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(MUSIC) HANDEL: Concerto Grosso Op.3

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The German-speaking countries
have once more become articulate.

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For over a century,
the disorderly aftermath of the Reformation,

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followed by the dreary,
interminable horrors of the Thirty Years War,

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had kept them
from playing a part in the history of civilisation.

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Then peace, stability,
the natural strength of the land,

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and a peculiar social organisation,

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allowed them to add
to the sum of European experience

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two shining achievements:

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one in music, the other in architecture.

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Of course, the music is far more important to us.

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The writing and painting of the 18th century
make one think

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that the emotional life had somehow dried up.

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Well, of course, it hadn't.
It had been transferred to music.

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From Bach to Mozart, music expressed
the deepest thoughts and feelings of the time,

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just as painting had done
in the early 16th century.

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This programme is primarily about music,
and some of the qualities of 18th-century music -

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its melodious flow, its complex symmetry,
its decorative invention -

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are reflected in its architecture.

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It's only quite recently that people have noticed

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what a brilliant, inventive
and altogether enchanting style of architecture

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flourished for almost 50 years
in 18th-century Germany and Austria.

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Serious-minded historians
used to call it "shallow" or "corrupt".

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Well, the founders of the American Constitution
who were far from frivolous

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thought fit to mention "the pursuit of happiness"
as a proper aim for mankind,

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and if ever this aim has been given visible form,
it's in rococo architecture -

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the pursuit of happiness and the pursuit of love.

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But before we plunge
into the buoyant sea of rococo,

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I must say a word
about the austere ideal that preceded it -

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classicism.

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For 60 years, France had dominated Europe,

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and this had meant a rigidly centralised,
authoritarian government,

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and a classic style.

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French classicism
produced magnificent architecture.

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This is the architecture
of a great metropolitan culture.

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And it is expressive of an ideal.

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Not an ideal that appeals to me,
but an ideal, nonetheless.

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Grandeur achieved
through the authoritarian state.

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I find that this French classical architecture
has a certain inhumanity.

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It was the work not of craftsmen
but of wonderfully gifted civil servants.

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But, because it reflects so clearly
a grand, comprehensive system,

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it is done with superb conviction.

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French classicism was eminently not exportable.

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But the high baroque of Rome,
especially that of Borromini,

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was exactly what the north of Europe needed,
for a variety of reasons.

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For one thing, it was elastic and adaptable.

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So, the architectural language in which northern
Europe became articulate in the 18th century

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was that of Borromini
the second great master of Italian baroque.

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Borromini came from a land of stone-carvers -

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the Italian lakes
that form a boundary with Switzerland -

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and his style could fit into the craftsman tradition
of the Germanic north

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a tradition serving a social order
that was absolutely the reverse

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of the centralised bureaucracy of France.

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It's true that many of the German princes
thought they would like to imitate Versailles,

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but the formative element
in German art and German music didn't lie there

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but in the multiplicity
of regions and towns and abbeys,

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all competing
for their architects and choirmasters

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but also relying on the talents
of their local organists and plasterers.

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The creators of the German baroque -
the Assams and the Zimmermanns -

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were families of craftsmen.

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Zimmermann is the German for a carpenter.

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The finest buildings we shall look at
are not palaces,

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but local pilgrimage churches
deep in the country,

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like the Vierzehnheiligen behind me -
"the Fourteen Saints".

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And, come to think of it

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the Bachs
were a family of local musical craftsmen,

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out of which there suddenly emerged
one of the great geniuses of western Europe,

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Johann Sebastian.

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(MUSIC) JS BACH: St Matthew Passion

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(MUSIC) Da sie ihn aber gekreuziget hatten

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(MUSIC) Teilten sie seine Kleider

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(MUSIC) Und warfen das Los darum

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(MUSIC) Auf daß erfüllet würde

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(MUSIC) Das gesagt ist durch den Propheten

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(MUSIC) Sie haben meine Kleider unter sich geteilet

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(MUSIC) Und über mein Gewand
haben sie das Los geworfen

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(MUSIC) Und sie saßen allda, und hüteten sein

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The sound of Bach's music
reminds me of a curious fact

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that people don't always remember
when they talk about the 18th century -

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that the great art of the time was religious art.

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The thought was anti-religious,
the way of life ostentatiously profane.

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We are right to call the first half
of the 18th century the Age of Reason,

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but in the arts
what did this emancipated rationalism produce?

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One adorable painter, Watteau,

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some nice domestic architecture
some pretty furniture,

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but nothing to set beside the Matthew Passion

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or the pilgrimage churches and abbeys
of Bavaria and Franconia.

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(MUSIC) Die aber vorübergingen, lästerten ihn

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(MUSIC) Und schüttelten ihre Köpfe, und sprachen:

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CHORUS:
(MUSIC) Der du den Tempel Gottes zerbrichst

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(Polyphony) (MUSIC) Und bauest ihn in dreien Tagen

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(MUSIC) Hilf dir selber

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(MUSIC) Bist du Gottes Sohn

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(MUSIC) So steig herab vom Kreuz

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SOLO: (MUSIC) Desgleichen auch
die Hohenpriester spotteten sein

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(MUSIC) Samt den Schriftgelehrten und Ältesten

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(MUSIC) Und sprachen:

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CHORUS: (MUSIC) Andern hat er geholfen,
und kann sich selber nicht helfen

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(Polyphony) (MUSIC) Ist er der König Israels

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(MUSIC) So steige er nun vom Kreuz

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(MUSIC) So wollen wir ihm glauben

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(MUSIC) Er hat Gott vertrauet

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(MUSIC) Der erlöse ihn nun

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(MUSIC) Lüstet's ihn

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(MUSIC) Denn er hat gesagt:

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(MUSIC) "lch bin Gottes Sohn"

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But there was another musical tradition
in Germany that went back to the Reformation.

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Luther had been a fine musician.

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He wrote music and sang
with, surprisingly enough, a sweet tenor voice.

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And although the Lutheran reform prohibited
many of the arts that civilise our impulses,

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it encouraged church music.

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In small Dutch and German towns
the choir and the organ became the only means

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through which men
could enter the world of spiritualised emotion.

