Robert Samuels; How symphonies were born in a London pub  

Today we talk of “symphony concerts” and “symphony orchestras”, but where did these come from? The answer involves a fascinating story stretching across the whole of the eighteenth century, as the new and strange idea of just sitting and listening to music, rather than singing or dancing to it, gradually took off in musical life across Europe. One of the most surprising aspects of this story is the part played in it by Britain: this talk begins Haydn’s five seasons in 1790s London, which he described as the happiest of his professional life. It then shows how Mozart and Beethoven, both friends of Haydn, followed his new idea of how to arrange concert programmes.

Biography:

Robert Samuels is a Senior Lecturer in Music at The Open University. He has written and taught on the music of Bach, Mozart, Haydn, Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Mahler, Schoenberg, Weill, Shostakovich, Britten, Cage, Boulez and Birtwistle amongst others. His book Mahler’s Sixth Symphony: A study in musical semiotics was published by Cambridge University Press in 1995. He is currently writing a study of the symphony and the novel in the nineteenth century. Robert worked on the award-winning BBC4 TV series Symphony in 2012, has spoken on BBC Radio 3, has organised and spoken at study events for the Oxford Lieder Festival, and gives talks for The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.

Raymond Warburton; Paintings inspired by Poems  

This charming and insightful lecture will truly engage members, as some of you will play an active part! There has been, and always will be, a strong link between art and literature, and this unique lecture focuses on one aspect of that link: namely paintings inspired by poems. To provide a structure, 12 paintings and the poems that inspired them will be discussed. The paintings all date from 1800, and were painted by British artists. The poems were written by writers from across the eras and from a range of different countries.

Biography:

Ray has had a life-long love of art. However, in his twenties, Ray studied social sciences at the London School of Economics and the School of Oriental and African Studies. These studies led to a career in health and social care, with art being an evening and weekend passion. But all that changed in 2011, when Ray became a guide at Tate Britain and Tate Modern. Then from 2014 to 2017, he studied art history at the Open University, and then at the University of Buckingham, from where he gained an MA in the History of Art. And to cap it all, Ray became an Arts Society lecturer in 2017. Ray also knows what it’s like to be on the receiving end of lectures as he is a member of his local Arts Society in Blackheath.

Julian Richards; The car in art and the car as art  

Speed! Technology! Destruction! The battle cry of the Futurists WWI heralded the appearance of the car as a powerful symbol in avant-garde art. Soon the Art Deco masterpieces of the great car builders came to epitomise style, luxury and craftmanship, works of art in their own right.  The romance of speed continued to be a major theme in how cars were depicted in art, but, since the 1950s the car has become art, used as a canvas for artists as celebrated as Peter Blake, Andy Warhol and Damien Hirst.   This lecture will showcase the beautiful and the bizarre, celebrating the dynamic, creative, and sometimes unsettling relationship between cars and art.

Julian Richards studied archaeology at Reading University and has since worked as a professional archaeologist, in commercial archaeology, for English Heritage, for the BBC and as an independent. He was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London in 1992 and has an honorary doctorate. He has long been involved in teaching and outreach projects, lecturing widely in continuing education, to schools (with a focus on special needs pupils) and societies. His career in broadcasting involved researching and presenting Meet the Ancestors and Blood of the Vikings for BBC2, and Mapping the Town for Radio 4.

In this amusing lecture Tyler will talk about the seemingly happy world of professional, family pantomime - and what it’s really like. He will recount the bouquets and the brickbats, look at the famous names, the greatest Dames and the old routines that we all remember – both when it all works – and when it doesn’t.  And he’ll talk about why this most precious of British traditions will always endure, and why, surprisingly, every actor wants to do it. This is a revealing look at professional panto, from someone who was born into it. 

THE ASTONISHING MASTER MOZART COMES TO LONDON

This entertaining and informative presentation tells of the Mozart family’s residence in London (1764-5) when the 8-yr-old prodigy Wolfgang Amadeus befriended George III, was the subject of medical research by the Royal Society, and composed his first symphony seated at the kitchen table in a small terraced house in the 'country village' of Chelsea. Dr Griffiths illustrates his talk with explanations and performances of Mozart’s witty and precocious miniatures at the piano, if available, or electric keyboard (provided). The presentation also features a helpful and practical guide on How to Listen to Mozart by recognising characteristic Mozartian 'thumb-prints' - clearly audible even in his earliest compositions. The performance of a dazzling Polonaise for piano, by Mozart’s own child-prodigy Franz Xavier, brings the event to an emotional conclusion.

THE ECHOING SCREAM: THE BIRTH OF EXPRESSIONISM

When Edvard Munch created The Scream in 1893, he was responding to an intense emotional experience. Today, we would call it a panic attack. Crippling and anxious making, this primal cry was also a rallying call: for Munch and for the wider world of art. It gave birth to a movement known as expressionism, showing life not at it is (realism) or as it might be perceived in a fleeting moment (impressionism), but as it is experienced within the unembellished core of our being. Explosive and emotive, the aftershocks of Munch’s vision were felt across the world: in art and music, literature, dance and film. Charting the origins of expressionism and its historical context, this multifaceted talk embraces artists and thinkers such as Kandinsky, Klee and Schiele, Nietzsche, Freud and Schoenberg, pondering the radical ways in which they both reflected and ignited our inner feelings.

