Bruckner – his life and works This course set out to try and raise the profile of a much underrated composer. An unassuming church organist, in many ways a most unlikely romantic hero, Bruckner did for the symphony and church music what Wagner did for opera and led the way to the revolutionary works of…
Elgar – his life and works This course was run to coincide with the Elgar Year celebrations. The first English composer since Handel to gain an international reputation, Elgar remains one of the best loved of all English composers but his character is as much a mystery as the theme from his Enigma Variations. 2007…
Schubert’s Finale The last 18 months of Schubert’s tragically short life saw the completion of a majority of his finest works including Winterreise, the Impromptus and Moments Musicals, the last three piano sonatas, the Piano Trios, the E flat Mass, the Great C major Symphony, the Shepherd on the Rock and the String Quintet. Like…
Tchaikovsky Whilst his contemporaries were torn between the traditionalists and the nationalists, Tchaikovsky tried to find a Third Way and succeeded in becoming the most popular composer Russia has ever produced. This course not only listened to his music but used videos of his ballets and operas to examine the dramatic genius of his ideas….
Brahms and Bruch This was a comparative study of the two greatest German instrumental and choral composers of their day whose reputations have not fared equally well. Johannes Brahms and Max Bruch were two of the most celebrated composers in late nineteenth century Germany. Bruch predicted that his fame would fade as Brahms’s grew. Although…
Brahms and Bruch This was a comparative study of the two greatest German instrumental and choral composers of their day whose reputations have not fared equally well. Johannes Brahms and Max Bruch were two of the most celebrated composers in late nineteenth century Germany. Bruch predicted that his fame would fade as Brahms’s grew. Although…
Rachmaninov, the Last Romantic The career and music of the great composer and pianist. In the tradition of the great composer pianists of the nineteenth century such as Mendelssohn, Chopin and Liszt, Rachmaninov had the advantage of living in the age of records so we can hear what he was like as a pianist. Plagued…
Haydn and the English Although it happened late in his life Haydn’s association with the English had a huge impact on his music not least the 12 Symphonies, chamber and piano music he wrote for his two visits but his discovery of Handel’s oratorios on those visits had an enormous impact on his later choral…
Chopin and Liszt Two of the greatest ever piano composers were also great friends and had a huge influence on their contemporaries and later composers. Two of the greatest pianists of the C19th and the first great composers to emerge from their respective countries; Poland and Hungary. Their music is so familiar today it is…
Chopin and Liszt Two of the greatest ever piano composers were also great friends and had a huge influence on their contemporaries and later composers. Two of the greatest pianists of the C19th and the first great composers to emerge from their respective countries; Poland and Hungary. Their music is so familiar today it is…