1 Oct 2017

Composers on Camera - How Amadeus Changed Everything

From The Sunday Feature, 2:00 pm on 1 October 2017
Portrait of Mozart

Portrait of Mozart Photo: Barbara Krafft, Public Domain

Thomas Goss takes a long view of cinematic composers, and how one film lifted their narratives from the mundane to the epic.

From the very beginnings of cinema, there have been numerous pictures made about composers, some wildly fictional, others more or less biographical. Each individual film has its own perspective and agenda; but when the genre is viewed as a whole, certain collective narratives start to surface.

These narratives, in turn, can tell us who we are as listeners of concert music. How do we identify with the men and women who created the music that’s a fundamental part of our lives? How do their stories resonate with the way we think of ourselves? And how does that perception affect our appreciation of classical music, and put its origins and meanings into context?