THE  PLEASURES OF MUSIC'S MAKEUP ACROSS TIME
(Or, Enjoying the Many Faces of Old Music to the Max!)

Lecture 1 Really, Really Old Music – Sounds of the genuinely antique. We admire the ruins of ancient Mesopotamia, Greece & Rome, the standing edifices,
sculpture & painting of the Romanesque, Gothic & Renaissance – why not
the surviving music? Coming this way rarely, it uniquely rewards our ears.

Lecture 2 - Not So Really Old Music – Embracing the Baroque Style’s many faces: opera, ballet, oratorio, cantata, trio & solo sonata, toccata, fugue, concerto! During its 150 years, this expressive force introduces dynamism into the visual & musical arts, & brings with it the new Doctrine of Affections.

Lecture 3 -Slightly Less Old Music – Classicism’s international popularity during Europe’s “Enlightenment” is shown to streamline the esthetic means of the
past, to make viable splendid new forms & to challenge both aristocratic
& middle class tastes while all society is caught up in revolutionary ideas.

Lecture 4 - Old, Yes, But Oh So Fantastic – Critics may have labeled its passion as “unbridled excess ,” but Romanticism appealed to & involved the public as no music ever before - & is demonstrated to continue its hold on our
emotions via immense musical contrasts & huge performance demands.

Lecture 5 - Hardly Old For Most of Us – The 20th Century aggravated many people with its frequent changes of idiom in music & art – Impressionism, Expressionisn, Minimalism, Maximalism, you-name-it – yet the farther we move into our own age the more wonderful its masterpieces become!

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