven's opera, the entire section that describes his opera in detail - I fell asleep during.

Beethoven's becoming a "lost gem", but probably just the entire genre of classical music being slowly forgotten by the Britney Spears & Justin Timberlake admiring public.