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This organ, in the great church at Haarlem,

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was played on by Handel,
and by Mozart at the age often.

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When the Calvinists, in their still more resolute
purification of the Christian rite,

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prohibited organs, and destroyed them,

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they caused more distress than had ever been
caused by the destruction of images.

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Organs have played a variable role
in European civilisation.

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In the 19th century they were symbols
of newly won affluence, like billiard tables,

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but in the 17th and 18th centuries

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they were expressions
of municipal pride and independence.

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They were the work of the best local craftsmen,

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and organists
were respected members of the community.

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(MUSIC) BUXTEHUDE: Toccata and Fugue in F

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Bourgeois democracy,

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which had provided a background
to Dutch painting in the 17th century,

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became partly responsible for German music,

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and it was a society
more earnest and more participating

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than the Dutch connoisseurs had been.

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This provincial society
was the background of Bach.

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His universal genius rose out of the high plateau
of competitive musical life

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in the Protestant cities of northern Germany.

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One could even say that it rose out of a family,

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that had been professional musicians
for a hundred years,

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so that, in certain districts
the very word Bach meant a musician.

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And his life was that of a conscientious
somewhat obstinate

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provincial organist and choirmaster.

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But he was universal.

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A great musical critic said of him,

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"He is a spectator
of all musical time and existence

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to whom it is not of the smallest importance
whether a thing be new or old,

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so long as it is true."

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And we once more find that we can illustrate
Bach's music by contemporary building.

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This church behind me
the pilgrimage church of the Vierzehnheiligen,

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was built by an architect
who was only two years younger than Bach.

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He was called Balthasar Neumann

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and although his name isn't well known
in the English-speaking world,

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I think he was certainly one of the greatest
architects of the 18th century.

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Unlike the other builders of German baroque,
he was not primarily a carver or plasterer,

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but an engineer.

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He made his name
as a master of town planning and fortifications,

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and inside his buildings,
just as when we're listening to Bach,

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we are conscious of a complex plan,

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worked out
like the most intricate mathematical problem.

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And when occasion demanded it

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he made use of ornaments as lavish and fanciful
as that of the most ebullient Bavarian plasterer.

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(MUSIC) JS BACH: Christmas Oratorio

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(MUSIC) Jauchzet, frohlocket

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(MUSIC) Auf, preiset die Tage

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(MUSIC) Jauchzet

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(MUSIC) Frohlocket

163
00:15:52,788 --> 00:15:54,899
(MUSIC) Jauchzet, frohlocket

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00:15:55,000 --> 00:15:58,190
(MUSIC) Auf, preiset die Tage

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(MUSIC) Rühmet, was heute der Höchste getan!

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00:16:03,600 --> 00:16:09,028
(Polyphony) (MUSIC) Lasset das Zagen

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00:16:31,509 --> 00:16:34,580
(MUSIC) Verbannet die Klage...

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The sheer happiness, the almost childlike joy
of Bach's Christmas Oratorio

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is made visible by all these happy cherubs
and benevolent saints.

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(MUSIC) Jauchzet, frohlocket

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00:17:02,750 --> 00:17:05,048
(MUSIC) Auf, preiset die Tage

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00:17:06,509 --> 00:17:09,940
(MUSIC) Jauchzet, frohlocket

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00:17:11,920 --> 00:17:14,068
(MUSIC) Jauchzet, frohlocket

174
00:17:14,160 --> 00:17:17,630
(MUSIC) Auf, preiset die Tage

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00:17:17,720 --> 00:17:23,108
(MUSIC) Rühmet, was heute der Höchste getan!

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00:17:23,200 --> 00:17:26,818
(Polyphony) (MUSIC) Lasset das Zagen

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00:17:42,509 --> 00:17:48,818
(MUSIC) Verbannet die Klage

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00:17:48,920 --> 00:17:51,150
(MUSIC) Lasset das Zagen

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00:17:51,240 --> 00:17:54,430
(MUSIC) Verbannet die Klage

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00:17:54,509 --> 00:17:56,940
(MUSIC) Lasset das Zagen

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00:17:57,028 --> 00:18:00,220
(MUSIC) Verbannet die Klage

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00:18:00,308 --> 00:18:08,778
(MUSIC) Stimmet voll Jauchzen und Fröhlichkeit an

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00:18:13,588 --> 00:18:15,940
Balthasar Neumann was fortunate

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00:18:16,028 --> 00:18:18,618
in that the painted decorations
of his finest interiors

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00:18:18,720 --> 00:18:22,259
are not the work
of amiable, local ceiling painters,

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00:18:22,348 --> 00:18:27,940
but of the greatest decorator of the age,
the Venetian Giambattizta Tiepolo.

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Here's his masterpiece -

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the ceiling of the staircase
of the Bishop's Palace at Würzburg,

189
00:18:34,880 --> 00:18:37,440
known as the Residenz.

190
00:18:37,509 --> 00:18:39,578
And there, in fact, in the corner

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is Tiepolo's self-portrait -
the man with the yellow scarf,

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with his son, Giandomenico
also a very good painter,

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looking over his shoulder.

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Then, as you move along to the middle,

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here, this very grand, military-looking man

196
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is the architect himself, Balthasar Neumann
Looking the great master of fortifications.

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00:19:06,000 --> 00:19:10,670
The Residenz doesn't seem quite our idea
of a Bishop's residence,

198
00:19:10,750 --> 00:19:13,180
being about three times the size
of Buckingham Palace

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00:19:13,269 --> 00:19:14,778
and incomparably more splendid.

200
00:19:14,880 --> 00:19:19,269
And one can't help speculating
on the tithes and taxes

201
00:19:19,348 --> 00:19:21,808
that the peasants of Franconia had to pay,

202
00:19:21,920 --> 00:19:26,190
in order that their episcopal master
should do himself so well.

203
00:19:26,269 --> 00:19:31,420
But one must admit that many of these rulers
of small German principalities -

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00:19:31,509 --> 00:19:34,338
dukes, electors, bishops, or whatever -

205
00:19:34,440 --> 00:19:38,788
were in fact
remarkably cultivated and intelligent men.

