What to say about Lezione 21? "Unique" or "unusual" are the right words. Imagine an Italian film, with English actors and typical British humour based on nonsense, pretending to tell the real story of the elaboration of the ninth symphony. Imagine ancient students telling how their former teacher used to demystify arts legends, and particularly the famous lecture number 21 about the ninth of Beethoven. Imagine that this lecture took the form of a story with a violinist in a fantastic and surrealist world covered with snow where the inhabitants would try to convince him that his ideas about the success of the ninth are totally wrong. That the ninth has never been the success we pretend it has been when Beethoven wrote it. That is has never been an ode to the joy, in spite of its title. Imagine scenes popping out of nowhere with musician giving evidences of what really happened, exactly like a documentary.
Alessandro Baricco, as a musicologist, knows what he is talking about, and realises a film full of beauty: beauty for the eyes, beauty for the ears, but also beauty for the mind. More than a documentary about the ninth, more than a delirious film, Lezione 21 is a world of magic where only the music matters, where the real and the absurd are linked by Beethoven.
