MUSICAL HIGHLIGHTS OF EASTERN EUROPE

Elizabeth Handley, musicologist

This course will take participants on a musical tour through Central and Eastern Europe, featuring not only well-known giants such as Liszt and Chopin, but also lesser-known composers whose music merits further exploration. Illustrated with images and music, the journey begins in Hungary and continues to Poland with its rich folk heritage (also expressed in Chopin’s Romantic patriotism) and then to the Czech Republic and Croatia. The ever-popular folk music of Romania, with colourful gypsy elements and unusual instrumentation, has long been used by Western composers. Post-Napoleonic nationalism afforded emerging nations the opportunity to free themselves from foreign domination, and a vehicle with which to express their distinctiveness through the arts, especially music, with the use of both melodic and literary folk material.  

Recommended reading

Grout, D.N. 2014 or 2019. A History of Western Music. W.W.Norton & Company, Inc

Swafford, J. 1992. The Vintage Guide to Classical Music. Vintage Books (Random House)

Pogue, D. & Speck, S. 2015. Classical Music for Dummies. John Wiley & Sons Inc.

Burton-Hill, C. 2018. Year of Wonder. Headline Publishing Group