206
00:19:38,880 --> 00:19:42,190
Their competitive ambitions
benefited architecture and music

207
00:19:42,269 --> 00:19:48,058
in a way that the democratic obscurity
of the Hanoverians in England did not.

208
00:19:48,160 --> 00:19:52,308
The Schönborn family, one of whom
was responsible for the Residenz at Würzburg,

209
00:19:52,400 --> 00:19:54,630
were really great patrons,

210
00:19:54,720 --> 00:19:57,150
whose names
should be remembered with the Medici.

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00:19:59,960 --> 00:20:05,630
I felt some scruples in comparing the music
of Bach with the baroque interiors.

212
00:20:05,720 --> 00:20:09,788
No such hesitations prevent me from invoking,
on this splendid staircase,

213
00:20:09,880 --> 00:20:12,308
the name of George Frederick Handel.

214
00:20:13,920 --> 00:20:18,308
You know, great men have a curious way
of appearing in complementary pairs.

215
00:20:18,400 --> 00:20:20,348
This has happened so often in history,

216
00:20:20,440 --> 00:20:25,430
that I don't think it can have been invented
by some symmetrically minded historian,

217
00:20:25,509 --> 00:20:30,660
but must represent some need
to keep human faculties in balance.

218
00:20:30,750 --> 00:20:31,940
However that may be,

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00:20:32,028 --> 00:20:35,980
there's no doubt that the two great musicians
of the early 18th century -

220
00:20:36,068 --> 00:20:37,778
Bach and Handel -

221
00:20:37,880 --> 00:20:43,950
fall into this pattern of contrasting
and complementary personalities.

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00:20:44,028 --> 00:20:47,058
They were born in the same year, 1685;

223
00:20:47,160 --> 00:20:50,588
they both went blind
from copying musical scores;

224
00:20:50,680 --> 00:20:54,828
and both were operated on,
unsuccessfully, by the same surgeon.

225
00:20:54,920 --> 00:20:57,788
But otherwise, they were opposites.

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00:20:57,880 --> 00:21:04,058
In contrast to Bach's timeless universality,
Handel was completely of his age.

227
00:21:04,160 --> 00:21:08,269
Instead of Bach's frugal,
industrious career as an organist,

228
00:21:08,348 --> 00:21:09,618
with numerous children

229
00:21:09,720 --> 00:21:13,950
Handel made and lost several fortunes
as an impresario.

230
00:21:14,028 --> 00:21:15,940
This amiable statue of him

231
00:21:16,028 --> 00:21:20,740
was erected by the grateful proprietors
of an amusement park, Vauxhall,

232
00:21:20,828 --> 00:21:23,980
in which his music
had been one of the attractions.

233
00:21:24,068 --> 00:21:28,900
There he sits, in unbuttoned moo, d
one shoe off and one shoe on

234
00:21:29,000 --> 00:21:32,190
not caring
how much he snitched other people's music,

235
00:21:32,269 --> 00:21:35,380
as long as he produced something effective.

236
00:21:35,480 --> 00:21:37,710
In his youth he must have been charming,

237
00:21:37,788 --> 00:21:41,778
because when he went to Rome
as an unknown young virtuoso,

238
00:21:41,880 --> 00:21:44,259
he was immediately taken up by society,

239
00:21:44,348 --> 00:21:47,818
and Cardinals wrote libretti
for him to set to music.

240
00:21:47,920 --> 00:21:51,868
And there are remains of remarkable good looks
in this head.

241
00:21:51,960 --> 00:21:55,269
Later in life
when Handel had settled'  in England,

242
00:21:55,348 --> 00:21:57,910
and entered the world of operatic production,

243
00:21:58,000 --> 00:22:00,588
he became less anxious to please,

244
00:22:00,680 --> 00:22:05,308
and is, traditionally, said to have held
one of his leading ladies out of the window

245
00:22:05,400 --> 00:22:08,868
and threatened to drop her
if she didn't sing in tune.

246
00:22:08,960 --> 00:22:13,348
He remained faithful throughout his life
to the Italian baroque style.

247
00:22:13,440 --> 00:22:17,548
In consequence, his music goes well
with the decorations of Tiepolo,

248
00:22:17,640 --> 00:22:21,750
which even have the pseudo-romantic subjects
of his operas.

249
00:22:21,828 --> 00:22:24,700
One can look with pleasure
at the marvellous Tiepolo ceiling

250
00:22:24,788 --> 00:22:28,858
on the staircase at Würzburg,
with Handel's music in one's ears.

251
00:22:28,960 --> 00:22:32,190
(Thunder)

252
00:22:36,160 --> 00:22:38,108
(MUSIC) HANDEL: Alcina

253
00:22:47,269 --> 00:22:51,098
(MUSIC) Questo e il cielo di contenti

254
00:22:51,200 --> 00:22:55,108
(MUSIC) Questo e il centro del goder

255
00:22:57,160 --> 00:22:59,108
(MUSIC) Del goder

256
00:23:00,880 --> 00:23:02,950
(MUSIC) Del goder

257
00:23:03,028 --> 00:23:06,808
(MUSIC) Qui e I'Eliso de viventi

258
00:23:06,920 --> 00:23:10,028
(MUSIC) Qui I'eroi forma il piacer

259
00:23:10,720 --> 00:23:14,500
(MUSIC) Qui I'eroi forma il piacer

260
00:23:16,548 --> 00:23:18,500
(MUSIC) Il piacer

261
00:23:20,308 --> 00:23:22,380
(MUSIC) Il piacer

262
00:23:22,480 --> 00:23:26,150
(MUSIC) Questo e il centro del goder

263
00:23:26,240 --> 00:23:29,390
(MUSIC) Questo e il cielo di contenti

264
00:23:30,068 --> 00:23:33,220
(MUSIC) Questo e il cielo di contenti

265
00:23:33,920 --> 00:23:37,910
(MUSIC) Questo e il centro del goder

266
00:23:39,680 --> 00:23:41,509
(MUSIC) Del goder

267
00:23:43,548 --> 00:23:45,618
(MUSIC) Del goder

268
00:23:45,720 --> 00:23:52,190
The extraordinary thing is that this composer
of flowing, florid airs and rousing choruses,

269
00:23:52,269 --> 00:23:57,618
when he turned from opera to oratorio,
which was a kind of sacred opera,

270
00:23:57,720 --> 00:24:00,670
wrote great religious music.

