Edvard Grieg: What Price Immortality?

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful Music, Wonderful Narration
Review: You know you're in good hands when the beautiful landscape of Norway appears, the music of Grieg rises in the background and the marvelous voice of narrator Sir Derek Jacobi muses, "I feel like Peer Gynt when he says, "How heavy weighs each step when one must wend one's way back again"." This wonderful film chronicles the unique life and genius of Edvard Grieg through a seamless synthesis of film, music and narration. The theme of this lovely piece can be best summed up by Grieg's own words; "I made a monument of myself because I needed to....I did so because we both needed it. Me and all of Norway......But at what price? You may well ask, what price? The monument remains, but what is left of the man?.....What then is left of the truth? Truth, yes, in art and in life... that what I'm after." Art and life, truth and consequences. One especially enjoyable aspect of the movie is the use of musical notation as a metaphor for life: "A double bar line is a decision made. Now we made one. Over and done." Pianist Staffan Scheja is wonderful as the adult Grieg, and full performances of Grieg's Ballade in G Minor Op. 24 and String Quartet No. 1 in G Minor Op 27 ensure that this DVD will do double duty as a pseudo-CD in the near future. Highly recommended!

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful Music, Wonderful Narration
Review: You know you're in good hands when the beautiful landscape of Norway appears, the music of Grieg rises in the background and the marvelous voice of narrator Sir Derek Jacobi muses, "I feel like Peer Gynt when he says, "How heavy weighs each step when one must wend one's way back again"." This wonderful film chronicles the unique life and genius of Edvard Grieg through a seamless synthesis of film, music and narration. The theme of this lovely piece can be best summed up by Grieg's own words; "I made a monument of myself because I needed to....I did so because we both needed it. Me and all of Norway......But at what price? You may well ask, what price? The monument remains, but what is left of the man?.....What then is left of the truth? Truth, yes, in art and in life... that what I'm after." Art and life, truth and consequences. One especially enjoyable aspect of the movie is the use of musical notation as a metaphor for life: "A double bar line is a decision made. Now we made one. Over and done." Pianist Staffan Scheja is wonderful as the adult Grieg, and full performances of Grieg's Ballade in G Minor Op. 24 and String Quartet No. 1 in G Minor Op 27 ensure that this DVD will do double duty as a pseudo-CD in the near future. Highly recommended!