The world-famous clarinettist will bring to life Vienna in its heyday. It’s location at the heart of
the Habsburg Empire enabled its cultural blossoming…not only music from Mozart through
Beethoven and Schubert to Mahler and Schoenberg, but also art and architecture, science
and politics. Emma Johnson will discuss this unparalleled explosion of genius and why it
ended so abruptly with the First World War.

Image credit:  Johann Strauss II and his orchestra, Public Domain

At the end of WW1 the small medieval city of Ypres was just a vast area of rubble.  With the support of King Albert of the Belgians, the architect Jan van Coomens and lobbying by Field Marshal Sir John French it was rebuilt, not as an imitation but a faithful reconstruction.  We will view pre- WWI old photographs, we will see the same buildings after the destruction of the War,  then the reconstructed city.  Our speaker will present a large range of original photographs.

Image: Ruins of the Cloth Hall (Lakenhalle) in Ypres, 23 January 1916

Credit:  Imperial War Museum Non-Commercial Licence (IWM  Q29057)

Before The Nutcracker became everybody's favourite Christmas ballet, it was staged in Tsarist Russia.  With the backdrop of the glorious history of the Imperial Ballet company in St. Petersburg, this lecture discusses how Tchaikovsky came to write his magical score and Petipa created its choreography. It also tells the story of the dancers who created the
leading roles and explores Tchaikovsky's role in transforming classical ballet into the vibrant
art form it is today.

Photo credit:  Image from the original 1892 staging of The Nutcracker, Public Domain