271
00:24:00,750 --> 00:24:03,980
Saul, Samson, Israel In Egypt...

272
00:24:04,068 --> 00:24:07,769
not only contain wonderful
melodic and polyphonic inventions,

273
00:24:07,880 --> 00:24:12,670
but show an understanding
of the depth of the human spirit.

274
00:24:12,750 --> 00:24:17,420
As for the Messiah
it's like Michelangelo's creation of Adam -

275
00:24:17,509 --> 00:24:22,180
one of those rare works
that appeal immediately to everyone.

276
00:24:22,269 --> 00:24:26,818
And yet it is indisputably
a masterpiece of the highest order.

277
00:24:26,920 --> 00:24:30,068
(MUSIC) HANDEL: I Know That My Redeemer Liveth
(from the Messiah)

278
00:24:37,588 --> 00:24:47,778
(MUSIC) I know that my redeemer liveth

279
00:24:49,588 --> 00:24:56,900
(MUSIC) And though worms destroy this body

280
00:24:57,000 --> 00:25:06,868
(MUSIC) Yet in my flesh shall I see God

281
00:25:09,000 --> 00:25:20,460
(MUSIC) Yet in my flesh shall I see God

282
00:25:20,548 --> 00:25:25,538
(MUSIC) Shall I see God

283
00:25:26,588 --> 00:25:37,380
(MUSIC) I know that my redeemer liveth

284
00:25:47,588 --> 00:25:52,298
Yes, however often I hear it
it brings tears to my eyes.

285
00:25:53,440 --> 00:25:58,269
In passages like that,
Handel is beyond classification.

286
00:25:58,348 --> 00:26:02,019
Still, one may reasonably call him
a baroque composer.

287
00:26:02,788 --> 00:26:07,058
Now, baroque first came into being
as religious architecture,

288
00:26:07,160 --> 00:26:10,858
and expressed the emotional aspirations
of the Catholic Church.

289
00:26:10,960 --> 00:26:14,190
Rococo was to some extent
a Parisian invention

290
00:26:14,269 --> 00:26:16,858
and provocatively secular.

291
00:26:16,960 --> 00:26:19,230
It was, superficially, at any rate,

292
00:26:19,308 --> 00:26:23,858
a reaction
against the heavy classicism of Versailles.

293
00:26:23,960 --> 00:26:29,828
Instead of the static orders of antiquity,
it drew inspiration from natural objects,

294
00:26:29,920 --> 00:26:33,230
in which the line wandered freely
without symmetry -

295
00:26:33,308 --> 00:26:35,940
shells, flowers, seaweed, vines -

296
00:26:36,028 --> 00:26:39,538
especially if they wandered in a double curve.

297
00:26:39,640 --> 00:26:45,108
Rococo was a reaction against
the academic style, but it wasn't negative.

298
00:26:45,200 --> 00:26:48,788
It represented a real gain in sensibility.

299
00:26:48,880 --> 00:26:52,108
It achieved a new freedom of association

300
00:26:52,200 --> 00:26:55,430
and captured
new and more delicate shades of feeling.

301
00:26:56,588 --> 00:27:01,900
All this is expressed through the work
of one exquisite artist - Watteau.

302
00:27:03,000 --> 00:27:06,750
He was born in 1684
the year before Bach and Handel,

303
00:27:06,828 --> 00:27:09,288
in the Flemish town of Valenciennes

304
00:27:09,400 --> 00:27:12,190
and he derived his technique from Rubens.

305
00:27:12,269 --> 00:27:16,338
But, instead
of a hearty Flemish acceptance of life,

306
00:27:16,440 --> 00:27:18,308
Watteau, who was a consumptive,

307
00:27:18,400 --> 00:27:23,710
discovered something in himself
that had hardly ever been seen in art before -

308
00:27:23,788 --> 00:27:29,940
a feeling of the transitoriness,
and thus the seriousness, of pleasure.

309
00:27:30,920 --> 00:27:35,910
He had brilliant gifts - he could draw with
the style and precision of a Renaissance artist -

310
00:27:36,000 --> 00:27:40,788
and he used his skill to record his rapture
at the sight of beautiful girls.

311
00:27:40,880 --> 00:27:43,509
What dreams of beauty they are.

312
00:27:43,588 --> 00:27:45,538
(MUSIC) ANTOINE FRANCISQUE: Harp music

313
00:28:17,960 --> 00:28:21,390
How happy all these exquisite people should be.

314
00:28:21,480 --> 00:28:27,028
But "in the very temple of Delight,
Veil'd Melancholy hath her sovran shrine,

315
00:28:27,108 --> 00:28:31,259
Though seen of none
save him whose strenuous tongue

316
00:28:31,348 --> 00:28:35,338
Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine."

317
00:28:35,440 --> 00:28:37,788
No-one had a finer palette than Watteau.

318
00:28:37,880 --> 00:28:42,390
He can taste every delicate flavour
at this open-air dance,

319
00:28:42,480 --> 00:28:44,630
where glances suddenly meet.

320
00:28:44,720 --> 00:28:47,868
And he's depicted himself,
not as one of the dancers

321
00:28:47,960 --> 00:28:50,308
but as the bagpipe-player,

322
00:28:50,400 --> 00:28:53,828
animating the scene with his humble,
melancholy instrument.

323
00:28:54,828 --> 00:28:57,058
He was, his friend Caylus said,

324
00:28:57,160 --> 00:28:59,868
"Tender
and perhaps something of a shepherd."

325
00:28:59,960 --> 00:29:03,230
And in this elegant company
that he watched so discerningly,

326
00:29:03,308 --> 00:29:06,380
he remained the odd man out.

