The Life and Loves of Beethoven

The film opens in Vienna in 1801. Two of Beethoven’s pupils are in love with him. What Thérèse de Brunswick feels goes unreturned for years, even while the two of them are engaged. The one Beethoven loves is Juliette Guicciardi, and she marries a count. Having lost Juliette, Beethoven withdraws to Heiligenstadt. In the same period he realises he is going deaf and falls into a deep depression. He considers death and turns away from it; what he holds on to is the sound in his memory and his own work. The years that follow bring poverty, the isolation deafness brings, and trouble with his nephew. Harry Baur takes the lead in Abel Gance’s French film, a hundred and sixteen minutes long, completed in the middle of the thirties.