Because I enjoyed Kathleen Ferrier recordings of Bach and Handel so much, I decided to check out this BBC series about great composers - I have always enjoyed BBC productions, besides I thought it would be good to refresh my knowledge about lives of great composers whom most of us know vaguely trough few biographical details about places where they lived, times they worked and names of the most popular pieces. The very first episode was about Johann Sebastian Bach and it was so thrilling, informative and exciting that I soon found myself watching one after the another trough the day (they are on youtube now) though I must admit that Bach episode was by far the most impressive - people like John Eliot Gardiner discussed what his music means to them and along the way there were lots of interesting details, like the story about young Bach walking to meet his idol, Danish organ player Dieterich Buxtehude or his discovery of music by Antonio Vivaldi who was supposedly completely forgotten by that time (and whom he found very inspiring). Again, just as I guessed, everybody is always inspired by his predecessors and its a sign of true artist when someone combines other ideas and influences into original work. What I personally found the most interesting is how Bach's music - nowadays completely removed from the historical and religious context of the times when he created it - still has the power to immediately move us in the most poignant and profound way, almost like religious experience, even though listener doesn't have to know the details about liturgical calendar and such. Of course there were other composers before Bach but he truly comes as some kind of Promethean father figure who wrote old testament for future musicians.
In sharp contrast, episode about Mozart was kind of undercooked - one can approach it from so many different points of view but BBC insisted to somehow add some drama into story about basically lighthearted man so my impression was that critics, musicians and authorities went a bit too far into meandering guessing, trying to make him sound like some tortured soul, where in fact he seems to have been extremely likable, cheerful and optimistic person. There were some interesting details - apparently one of my favourite pieces (uplifting little tune) was written while his mother was on her death bed next door - but no matter how dramatic and heavy these people wanted to make him sound, I still found that his music is basically fountain of bubbly, feel-good energy. I have visited the house where he lived in Vienna (and his birth house in Salzburg) and soaked in the atmosphere, that was wonderful experience.
The episode about Ludwig van Beethoven was much more interesting because scholars didn't have to try to make him more serious than Mozart, since he was completely different person, apparently intense and eccentric, also child prodigy but with some serious childhood scars and decidedly incapable to bow to wealthy aristocrats. It might sound strange today but in reality during his lifetime he was not really either accepted or embraced by Viennese audience who found him too difficult and demanding as musician. In all honesty I must admit that I never looked at his work seriously so this is something I must do in the future. (I have recordings of his complete sonatas by pianist Richard Goode but so far they never invited repeated listening, unlike Mozart whom I can listen the whole time)
To my biggest embarrassment, I must admit that I know even less about music of Richard Wagner so watching the episode about him was interesting experience, because all the musicians assembled here talk about him with adoration and respect, while he seems to have been completely unlikable and despicable person in his real life. So on one side we have this grandiose music and on the other man who by all accounts was self-centred, arrogant and prejudiced womaniser, really fascinating how we came to embrace his work with gingerly avoiding the subject of its creator. I have recordings of Wesendonck Lieder, complete Tristan und Isolde and occasional instrumental pieces but so far his music seemed too intimidating and I have always left it for some other time, "when I grow up", which eventually just have to come in the right moment. I believe that for everything there is a right time and I still might come to Wagner's work one day.
I gulped these four episodes with greatest fascination and there is still more about Giacomo Puccini, Tchaikovsky and Gustav Mahler but for now I had my fill and now I might turn my attention to something completely different, like some bubblegum pop or disco just to get a break from all this drama. But every now and than I return to classical music for some gravitas.
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