327
00:29:06,480 --> 00:29:08,068
And Gilles, the simpleton,

328
00:29:08,160 --> 00:29:12,470
whose tall, white figure
rises in isolation from his fellow comedians

329
00:29:12,548 --> 00:29:16,220
is a sort of idealised self-portrait -

330
00:29:16,308 --> 00:29:23,259
tender, simple, and yet capable of love
and of delicate intuitions.

331
00:29:23,348 --> 00:29:28,338
Watteau came on the scene
at an incredibly early date in the 18th century.

332
00:29:28,440 --> 00:29:34,190
His masterpiece, The Departure From Cythera,
was painted in 1712,

333
00:29:34,269 --> 00:29:36,900
when Louis XIV was still alive

334
00:29:37,000 --> 00:29:40,990
and yet it has the lightness and sharpness
of a Mozart opera;

335
00:29:41,068 --> 00:29:43,019
also the sense of human drama.

336
00:29:44,269 --> 00:29:46,220
(MUSIC) ANTOINE FRANCISQUE: Harp music

337
00:30:07,828 --> 00:30:11,019
The new sensibility,
of which Watteau was the prophet,

338
00:30:11,108 --> 00:30:14,140
showed itself most of all
in a more delicate understanding

339
00:30:14,240 --> 00:30:17,028
of the relations between men and women.

340
00:30:17,108 --> 00:30:18,460
Sentiment.

341
00:30:18,548 --> 00:30:24,940
The word's got into trouble, as words do,
but it was, in its day, a civilising word.

342
00:30:25,028 --> 00:30:30,980
Sterne, in his Sentimental Journey,
that somewhat discredited work of rococo prose,

343
00:30:31,068 --> 00:30:33,818
tells a fable about a town of Abdera...

344
00:30:33,920 --> 00:30:37,348
"..which was the vilest town in all Thrace.

345
00:30:37,440 --> 00:30:40,150
What with poisons,
conspiracies and assassinations,

346
00:30:40,240 --> 00:30:42,308
libels, pasquinades and tumults,

347
00:30:42,400 --> 00:30:45,750
there was no going there by day -
'twas worse by night."

348
00:30:45,828 --> 00:30:50,950
Till, hearing a play of Euripides,
the people were struck by a speech of Perseus:

349
00:30:51,028 --> 00:30:54,858
"'Oh, Cupid! Prince of gods and men.'

350
00:30:54,960 --> 00:30:58,470
Every man almost spoke pure iambics next day,

351
00:30:58,548 --> 00:31:02,618
and talk'd of nothing but Perseus
his pathetic address.

352
00:31:02,720 --> 00:31:06,108
'Oh, Cupid! Prince of gods and men.'

353
00:31:06,200 --> 00:31:11,348
In every street of Abdera, in every house:
'Oh, Cupid! Cupid!'

354
00:31:11,440 --> 00:31:15,308
In every mouth,
like the natural notes of some sweet melody,

355
00:31:15,400 --> 00:31:18,269
which drop from it, whether it will or no,

356
00:31:18,348 --> 00:31:22,818
nothing but
'Cupid, Cupid, prince of gods and men.'

357
00:31:23,828 --> 00:31:27,660
But the fire caught, and the whole city,
like the heart of one man

358
00:31:27,750 --> 00:31:29,778
opened itself to love.

359
00:31:29,880 --> 00:31:33,348
No pharmacologist
could sell one grain of hellebore -

360
00:31:33,440 --> 00:31:37,950
not a single armourer had a heart
to forge one instrument of death.

361
00:31:38,028 --> 00:31:42,420
Friendship and virtue met together
and kissed each other in the street.

362
00:31:42,509 --> 00:31:47,019
The golden age return'd,
and hung over the town of Abdera."

363
00:31:48,400 --> 00:31:51,750
Next to love, Watteau cared most about music

364
00:31:51,828 --> 00:31:55,450
for which, his friends tell us
he had a most delicate ear.

365
00:31:55,548 --> 00:31:59,858
Nearly all his scenes
are enacted to the sound of music.

366
00:31:59,960 --> 00:32:04,150
In this he shows himself as part of a tradition
going back to the Venetians,

367
00:32:04,240 --> 00:32:09,430
of whom Pater said that "they painted,
the musical intervals of our existence

368
00:32:09,509 --> 00:32:13,460
when life itself
is conceived as a kind of listening."

369
00:32:14,480 --> 00:32:17,430
In a Watteau, we're in the world of poetry,

370
00:32:17,509 --> 00:32:20,940
not only on account of the grace of the figures,

371
00:32:21,028 --> 00:32:26,740
but because the facts have been translated
into the most exquisite paint.

372
00:32:26,828 --> 00:32:30,660
Watteau's colour
has a shimmering, iridescent quality,

373
00:32:30,750 --> 00:32:34,940
which makes one think immediately
of musical analogies.

374
00:32:39,348 --> 00:32:45,338
Watteau died in 1721
at the same age as Raphael - 37 -

375
00:32:45,440 --> 00:32:50,910
and by that date, the rococo style was just
beginning to affect decoration and architecture.

376
00:32:51,000 --> 00:32:53,430
Ten years later, it had spread all over Europe,

377
00:32:53,509 --> 00:32:57,338
producing a style
as international as the early 15th-century Gothic.

378
00:32:57,440 --> 00:32:58,950
Rococo even spread to England,

379
00:32:59,028 --> 00:33:02,259
although the native good sense
of a fox-hunting society

380
00:33:02,348 --> 00:33:05,500
prevented its more extravagant flights.

381
00:33:05,588 --> 00:33:09,500
I suppose that most of the plasterwork,
like most of the opera singing,

382
00:33:09,588 --> 00:33:11,098
was done by foreigners,

383
00:33:11,200 --> 00:33:15,509
but a group of English craftsmen
designed and executed the decorations

384
00:33:15,588 --> 00:33:18,700
in this music room from Norfolk House

385
00:33:18,788 --> 00:33:22,778
which is only a little less elegant
than its Parisian counterpart.

386
00:33:22,880 --> 00:33:27,818
It's extraordinary how a true international style
controls the shape of everything.

