Second Self, Beethoven Resurrection
Trailer
Live Orchestral performance, Kunstfestspiele Herrenhausen, Hannover (2020)
Feature film, live orchestral music
90mins (2020)
This magical-realist documentary by film makers Hugo Glendinning and Tilly Shiner, tells the fictional story of Ludvig van Beethoven's journey to London on the night the United Kingdom left the European Union.
Beethoven, or perhaps his spirit, is our witness to Brexit. The afterlife visit to London is driven by a desire for compensation - the Royal Philharmonic Society of London commissioned his Symphony no. 9 (the ‘Anthem of Europe’) and originally paid an insulting £50 fee for the rights. Beethoven has stayed angry about this for 250 years.
London is a city of extremes this evening, set on destroying itself. Beethoven emerges from the muddy shores of the Thames and is greeted by wild children playing with fire and mobile phones. He staggers through the streets, joining Brexit demonstrators and revellers. Beethoven’s own tendency for self destruction is not far behind. He drinks, smokes and gets thoroughly pissed off on his exhausting search for the Royal Philharmonic Society.
Despite his zombie state and horror at what London has become, musicians, artists and dancers reassure him that art and beauty can still be found in the world. In Trafalgar Square he dances with an exquisite woman wearing an Eiffel Tower dress and listens to a Mourner whispering the Ode to Joy between the buskers and bell ringers of the National Gallery.
Beethoven meets the inexplicable, surreal and the extraordinary before finally joining an angel in red silk playing a strange and fragile version of the Spring Sonata on the banks of the Thames, on violin.
Framing all this is a reading of the oration written by Franz Grillparzer for Beethoven’s funeral in 1827, a reading accompanied by horses, cats and birdsong.
The film's score has at its heart the semblance of a work by Beethoven, a ghost work arranged and composed by the British-Egyptian film composer Sami EI-Enany.
Performers
Jerry Killick Beethoven
George Njoki the Guardian Angel
Flora Wellesley Wesley the Vision of Dance
Hannes Flaschberger the Actor
Melanie Pappenheim the Mourner - sings Ode to Joy, Beethoven’s 9th Symphony
Aisha Orazbayeva the Vision of Music - plays Beethoven Violin Sonata no.5 in F major op.24
(with Roderick Chadwick on piano) and performs a memory of the violin part during the film. Martin Creed Vision through a Letterbox - performs What the Fuck am I Doing