Music Great Music on Great Literature: Classical Expressions
When you combine great literary works with great music, the result can be both powerful and enlightening! In this three-week course, frequent DU Enrichment Program instructor, author and music historian Betsy Schwarm explores classical music with literary roots, everything from songs to instrumental works to operas. Consider how music can express words, even without voices. Learn how authors guide their readers’ imagination while composers draw listeners further along that path of discovery. Reflect on characters such as Othello, Don Quixote and Jay Gatsby and how great literature can soar even higher with the right music. Featured composers range from Mozart to Verdi to Copland to today’s artists. And featured writers include Shakespeare, Cervantes, Goethe, Hugo, Alcott, Joyce, Wilder, Hemingway, Steinbeck, Fitzgerald, Olive Ann Burns and others. As to current writers, Stephen King’s The Shining and Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain have both been re-imagined as operas. In fact, The Shining, with music by Paul Moravec and libretto by Mark Campbell, is set to be staged by Opera Colorado at the end of February 2022. Schwarm offers her insights into that production, including King’s own reaction. Schwarm also welcomes your thoughts and perspectives. Note: Students get a suggested reading list well before the first class, and they can find recommended performances via www.Medici.tv ($12.99 per month at time of publication).
Three Zoom sessions
Mon., Jan. 24, 31, Feb. 7, 2022, 6:30–8:30 pm MT ENRICH 0583 / $105 Betsy Schwarm has written 10 books on classical music and gives talks for Opera Colorado, Central City Opera and the Colorado Symphony. She has contributed over 200 articles to Encyclopedia Britannica and spent 12 years on the air with KVOD, “The Classical Voice of Denver.” I’m always impressed at how the Enrichment Program encourages instructors to take the time to go in-depth with a subject. I can tell the students appreciate it, and certainly, we instructors do, too! ~ Betsy Schwarm
14
Short non-credit courses, no exams or grades