387
00:33:27,920 --> 00:33:31,028
It's an absolute compulsion
which overrides convenience

388
00:33:31,108 --> 00:33:33,538
or what we used to call functionalism.

389
00:33:33,640 --> 00:33:37,308
It makes everything dance to the same tune.

390
00:33:38,588 --> 00:33:40,538
(MUSIC) HAYDN: Allegro Moderato Op. 77

391
00:34:24,920 --> 00:34:28,869
Walter Pater said
that all art aspired to the condition of music.

392
00:34:29,880 --> 00:34:33,989
I don't suppose he thought of extending
this famous dictum to applied art,

393
00:34:34,070 --> 00:34:37,179
but it is true of the finest rococo design.

394
00:34:37,280 --> 00:34:42,949
The rhythms, the assonances, the, texture,
have the effect of music

395
00:34:43,030 --> 00:34:46,460
and are echoed
in the music of the next 50 years.

396
00:34:46,550 --> 00:34:48,820
(Music continues)

397
00:35:02,480 --> 00:35:04,070
ls that Haydn or Mozart?

398
00:35:05,150 --> 00:35:09,699
Well, I happen to know that it's Haydn,
but one can't always be sure.

399
00:35:09,800 --> 00:35:13,340
And yet the two great musicians
of the second half of the 18th century

400
00:35:13,440 --> 00:35:15,739
were very different characters.

401
00:35:15,840 --> 00:35:18,469
And the difference comes through in their music.

402
00:35:18,550 --> 00:35:24,619
Haydn, who was 20 years older than Mozart,
was born in Croatia, the son of a wheelwright,

403
00:35:24,710 --> 00:35:29,829
and was fundamentally
a peaceful, spacious, soil-conscious man.

404
00:35:29,920 --> 00:35:31,789
He said that he wrote his music

405
00:35:31,880 --> 00:35:35,909
in order that the weary and worn,
or the men burdened with affairs

406
00:35:36,000 --> 00:35:40,030
might enjoy a few minutes
of solace and refreshment.

407
00:35:40,110 --> 00:35:46,420
And I think of this saying as I approach
the Bavarian pilgrimage church of the Wies.

408
00:35:46,510 --> 00:35:48,780
It belongs to the countryside.

409
00:35:48,880 --> 00:35:53,710
In fact, from a distance
it might almost be the hall of a rustic manor.

410
00:35:53,800 --> 00:36:00,030
But enter it, and the most incredible richness
appears before your eyes.

411
00:36:00,110 --> 00:36:03,460
(MUSIC) HAYDN: Creation

412
00:36:06,030 --> 00:36:12,820
In these rococo churches
the faithful are persuaded not by fear', but by joy.

413
00:36:12,920 --> 00:36:15,829
They are a foretaste of paradise -

414
00:36:15,920 --> 00:36:19,349
sometimes, I admit, rather more like
the Mohammedan paradise of the senses

415
00:36:19,440 --> 00:36:22,230
than the disembodied paradise of Christianity.

416
00:36:22,320 --> 00:36:26,469
"Oh, Cupid! Cupid! Prince of gods and men."

417
00:36:27,550 --> 00:36:31,329
Well, it's always been difficult,
even for the saints

418
00:36:31,440 --> 00:36:37,150
to represent spiritual love without having
recourse to the symbols of physical love.

419
00:36:37,230 --> 00:36:40,929
Creation is the most mysterious of all God's acts.

420
00:36:41,030 --> 00:36:44,650
And it is Haydn's Creation
that comes to my mind,

421
00:36:44,760 --> 00:36:49,110
as I contemplate the rustic delights
of the brothers Zimmermann.

422
00:36:53,510 --> 00:36:57,340
(MUSIC) Die Welt

423
00:36:57,440 --> 00:37:00,630
(MUSIC) So groß

424
00:37:01,710 --> 00:37:05,860
(MUSIC) So wunderbar

425
00:37:06,960 --> 00:37:17,099
(MUSIC) Ist deiner Hände Werk

426
00:37:18,360 --> 00:37:26,630
(MUSIC) Von deiner Güt

427
00:37:26,710 --> 00:37:34,940
(MUSIC) O Herr und Gott

428
00:37:35,030 --> 00:37:46,409
(MUSIC) Ist Erd und Himmel voll

429
00:37:47,630 --> 00:37:51,409
(MUSIC) Die Welt

430
00:37:51,510 --> 00:37:55,539
(MUSIC) So groß

431
00:37:55,630 --> 00:37:59,980
(MUSIC) So wunderbar

432
00:38:00,070 --> 00:38:04,139
(MUSIC) Ist deiner...

433
00:38:05,320 --> 00:38:10,590
It's curious that in the present day we should
have made such a cult of rococo music

434
00:38:10,670 --> 00:38:17,340
when the rococo style as a whole
runs so strongly counter to our convictions.

435
00:38:17,440 --> 00:38:21,309
You see, many of the most beautiful
rococo buildings of the 18th century

436
00:38:21,400 --> 00:38:24,110
were built simply to give pleasure,

437
00:38:24,190 --> 00:38:27,619
by people who believed
that pleasure was important,

438
00:38:27,710 --> 00:38:32,460
and worth taking trouble about,
and could be given some of the quality of art.

439
00:38:33,630 --> 00:38:37,699
And we... we've managed to destroy
a good many of them during the war,

440
00:38:37,800 --> 00:38:42,710
including the palace of Sans Souci at Potsdam
and the Zwinger at Dresden.

441
00:38:42,800 --> 00:38:46,949
As I've said
it may be difficult to define civilisation,

442
00:38:47,030 --> 00:38:50,980
but it isn't so difficult to recognise barbarism.

443
00:38:51,070 --> 00:38:55,500
But by chance, we didn't hit
the pleasure pavilions at Nymphenburg,

444
00:38:55,590 --> 00:38:56,900
which is a suburb of Munich.

445
00:38:57,000 --> 00:38:59,750
Munich itself we pretty well laid flat.

446
00:39:01,840 --> 00:39:06,829
They were built for the Elector Max Emmanuel
by his court dwarf,

447
00:39:06,920 --> 00:39:10,619
named Cuvilliés
who happened to be an architect of genius.

