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Fine Arts

The History of Classical Music: Chopin through Gershwin

5 lessons

5h total length

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Rediscover the beauty of classical music.

This course celebrates the beauty of classical music and its connection to civilization. Composers from the Romantic Era through the American Century have pushed the boundaries of musical structure to express drama, emotion, culture, and the supernatural. They sought to honor the musical tradition of the looming figures of Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven, but also to broaden the horizons of music and express the unique themes of their own time and place with their unique perspectives and contributions.

Join Hyperion Knight in “The History of Classical Music: Chopin through Gershwin,” to discover how competing composers developed music into new vistas following Beethoven. Learn the stories of great composers. Understand how their competitions with one another helped to shape and define new cultures. Enjoy performances of pieces by the masters of the Romantic Era and the American Century.

The course includes four lectures, each approximately 50 minutes long, and a 1-hour concert performance. Complete the course and receive a certificate by watching the lectures and taking the short quizzes that follow. These are supplemented with study guides for each lecture. Take the course at your own pace and in a manner that best fits your schedule.

Released 2025.

Taught by Hyperion Knight.

Lessons in this course

46:23

lesson 1

The Early Romantics

Romanticism marched into the future while looking to an idealized past. As composers sought to capture this duality, they wrestled with the question of how truthful beauty really is and how beautiful the truth can be.

49:06

lesson 2

The High Romantics

In the War of the Romantics, composers who sought to define their emerging national folk cultures in music also formed into two camps that disputed Beethoven’s legacy: should composers conserve his brilliant forms or extend his innovative spirit?

59:39

lesson 3

The Late Romantics and Early Moderns

As the beautiful Romantic era came to a close, composers pushed beyond traditional musical structures to discover beauty and truth in musical expression, even without formal tonality. Russia and America emerged as new fields for modern composers.

50:41

lesson 4

The Americans

While composers around the world were drawing inspiration from their folk legends and histories, American composers developed jazz and musical theater into classical art music that captured the heart of the American spirit.

54:51

lesson 5

Concert Performance

Enjoy Hyperion Knight at the piano as he performs pieces from Chopin, Liszt, Schumann, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Debussy, Joplin, Kern, and Gershwin.

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What Current Students Are Saying

Takes the student through the full context of the course subject matter. Wonderful insight into how we strayed and its consequences and offers a solution.

— Don from Nevada

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