Begin to contemplate the connections between composers and specific historical events. Grasp how Thomas Morley’s madrigals in praise of Queen Elizabeth I engaged with English national self-perception and myth, and how Leon Janá?ek and Frédéric Chopin responded to political events in key works. Take account of how the magnified emotions stirred by human conflicts feed artistic creation, and how artists have managed to convert the most terrible of human experiences into transcendent art.
Discover how music and history intersected in the remarkable career of George Frederick Handel. Trace the extraordinary circumstances in which the German prince George Ludwig of Brunswick-Lüneberg became King George I of England. Learn about his patronage of Handel, whose phenomenal success as a composer in England led to the creation of numerous musical masterpieces written for the English royals, including the composer’s iconic Water Music, written for a state procession in 1717.
Here, learn how political events in Europe directly shaped Mozart's music and personal circumstances. Investigate the long-term threat posed to Europe by the Ottoman Empire, and observe the paradoxical Turkish vogue in European art and fashion. Study the Turkish elements in both the plot and musical content of Mozart's opera The Abduction from the Harem, and grasp how the economic fallout from Austria's war with the Ottomans contributed to Mozart's decline and death.
Take stock of how events that began in revolutionary Paris inspired the expressive content of Haydn’s Mass in the Time of War. Delve into the dramatic unfolding of the French Revolution, the subsequent rise of Napoleon, and the impending threat his war machine posed to Vienna. Hear the dramatic, martial character of Haydn’s mass within this context—a triumphant musical exhortation to victory against Napoleon’s invading army.
In the first of two lectures on Beethoven, learn how the composer identified, almost mystically, with the figure of Napoleon. Study the events of the continuing clashes after the French Revolution, and witness the progressive military conflicts between Napoleon and the Austrian Habsburg empire. Grasp the highly personal meanings in Beethoven's Farewell Sonata, which depicts the departure and absence of the composer's aristocratic patron in the face of Napoleon's 1809 march on Vienna.
The Napoleonic Wars—and Beethoven’s conflicted feelings toward Napoleon—were elemental in another important episode in the composer’s life. Trace Beethoven’s increasing animosity toward the French, and observe the unfolding debacle of Napoleon’s Peninsular War against Portugal and Spain. Learn how Beethoven came to compose Wellington’s Victory, celebrating the British commander’s triumph over the French at Vitoria, which was both a phenomenal success for Beethoven and a major aberration in his musical output.
In this lecture, envision the evolution of Paris from the 17th century to the 19th, and grasp how the city became a magnet for artists and intellectuals, and the spawning ground for the age of European revolutions. Witness the political events from the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy following Napoleon's downfall to the revolutionary movement of 1830, which inspired Berlioz's monumental setting of the marching song that ultimately became the French national anthem.
In 1831, a failed political insurrection in Warsaw left a permanent mark on the music and spirit of Frédéric Chopin. Beginning in the 17th century, explore the history of invasions, “partitions,” and occupations of Poland by neighboring European powers, which effectively destroyed the Polish Commonwealth. Learn about Chopin’s early life, and delve into the doomed “November Uprising” of the Poles against their Russian overlords that fueled the writing of his passionate, revolutionary etude for piano.
Glinka's A Life for the Tsar was a landmark in the creation of Russian language opera. Learn about the origins of the opera's storyline in Russia's Time of Troubles," an era of discord and invasions, and consider Glinka's role in a community dedicated to bringing Russian art and literature to prominence. Through compelling excerpts from the hugely successful opera, observe how A Life for the Tsar embodied the pride and patriotism of the Russian people.
Uncover the story behind Vienna's beloved Radetzky March, which reflects the last glory of the Austrian Empire. As background, track the historical triumphs and tribulations of the Habsburg dynasty, leading to the 1848 rebellion in which the musical Johann Strausses, Senior and Junior, took opposing sides. Experience Strauss Senior's rousing March in its historical setting, celebrating the Field Marshal Count Radetzky, whose military exploits made him a hero to the imperial old guard.
As the prelude to a fateful episode in the life of Johannes Brahms, explore the 19th-century Hungarian nationalist movement, highlighting the revolutionary initiatives of Lajos Kossuth, icon of the 1848 revolt against Austrian domination. Witness how Brahms's meeting with the Hungarian refugee and violinist Eduard RemEnyi ignited the composer's longtime love affair with Hungarian gypsy music, epitomized in the electrifying finale to his G Minor Piano Quartet.
Louis Moreau Gottschalk was the first truly American composer. Delve into his early life in New Orleans, and observe the richly diverse cultures that shaped his music, encompassing European, Caribbean, Latin American and African influences. Follow his remarkable career as a touring composer-piano virtuoso, his tireless work for the Northern cause during the Civil War, and the events which sparked the creation of his celebrated and patriotic piano piece, The Union.