448
00:39:10,710 --> 00:39:13,579
Despite his French name,
he came from Flanders.

449
00:39:13,670 --> 00:39:19,619
This behind me is the most famous of them
I suppose - the Amalienburg.

450
00:39:19,710 --> 00:39:22,139
The exterior is quite simple,

451
00:39:22,230 --> 00:39:27,940
the interior a riot, or rather a ballet
of beautifully designed ornament.

452
00:39:29,000 --> 00:39:30,949
(MUSIC) MOZART: Quartet in G Minor

453
00:41:20,110 --> 00:41:24,619
These rooms are the ultimate
in rococo decoration

454
00:41:24,670 --> 00:41:29,300
and one might say that they bridge the gap
between Watteau and Mozart.

455
00:41:29,400 --> 00:41:35,070
And yet to pronounce the name of Mozart
in the Amalienburg is dangerous,

456
00:41:35,150 --> 00:41:38,219
because it gives colour - a very pretty colour -

457
00:41:38,320 --> 00:41:42,909
to the notion
that Mozart was merely a rococo composer.

458
00:41:43,000 --> 00:41:45,630
50 years ago,
this was what most people thought about him.

459
00:41:45,710 --> 00:41:49,409
The notion was supported
by horrible little plaster busts,

460
00:41:49,510 --> 00:41:52,739
which made him look
a perfect 18th-century dummy.

461
00:41:52,840 --> 00:41:55,670
I bought one of these busts
when I was at school

462
00:41:55,760 --> 00:41:58,139
but when I first heard the G Minor Quartet,

463
00:41:58,230 --> 00:42:00,940
I realised
that it couldn't possibly have been written

464
00:42:01,030 --> 00:42:04,500
by the smooth,
white character on my mantelpiece,

465
00:42:04,590 --> 00:42:08,059
and I threw the bust into the waste-paper basket.

466
00:42:08,150 --> 00:42:11,579
I afterwards discovered the portrait by Lange,

467
00:42:11,670 --> 00:42:18,139
which, although no masterpiece,
does convey the single-mindedness of genius.

468
00:42:18,230 --> 00:42:23,659
Of course, a lot of Mozart's music
is in the current 18th-century style.

469
00:42:23,760 --> 00:42:27,230
He was so much at home
in this golden age of music,

470
00:42:27,320 --> 00:42:29,670
so completely master of its forms,

471
00:42:29,760 --> 00:42:32,139
that he didn't feel it necessary to destroy them.

472
00:42:32,230 --> 00:42:37,420
Indeed, he loved the clarity, the precision
and the mathematical perfections

473
00:42:37,510 --> 00:42:39,500
of the late 18th-century style.

474
00:42:39,590 --> 00:42:41,969
I love the story of Mozart, sitting at table,

475
00:42:42,070 --> 00:42:45,610
absent-mindedly folding
and refolding and refolding his napkin

476
00:42:45,710 --> 00:42:47,539
into more and more elaborate patterns,

477
00:42:47,630 --> 00:42:51,170
as fresh musical ideas passed through his mind.

478
00:42:51,280 --> 00:42:56,469
But of course, this formal perfection
was used to express two characteristics

479
00:42:56,550 --> 00:43:00,139
which were very far from the rococo style.

480
00:43:00,230 --> 00:43:03,460
One of them
was that peculiar kind of melancholy,

481
00:43:03,550 --> 00:43:10,099
a melancholy amounting almost to panic,
which so often haunts the isolation of genius,

482
00:43:10,190 --> 00:43:12,820
and Mozart felt it quite young.

483
00:43:12,920 --> 00:43:15,380
And the other characteristic
was almost the opposite -

484
00:43:15,480 --> 00:43:20,949
a passionate interest in human beings
and in the drama of human relationships.

485
00:43:21,030 --> 00:43:25,739
How often, in Mozart's orchestral pieces -
concertos, quartets, symphonies -

486
00:43:25,840 --> 00:43:30,309
we find ourselves participating
in a drama or dialogue.

487
00:43:30,400 --> 00:43:36,630
And of course this feeling
reaches its natural conclusion in opera.

488
00:43:36,710 --> 00:43:38,940
(MUSIC) MOZART: Don Giovanni

489
00:43:39,030 --> 00:43:41,260
(MUSIC) Per chi nulla sa gradir

490
00:43:41,360 --> 00:43:43,590
(MUSIC) Piova e vento sopportar

491
00:43:43,670 --> 00:43:48,219
(MUSIC) Mangiar male e mal dormir...

492
00:43:48,320 --> 00:43:54,949
Opera, next to Gothic architecture,
is one of the oddest inventions of Western man.

493
00:43:55,030 --> 00:43:58,260
It couldn't have been foreseen
by any logical process.

494
00:43:58,360 --> 00:44:02,389
Dr Johnson's much-quoted saying,
which, as far as I can make out, he never said

495
00:44:02,480 --> 00:44:05,190
"An extravagant and irrational entertainment,"

496
00:44:05,280 --> 00:44:07,268
is perfectly correct,

497
00:44:07,360 --> 00:44:11,909
and at first it seems surprising that it was
brought to perfection in the Age of Reason.

498
00:44:13,000 --> 00:44:17,110
But, just as the greatest art
of the early 18th century was religious art,

499
00:44:17,190 --> 00:44:22,340
so the greatest artistic creation of the rococo
is completely irrational.

500
00:44:22,440 --> 00:44:24,510
(MUSIC)..voglio far il gentiluomo

501
00:44:24,590 --> 00:44:26,619
(MUSIC) E non voglio piu servir

502
00:44:27,320 --> 00:44:30,590
(MUSIC) E non voglio piu servir

503
00:44:30,670 --> 00:44:32,340
(MUSIC) No, no, no

504
00:44:32,440 --> 00:44:35,980
(MUSIC) Non voglio piu servir

505
00:44:36,070 --> 00:44:38,260
(MUSIC) Ma mi par che venga gente

506
00:44:38,360 --> 00:44:42,309
(MUSIC) Ma mi par che venga gente,
Non mi voglio far sentir

507
00:44:42,400 --> 00:44:47,869
(MUSIC) Non mi voglio far sentir, no, no, no...

