Music. Learn, enjoy, appreciate.

This new course begins in the Austrian capital of Vienna, where we explore the astonishing array of masterpieces produced by Franz Schubert in the final year of his short life.

We then move on to Prussian Berlin and Saxon Leipzig, tracing the career of the gifted prodigy Felix Mendelssohn. In Leipzig, we also meet the talented young pianist Robert Schumann who slowly transforms himself into one of the most original of the new Romantic composers.

Finally, we relocate to Dresden, capital of the kingdom of Saxony, where newcomer Richard Wagner takes up the position of Kapellmeister to the Saxon court and produces his first operatic masterpiece The Flying Dutchman.

Aims

The aims of this course are to:

• weave together the overlapping musical careers of two of the most outstanding young masters of the German Romantic style, Felix Mendelssohn and Robert Schumann
• demonstrate the rapid decline of Vienna as the principal centre of excellence in the German musical world, while noting the corresponding rise of Leipzig, with its great orchestra and conservatorium, as the engine of musical innovation and progress
• address the impact of the young Richard Wagner on the lacklustre German operatic scene of the time.

Outcomes

By the end of this course, you should be able to:

• identify some of the more prominent features of the new Romantic style of musical composition
• describe some of the stylistic differences between the piano music of Mendelssohn and Schumann
• identify some