CANAL HISTORY AND HERITAGE 

This lecture provides a colourful introduction to the secret world of our 2000-mile inland waterway network and looks at all aspects of their exceptional artistic, architectural and engineering vernacular. Features range from sweeping aqueducts to tiny bollards; from colourful historic narrowboats to 'Roses and Castles' artwork; from grand World Heritage Sites to quirky listed buildings. A well-known architectural historian once described our canals as a 'poor man's art gallery'. 

Lectures are always tailored to include local and regional examples which reflect the unique distinctiveness of our inland waterways. 

CLEOPATRA – ANCIENT EGYPTIAN QUEEN, AGELESS LOVE-STORY 

A fascinating look at how artists have portrayed a powerful woman over 2,000 years.

Cleopatra, the woman for whose love’s sake Antony is imagined to have given up the chance to rule the Roman world, has been inspiring painters, poets and (more recently) film-makers for over two millennia. Their gorgeously voluptuous depictions of her offer insights into changing concepts of beauty, and into the racial and sexual assumptions underlying them.  

Showing images ranging from Roman portrait busts, through medieval illuminations, the glorious works of Renaissance masters like Michelangelo, the splendour of Tiepolo and the exoticism of Gustave Moreau to 20th century film stars (Theda Bara, Claudette Colbert, Vivien Leigh, Elizabeth Taylor and the Carry On team’s Amanda Barry), I will show how Cleopatra became a screen onto which artists have projected their wildly differing fantasies about exotic danger and erotic bliss.

THE STRAND MAGAZINE - AN ILLUSTRATED HISTORY IN 60 YEARS 

How this popular magazine evolved, adapted to changing tastes, and provided an outlet for a truly outstanding array of writers and artists Best remembered today for its 40-year association with Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes, the Strand was a pioneer among illustrated monthly magazines, and rapidly spawned many imitators. Major contributors included Agatha Christie (Poirot and Miss Marple both appeared here), Winston Churchill (political sketches during his ‘wilderness years’, paintings after World War Two), and P G Wodehouse (Blandings, Mulliner, and a host of Jeeves tales). From the early brilliance of writers such as Grant Allen and E W Hornung, through the enchanting tales of children’s favourite E Nesbit, the robust melodramas of Sapper and his heroes Bulldog Drummond and Ronald Standish, to the weightier work of H G Wells and even Joseph Conrad, the Strand left a remarkable legacy which repays detailed investigation. Richard will bring original copies of the Strand to the lecture.

THE GRIT AND THE GLAMOUR: ART IN THE JAZZ AGE 

Celebrate the centenary of the Roaring Twenties with an interdisciplinary exploration of the art, design, music, literature, fashion, and lives of the era's protagonists. From Harlem's renaissance of black culture, to the French Riviera - playground of wealthy socialites and inspiration for artists like Matisse and Cocteau, writers Hemingway and the Fitzgeralds - to the 'new woman' embodied by Tamara de Lempicka and Coco Chanel.

ARCHITECTURE + PHOTOGRAPHY = ART

According to one leading architect, “the modern architectural drawing is interesting, the photograph is magnificent, the building is an unfortunate but necessary stage between the two.”  Architecture + Photography = Art introduces photographers who crystallised the architects’ vision in images that are both works of art in their own right and shape our opinion of the buildings they depict. These photographers include Dell and  Wainwright from Britain, Julius Shulman in the United States and Lucien Hervé in France. The lecture also examines photographers who recorded rural churches, barns and cottages to create a lyrical vision of Britain. Prominent in this group are Edwin Smith, Frederick Evans and Eric de Maré, a friend and drinking companion of John Betjeman and widely considered to have been the poet’s favourite photographer.

MONET AND HOKUSAI: THE COLOUR AND SPACES OF THE FLOATING WORLD

This talk looks at the affinities between Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) and Claude Monet (1840-1926) as a way to look at their famous works through a different perspective. Hokusai never knew Monet, but Monet knew Hokusai through his work and was transformed by the older artist’s images of nature. We’ll first introduce the innovative landscapes of Hokusai and what made them distinct for the time. We’ll then see how Monet got his hands on the work of Hokusai and how it forever impacted his approach to making art. 

Mathew Wilson writes

THE ART OF HAPPINESS

My latest book, the art of happiness, explores the deeper joys of visiting galleries and museums. Its argument is that rather than being a luxury extra or mere leisure activity, art-viewing is an essential pursuit - indeed the fulcrum of a life well lived. It investigates the wisdom imparted by great art from across the world, asking how it can help us think in a more enlightened way about the things that matter to us in life. Its approach has been shaped by the great thinkers and artists of the past and present, gleaning from their knowledge about how to look at art, and how it can shape our view of fundamental principles like aesthetics, work, consolation and love. The principles discussed in this lecture are a toolkit for viewing visual art in the most enriching way.

NOTHING SAYS CHRISTMAS LIKE AN AXE-FIGHT: WINTER FESTIVITIES IN THE AGE OF CHIVALRY

In the High Middle Ages, Christmas was celebrated with two months of festivities - involving music, drama, games, costumes and... armoured combat. It might be seem strange that jousting and knightly deeds of arms were an enormously popular way of marking Yuletide, but in fact the concept of knighthood and Christmas had quite a lot in common. In this lecture we explore Medieval Christmas traditions, work our way down into their deeper origins and meanings, and encounter some of the great chivalric figures of the age, including Kings Edward III and Henry VIII, both of whom enthusiastically promoted the English royal tradition of the Christmas joust. We examine how Medieval art-forms like manuscript illumination and embroidery can help bring the mythic and fantastical motifs of Christmas in the Middle Ages back to life, and finally we discover that, really, medieval people were not so different from us after all.