508
00:44:47,960 --> 00:44:51,659
Of course
opera had been invented in the 17th century,

509
00:44:51,760 --> 00:44:56,190
and made into a form of art
by the prophetic genius of Monteverdi.

510
00:44:56,280 --> 00:45:02,150
It came to the north from Catholic Italy,
and it flourished in the Catholic capitals -

511
00:45:02,230 --> 00:45:04,179
Vienna, Munich, Prague.

512
00:45:05,190 --> 00:45:10,309
Indignant Protestants used to say
that rococo churches were like opera houses.

513
00:45:10,400 --> 00:45:13,389
Quite true, only it was the other way round.

514
00:45:13,480 --> 00:45:17,670
As you can see,
this enchanting opera house in Munich,

515
00:45:17,760 --> 00:45:20,320
built by the dwarf architect Cuvilliés,

516
00:45:20,400 --> 00:45:22,550
is exactly like a rococo church.

517
00:45:23,920 --> 00:45:28,389
One can almost say that opera houses came in
when churches went out.

518
00:45:28,480 --> 00:45:34,349
And they expressed so completely
the views of this new, profane religion,

519
00:45:34,440 --> 00:45:38,670
that for a hundred years all opera houses
continued to be built in rococo style,

520
00:45:38,760 --> 00:45:41,320
long after that style had gone out of fashion;

521
00:45:41,400 --> 00:45:46,518
and in Catholic countries
not only in Europe, but in South America,

522
00:45:46,590 --> 00:45:50,659
they were often the best and largest buildings
in the town.

523
00:45:51,880 --> 00:45:54,340
(MUSIC) Sconsigliata!

524
00:45:55,440 --> 00:45:57,389
(MUSIC) Gente! Servi!

525
00:45:58,400 --> 00:46:00,268
(MUSIC) Come furia disperata

526
00:46:00,960 --> 00:46:02,949
(MUSIC) Come furia disperata

527
00:46:03,630 --> 00:46:05,929
(MUSIC) Come furia disperata

528
00:46:06,030 --> 00:46:12,099
(MUSIC) Ti sapro perseguitar!

529
00:46:12,190 --> 00:46:15,539
As Don Giovanni assaults Donna Anna

530
00:46:15,630 --> 00:46:19,059
her father, the Commendatore
comes down the stairs.

531
00:46:26,000 --> 00:46:30,510
What on earth has given opera
its prestige in Western civilisation?

532
00:46:30,590 --> 00:46:35,710
A prestige that has outlasted
so many different fashions and ways of thought.

533
00:46:36,920 --> 00:46:40,590
Why are people prepared
to sit silently for three hours,

534
00:46:40,670 --> 00:46:44,449
listening to a performance
of which they don't understand a word?

535
00:46:45,550 --> 00:46:49,460
Why do quite small towns,
all over Germany and Italy,

536
00:46:49,550 --> 00:46:54,980
still devote a large portion of their budgets
to this irrational entertainment?

537
00:46:55,070 --> 00:46:59,929
Well, partly, of course, because
it's a display of skill, like a football match.

538
00:47:00,030 --> 00:47:04,420
But chiefly, I think, because it is irrational.

539
00:47:04,510 --> 00:47:07,900
What is too silly to be said may be sung.

540
00:47:08,000 --> 00:47:13,230
Well, yes, but what is too subtle to be said,
or too deeply felt,

541
00:47:13,320 --> 00:47:17,018
or too revealing, or too mysterious -

542
00:47:17,110 --> 00:47:21,300
these things can also be sung,
and only be sung.

543
00:47:21,400 --> 00:47:25,268
(MUSIC) Ah, soccorso!

544
00:47:25,360 --> 00:47:28,510
(MUSIC) Ah, son tradito!

545
00:47:28,590 --> 00:47:35,139
(MUSIC) L'assassino m'ha ferito

546
00:47:38,190 --> 00:47:47,090
(MUSIC) E dal seno palpitante

547
00:47:47,190 --> 00:47:49,619
(MUSIC) Sento I'anima partir

548
00:47:50,320 --> 00:47:59,309
(MUSIC) Sento I'anima partir

549
00:48:00,360 --> 00:48:07,750
(MUSIC) E dal seno palpitante

550
00:48:07,840 --> 00:48:16,110
(MUSIC) Sento I'anima partir

551
00:48:19,030 --> 00:48:21,460
It's no wonder
that the music's rather complicated,

552
00:48:21,550 --> 00:48:27,179
because even today our feelings
about Don Giovanni are far from simple.

553
00:48:27,280 --> 00:48:30,789
He's the most ambiguous of hero-villains.

554
00:48:30,880 --> 00:48:34,420
The pursuit of happiness,
and the pursuit of love,

555
00:48:34,510 --> 00:48:38,619
which had once seemed so simple
and life-giving,

556
00:48:38,710 --> 00:48:42,139
have become complex and destructive.

557
00:48:42,230 --> 00:48:46,260
And his refusal to repent -
which makes him heroic -

558
00:48:46,360 --> 00:48:49,349
belongs to another phase of civilisation.

559
00:48:51,510 --> 00:48:53,619
(Finale of Don Giovanni)

560
00:48:53,710 --> 00:49:02,739
(MUSIC) Alla vita e sempre ugual

561
00:49:02,840 --> 00:49:07,429
(MUSIC) E sempre ugual

562
00:49:18,190 --> 00:49:24,260
(MUSIC) Alla vita e sempre

563
00:49:24,360 --> 00:49:32,429
(MUSIC) E sempre, sempre

564
00:49:32,510 --> 00:49:33,780
(MUSIC) Ugual

565
00:49:33,880 --> 00:49:36,630
(MUSIC) Alla vita e sempre ugual

566
00:49:37,150 --> 00:49:39,659
(MUSIC) Alla vita e sempre ugual

567
00:49:40,360 --> 00:49:43,389
(MUSIC) E sempre ugual, e sempre ugual

568
00:49:44,480 --> 00:49:47,670
(MUSIC) Sempre ugual