British filmmaker Simon Cellan Jones directs the BBC drama Eroica, starring Ian Hart as Ludwig van Beethoven. Shot on digital video, this TV film depicts the first performance of Beethoven's Third Symphony, June 9th, 1804, in Vienna, Austria. Prince Lobkowitz (Jack Davenport) has invited friends to listen to Beethoven conduct his new symphony for the first time. Among the aristocratic attendees are Count Dietrichstein (Tim Pigott-Smith), Countess Brunsvik (Claire Skinner), and composer Josef Haydn (Frank Finlay). The actual musical score is performed by the Orchestre Revolutionaire et Romantique, under the direction of John Eliot Gardiner.
Acting
Ian Hart's Beethoven: volcanic, wounded, impossible to look away from.
Direction
Cellan Jones traps you in that room—sweat, candlewax, terror.
Sound
Gardiner's period orchestra, played live on set. The real deal.
Director
Simon Cellan Jones
Ian Hart
Ludwig van Beethoven
Jack Davenport
Prince Lobkowitz
Claire Skinner
Josephine Deym
Frank Finlay
Josef Haydn
Leo Bill
Reis
Trevor Cooper
Otto Fisher
Fenella Woolgar
Princess Marie Lobkowitz
Lucy Akhurst
Therese Brunsvik
Victoria Shalet
Kirsten
Anton Lesser
Sukowaty
Jonathan Aris
Paul Dorfmueller
Tim Pigott-Smith
Count Dietrichstein
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Ian Hart learned piano for months but ultimately faked it—his hands were shot from years of manual labor. The finger cramps were real though.
The Eroica marked classical music's pivot from entertainment to personal expression—essentially inventing the tortured artist archetype we still suffer today.
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