I Hear Dead People: The Cult of Genius and the Musical Museum

Is the concert hall…haunted? Find out how and why voices of the past came to dominate concert life.

Picture yourself at a classical music concert. You walk into the hall and take your seat. A hush falls over the crowd. The music — maybe Beethoven, maybe Brahms, but either way it’s very often by a long-dead composer — begins and the audience enjoys it in rapt silence. This is a setting familiar to many; one we practically take for granted. But this wasn’t always the case. Art music in the late nineteenth century underwent a dramatic change in function as concert halls shifted from venues that primarily featured new music to ones that featured music of the past. In short, composers, audiences, and contemporary thinkers began treating concert halls as museums and art music as “museum pieces.” As music of the past increasingly became the focus of professional musical life, contemporary composers found themselves forced to contend with how they would be judged alongside the work of dead composers, as well as how their work would be remembered after their own deaths.

• Nov 29: Part One of this series delves into the complex story behind the emergence of a canon of musical masterworks.
• Dec 1: Part Two traces its development from a revolutionary concept to an entrenched tradition.

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Part of the Project Resonance  Listening Then & Now Series

A delightfully surprising and in-depth multi-media presentation curated by Music Academy of the West Director of Audience Experience and Engagement Henry Michaels. This four-part series brings you inside music and history to provoke your curiosity. Each 75-minute session visits specific moments in time, giving you context for listening and insight about the culture. Enjoy discussion over coffee in the lobby after each event.