Photographic still for the World Picture Edition of "The Life and Loves of Beethoven"
The Ira F. Brilliant Center for Beethoven Studies, San José State University
Lucy isn't the only one with love troubles. In his black-and-white romanticized 1936 movie, Abel Gance stitched together fact with a large dose of fiction. In the two-hour film Beethoven falls in love with Therese von Brunswick and Giulietta Guicciardi and although they love him in return, he ultimately renounces both of them for Art. Historical accuracy aside, the film, recently released on DVD, is full of heroic imagery. Actor Harry Baur played Beethoven as a crude, impulsive, tormented, yet idealistic, creator. One of the great scenes in the movie is a completely fictitious depiction of Beethoven playing the organ at the wedding of Giulietta. Having bribed the organist, Beethoven took his place and instead of playing a lovely wedding march, ruins the wedding by substituting the "Funeral March on the Death of a Hero" from his Fortepiano Sonata in A-flat Major, Opus 26 (written in 1800-01 when he was teaching Julie).