ED HARRIS CHANNELS BEETHOVEN

The year is 1824 Vienna and Ludwig Van Beethoven is poised to perform his famous Ninth Symphony but parts are not ready so he hires an aspiring composer to help him copy his work, thus the title of the film Copying Beethoven. Ed Harris portrays the celebrated composer and clears up the question of whether or not he actually copied Beethoven for the role.

Music wasn’t the only thing Ed discovered about Beethoven. He describes how he educated himself about the composer’s mythic status amongst his peers and his public.

“The title is a little misleading because it’s not about me copying Beethoven. It’s about a copyist who comes into copy his notoriously illegible manuscripts. I just got to work on it man and started doing all I could. Practiced playing the piano hours a day and taking conducting lessons. You know listening to all of his music. I was familiar with some of it and certainly not to the extent that I am now. I wasn’t even aware of a lot of it so this was a total education.”

Harris comes from a musical background so he had some experience reading notes but looking like Beethoven was more of a challenge. He packed on the pounds, wore special wigs and even covered his baby blues with brown contac lenses.

“There are so many books that have been written about him and aspects of him, his letters. I read some of his letters, books of his letters and letters written to him. People talking about him who knew him at the time, looking at the paintings of him and the different images. I really had cool sketches of him walking through the town in his kind of eccentric kind of way. I spent nine, 10 months prior to filming just trying to immerse myself in everything I could about him. And then you have to channel all that and try to play a human being you know.”

In the film Harris wears a metal contraption strapped around his head which helps funnel sound to his ears as Beethoven was going deaf. He also wore plugs in his ears to muffle his own hearing. Copying Beethoven opens today in theaters.

“Well Beethoven didn’t have blue eyes man so I don’t think it would’ve worked. It was fine. The contacs were fairly comfortable. I forgot I had them on once I got used to wearing them.”