Lecture by Prof. Christiane Wiesenfeldt

Is musical romanticism an epoch, a style, or merely kitsch? Is it invented by literati in the 1800s? Is Ludwig van Beethoven a true Romantic, or is it Robert Schumann or Richard Wagner? Is E. T. A. Hoffmann mistaken when he declares Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadé Mozart to be Romantics? In short, when does romance actually begin? In the lecture about her book "Die Anfänge der Romantik in der Musik" Christiane Wiesenfeldt goes in search of traces of the beginnings of Romanticism, observes a change in thinking about music, shows aesthetes, literary figures and musicians in their debates about modern and experimental concepts of composing and writing. Music has more than just a share in the events of Romanticism, it confronts the new, the unheard, it transports an entire generation into realms of ghosts and dream images. It is nothing less than jointly responsible for the beginnings of Romanticism in general. The presented book follows this development up to Hoffmann's famous review of Beethoven's 5th Symphony from 1810: as the end of the beginning.

"Musikschlaglichter" is the lecture series of the Freundeskreis Heidelberger Frühling e.V. Guests are personalities from the fields of art, culture, science and politics, whose work and research focus enable a wide variety of perspectives on culture and society.

Admission costs € 10, tickets are available at the box office on site. Members of the Freundeskreis can attend the event free of charge.