British filmmaker Simon Cellan Jones directs the BBC drama Eroica, starring
Ian Hart as
Ludwig van Beethoven. Shot on digital video, this TV movie concerns the first performance of Beethoven's "Symphony No. 3" on June 9, 1804, in Vienna. Prince Lobkowitz (
Jack Davenport) has invited all his friends to his palace to watch Beethoven perform his new piece with a full orchestra. 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. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide