My Review- The Eulogy
My rating 8:10
There are two great documentary movies in Cinemas at the moment about the lives of famous Classical artists Pavarotti and Geoffrey Tozer.
Pavarotti I knew a lot about but Geoffrey Tozer I knew nothing about.
Geoffrey Peter Bede Hawkshaw Tozer (5 November 1954 - 21 August 2009) was an Australian classical pianist and composer. A child prodigy, he composed an opera at the age of eight and became the youngest recipient of a Churchill Fellowship award at 13. His career included tours of Europe, America, Australia and China, where he performed the Yellow River Concerto to an estimated audience of 80 million people. Tozer had more than 100 concertos in his repertoire, including those of Mozart, Beethoven, Liszt, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Medtner, Rachmaninoff, Bartók, Stravinsky, Prokofiev and Gerhard.
The film opens with Paul Keating ex Australian PM and great friend and champion of Geoffrey Tozer recreating his controversial Eulogy which blasted the Arts Community that in his opinion contributed to the premature death at age 54 of Geoffrey Tozer. Beloved Conductor and teacher Richard Gill takes us on a forensic journey to find out what happened to the talented pianist that many say was Australia's greatest. Through interviews and footage many theories are explored such as the parental pressure placed on a gifted young child to excel and over achieve or the lack of commissions that Tozer was offered by the Sydney and Melbourne Symphony orchestras then a friend of Geoffrey Tozer even unjustly blamed his lover who says he asked Tozer to seek help for his alcoholism in vain then ended their relationship. My answer to what happened to cause a 54 year old man to die derelict and alone in his home was the disease he acknowledged having and written in his diary Alcoholism. People referred to his "problem " with alcohol that really annoys me it's like saying an alcoholic has a problem with a loaded gun after dying of Russian roulette. It's often referred to as "the great remover" it removes ambition, talent, and eventually removes the alcoholic permanently ,thankfully we have the legacy of Geoffrey Tozer's recordings.
The film opens with Paul Keating ex Australian PM and great friend and champion of Geoffrey Tozer recreating his controversial Eulogy which blasted the Arts Community that in his opinion contributed to the premature death at age 54 of Geoffrey Tozer. Beloved Conductor and teacher Richard Gill takes us on a forensic journey to find out what happened to the talented pianist that many say was Australia's greatest. Through interviews and footage many theories are explored such as the parental pressure placed on a gifted young child to excel and over achieve or the lack of commissions that Tozer was offered by the Sydney and Melbourne Symphony orchestras then a friend of Geoffrey Tozer even unjustly blamed his lover who says he asked Tozer to seek help for his alcoholism in vain then ended their relationship. My answer to what happened to cause a 54 year old man to die derelict and alone in his home was the disease he acknowledged having and written in his diary Alcoholism. People referred to his "problem " with alcohol that really annoys me it's like saying an alcoholic has a problem with a loaded gun after dying of Russian roulette. It's often referred to as "the great remover" it removes ambition, talent, and eventually removes the alcoholic permanently ,thankfully we have the legacy of Geoffrey Tozer's recordings.
