Beethoven: Piano Concertos No.2 & No.3 (Alfred Brendel/Simon Rattle)

Both being fans of Werner Herzog, D and I were keen to see Invincible when it came out, and did so sometime in June 2002 at a not very full Showroom. The only reviews I'd seen were fairly uniformly terrible.

I remember watching the film, thinking "I wonder when it's going to go downhill, because so far it's fantastic". The use of non-professional actors didn't bother me (I've rarely seen bad acting ruin a good film, just as I've never seen good acting save a poor one). D liked it to. She gave me this CD for my birthday the next month as a memento: the film's romance-tinged sub-plot involves a performance of Beethoven's third piano concerto.

I see in the IMDB user comments that someone criticises Anna Gourari for overacting when she's playing the Beethoven. Herzog cast her because she is a concert pianist, not an actor. Arguably, then, when she's playing Beethoven, she's not acting.

I saw the film again in September 2005, at the Ciné Lumière with Graham Dorrington. I didn't enjoy it quite as much that time. But that may be because Graham can be quite hard to please.

MusicBrainz entry for this album