In the creation of his opera Nabucco, Giuseppe Verdi played a key role in the movement for Italian unification. Study the series of 19th-century rebellions against Austrian rule that culminated in the two Italian wars of independence. Observe how the music and poetry of Nabucco came to be identified with the Italian people's quest for nationhood, ultimately leading the composer into a direct participation in the political process that forged an independent Italy.
Wagner's operatic cycle The Ring functions metaphorically as a caustic critique of 19th-century European society. Learn about Wagner's embrace of anti-capitalist rhetoric in 1848 and 1849, a time when revolutions broke out across Europe, and his writing of revolutionary articles and manifestos. Grasp how the Ring's human and godlike characters represent the ills of industrial societies, and how Wagner envisioned a new "age of man" which would follow the demise of the European monarchies.
Explore the extraordinary industrial and economic rise of the United States in the 19th century, a phenomenon celebrated in the Chicago Columbian Exposition of 1893, one of the most spectacular world’s fairs ever held. Witness the historic participation of Antonin Dvořák, and uncover the impact on American music of Dvořák's residency in the U.S., which produced his symphony entitled From the New World, and pointed toward the creation of a uniquely American musical tradition.
Delve into the 19th-century movement within Russia to create a distinctively Russian national art. With his Symphony No. 1 as a point of reference, learn how Mily Balakirev personified the quest for an authentic Russian musical aesthetic. Observe how this quest reflected a geopolitical conflict within Russia between pro-Western and "Slavophile" schools of thought, and see how Balakirev gathered around him a group of young composers who would change the face of Western concert music.
The life and music of composer Leoš Janáček were profoundly shaped by the longtime enmity in Czech lands between the Germans and the Czechs. Study the history of German/Czech relations dating from the 17th century, and witness the Czech national revival of the 19th century, of which Janáček was a passionate advocate. Learn how the events of a political demonstration in 1905 inspired Janáček’s Piano Sonata 1, a highly personal expression of wonder, rage, and grief.
This lecture reveals Rimsky-Korsakov's classic opera, The Golden Cockerel, as daring political commentary, directly reflecting the events surrounding the first Russian Revolution. Study the opera's fairy-tale plot, in parallel with the drama of Russia's devastating military encounter with the Japanese in 1905, and anti-Tsarist rebellion within Russia. Hear key excerpts from the opera, and observe how the opera's narrative works as a thinly veiled indictment of Tsar Nicholas II, his government, and the Russian military.
Gustav Holst's luminous Ode to Death responded to the immeasurable suffering of World War I. Learn about the underlying causes of the conflict, and grasp how the horrific human cost of the war reflected a tragic clash between archaism and modernity. In Ode to Death, experience the melding of Holst's music with Walt Whitman's elegiac text, and study the musical means whereby Holst evokes a haunting impression of unfathomable loss and waste.
In assessing Berg's operatic masterwork, investigate the aftermath of World War I in Germany and its imprint on the opera-a psychological climate of rage, disillusion, and alienation in the wake of the war's barbarity and hypocrisy. Observe how Berg's own wartime experience linked him with the life of Franz Wozzeck, the opera's protagonist. In excerpts from the opera's first and third acts, hear how Berg achieves a searing musical portrayal of Wozzeck's disordered mind.
Take the measure of the terrors of the Stalinist regime in Soviet Russia, and uncover how many people, including Dimitri Shostakovich, were forced to lead double lives. Learn about the composition of the Symphony during the post-Stalin "Thaw," a less repressive period, and consider the composer's use of texts by courageous poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko. In the Symphony's powerful textures, grasp how the music speaks for all those who walked the line between self-preservation and speaking the truth, thereby risking personal annihilation.
Trace the Depression-era movement of populism in American art, based in the notion that high art should speak to the broad, general population, and learn how Copland's Symphony No. 3 captured the euphoric mood of the country following victories over the Depression, fascism, and Japanese imperialism. Note also how the artistic politics of the postwar decades relegated the Symphony to temporary obscurity in an era that sought to purge music of self-expressive abandon and nationalistic spirit.
As context for this modern symphonic masterpiece, investigate the nearly inconceivable atrocities committed against Poland during World War II by Hitler's and Stalin's regimes, encompassing efforts by both aggressors to destroy Polish nationhood. Learn about Henryk Gorecki's life in wartime and in the repressive era that followed, and hear the sublimely beautiful Symphony of Sorrowful Songs" that expresses the Polish experience through sung prayers and folk songs about mothers and the loss of their children."
Conclude with George Crumb's passionate anti-war string quartet. Trace the backdrop of its writing in the political climate and policy decisions that led the U.S. into the quagmire of the Vietnam War. Observe how the attempted U.S. policy of containment" unraveled tragically in the face of the implacable will of the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong. In the extraordinary sonic textures of Black Angels, hear how Crumb captures the futility and heartbreak of this dark episode in American life."
