Music Talks
All of the topics below can be covered as stand-alone talks, or workshops or courses, as required.
Tonality & the 20th Century
The crisis in 20th century Classical Music. How music is put together. How a scale is constructed. Overtones of Nature. The Diatonic Scale. How this was overturned by Schoenberg and his 12-tone system, where key centres disappeared post-1924.
The great inversion as musical compositions are created mathematically and out of the head rather than from direct inspiration. Musical “Frankenstein’s Monsters”. Humanity cut off from the Divine. A new hope. Alma Deutscher (b.2005) and the return of the “inspired idea”, reawakens Humanity’s connection with Source.
The great inversion as musical compositions are created mathematically and out of the head rather than from direct inspiration. Musical “Frankenstein’s Monsters”. Humanity cut off from the Divine. A new hope. Alma Deutscher (b.2005) and the return of the “inspired idea”, reawakens Humanity’s connection with Source.
Imperial Russia 1855 - 1917
The “Five” (Balakirev, Borodin, Cui, Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korasakov), and their friends and followers, including Lyapunov (1858-1924) and Glazunov (1865 – 1936).
Tchaikovsky – The Great Ballets and the Development of Choreography in the
Imperial Russian School up to 1917
Imperial Russian School up to 1917
Tchaikovsky, genius choreographer Marius Petipa and the Maryinsky Theatre…
Rachmaninov and the 20th Century
As Tchaikovsky’s acknowledged heir. A triple career, as composer, pianist and conductor. His involvement with the Imperial Family of Nicholas II. After the Revolution. Exile and disillusionment. Fundamental disagreement with 20th Century “developments”. His hopes for a beautiful future…last flowerings 1927-41…
The 20th Century “Crisis”
(1900 – 24) and Post-1945
(1900 – 24) and Post-1945
The beginnings of “Modernism” and its development out of the “late” Romantic period. Mahler, Schoenberg and the “Second Viennese School”. Schoenberg’s pupils Alban Berg and Anton Webern. America and Charles Ives’ iconoclasm. “Music for All” …or Music for none…audience reaction.
Critical and academic reaction. The great schism after 1945. The involvement of the CIA and Berg’s pupil Adorno. The split between audience and composer. Can it ever now be bridged? Was alienating the audience the whole idea…?
Critical and academic reaction. The great schism after 1945. The involvement of the CIA and Berg’s pupil Adorno. The split between audience and composer. Can it ever now be bridged? Was alienating the audience the whole idea…?
The British “Romantic” School (1875 – 1945)
Composers Parry, Stanford and Elgar. German influence pre-World War 1. Anti-German feeling causes British Romanticism to go into eclipse. The Pastoral School of Vaughan-Williams, Finzi and Delius. Younger composers including George Lloyd (1913-98) and Howard Blake (b.1938). The eclipse of tonality in the UK post-1962.
Prokofiev, Tunefulness and the Soviet Ballet
(1933 – 45)
(1933 – 45)
Sergei Prokofiev (1891 – 1953) is a figure of some controversy. Hailed in the West before 1933 as a leading light in the emerging “Modernist” movement, while he lived in exile, after his return to Russia at the height of the Stalinist Terror in 1937, his music post-that-date has been largely treated with derision by Western musical commentators and academics, who regularly accuse him of “backsliding” and writing to order.
The situation is much more nuanced than this, however, and has to do, at least partially, with Prokofiev’s religious beliefs, coming as he did from a family of Christian Scientists. We will look at Prokofiev’s increasingly tuneful and direct music post-1933 with an emphasis on the beautiful ballets, Romeo and Juliet op.64 (1934-40), Cinderella op.87 (1946-7) and The Tale of the Stone Flower op.118 (1948-53).
The situation is much more nuanced than this, however, and has to do, at least partially, with Prokofiev’s religious beliefs, coming as he did from a family of Christian Scientists. We will look at Prokofiev’s increasingly tuneful and direct music post-1933 with an emphasis on the beautiful ballets, Romeo and Juliet op.64 (1934-40), Cinderella op.87 (1946-7) and The Tale of the Stone Flower op.118 (1948-53).
Music in Stone – Classical Music as architecture and Classical Music in Architecture.
The Parsi composer Kaikhosru Sorabji (1892 – 1988) referred to the idea that creating a piece of music was akin to creating a cathedral in sound. This idea is not new, however. The music of J. S. Bach, with its beautiful innate mathematically perfect symmetries, particularly the organ music, has been compared to cathedral architecture. And music of the Mediaeval Era, particularly the Gothic Era, was created specifically to be sung in the great spaces of Gothic Cathedrals.
Recent research has uncovered music encoded within the stones and architecture of Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland, which suggests both the specific “A” pitch to be used as a tuning in the cathedral space and suggests that the architecture of sacred spaces and the music associated with them is far older than Christianity and in fact dates from a time when the Divine Feminine was venerated.
This talk, workshop or course acts as an introduction to the ideas of “correct” A pitch, and the relation between the tones of Classical Music and the architecture of Sacred Spaces.
Recent research has uncovered music encoded within the stones and architecture of Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland, which suggests both the specific “A” pitch to be used as a tuning in the cathedral space and suggests that the architecture of sacred spaces and the music associated with them is far older than Christianity and in fact dates from a time when the Divine Feminine was venerated.
This talk, workshop or course acts as an introduction to the ideas of “correct” A pitch, and the relation between the tones of Classical Music and the architecture of Sacred Spaces.
Praise for Steven's Music Courses
“Steven has an unrivalled passion for music, a phenomenal memory and encyclopaedic mind for all the places, dates and opus numbers, always working without notes and putting all the historical and cultural context together beautifully.”
“You’ve opened my eyes to a whole new world of music which I’m going to continue exploring.”
“You helped me overcome my prejudices against contemporary classical music. Thank you for opening my mind. I will now increasingly look out for new works both in concert and on record.”
“Having not known much about the subject, this was extremely enlightening, interesting and very well put together, thank you.”
Thank you, Steven. Huge topic artfully squeezed into three days. Gained a lot of knowledge and leads to go away and look up so the learning will continue.”
“Steven has an unrivalled passion for music, a phenomenal memory and encyclopaedic mind for all the places, dates and opus numbers, always working without notes and putting all the historical and cultural context together beautifully.”
“You’ve opened my eyes to a whole new world of music which I’m going to continue exploring.”
“You helped me overcome my prejudices against contemporary classical music. Thank you for opening my mind. I will now increasingly look out for new works both in concert and on record.”
“Having not known much about the subject, this was extremely enlightening, interesting and very well put together, thank you.”
Thank you, Steven. Huge topic artfully squeezed into three days. Gained a lot of knowledge and leads to go away and look up so the learning will continue.”
Copyright Steven Greer 2024. All rights reserved.