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The Vienna Secession
In 1897, Gustav Klimt led a group of radical artists to break free from the cultural establishment of Vienna and found a movement that became known as the Vienna Secession. In the vibrant atmosphere of coffee houses, Freudian psychoanalysis and the music of Wagner and Mahler, the Secession sought to bring together fine art and music with applied arts such as architecture and design. The movement was characterized by Klimt’s stylised paintings, richly decorated with gold leaf, and the art nouveau buildings that began to appear in the city, most notably the Secession Building, which housed influential exhibitions of avant-garde art and was a prototype of the modern art gallery. The Secessionists themselves were pioneers in their philosophy and way of life, aiming to immerse audiences in unified artistic experiences that brought together visual arts, design, and architecture. With:Mark Berry, Professor of Music and Intellectual History at Royal Holloway, University of LondonLeslie Topp, Professor Emerita in History of Architecture at Birkbeck, University of LondonAndDiane Silverthorne, art historian and 'Vienna 1900' scholarProducer: Eliane GlaserReading list:Mark Berry, Arnold Schoenberg: Critical Lives (Reaktion Books, 2018)Gemma Blackshaw, Facing the Modern: The Portrait in Vienna 1900 (National Gallery Company, 2013)Elizabeth Clegg, Art, Design and Architecture in Central Europe, 1890-1920 (Yale University Press, 2006)Richard Cockett, Vienna: How the City of Ideas Created the Modern World (Yale University Press, 2023)Stephen Downes, Gustav Mahler (Reaktion Books, 2025)Peter Gay, Freud, Jews, and Other Germans: Masters and Victims in Modernist Culture (Oxford University Press, 1979)Tag Gronberg, Vienna: City of Modernity, 1890-1914 (Peter Lang, 2007)Allan S. Janik and Hans Veigl, Wittgenstein in Vienna: A Biographical Excursion Through the City and its History (Springer/Wien, 1998)Jill Lloyd and Christian Witt-Dörring (eds.), Vienna 1900: Style and Identity (Hirmer Verlag, 2011)William J. McGrath, Dionysian Art and Populist Politics in Austria (Yale University Press, 1974)Tobias Natter and Christoph Grunenberg (eds.), Gustav Klimt: Painting, Design and Modern Life (Tate, 2008)Carl E. Schorske, Fin-de-siècle Vienna: Politics and Culture (Vintage, 1979)Elana Shapira, Style and Seduction: Jewish Patrons, Architecture and Design in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna (Brandeis University Press, 2016)Diane V Silverthorne, Dan Reynolds and Megan Brandow-Faller, Die Fläche: Design and Lettering of the Vienna Secession, 1902-1911 (Letterform Archive, 2023)Edward Timms, Karl Kraus: Apocalyptic Satirist: Culture & Catastrophe in Habsburg Vienna (Yale University Press, 1989)Leslie Topp, Architecture and Truth in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna (Cambridge University Press, 2004)Peter Vergo, Art in Vienna, 1898-1918: Klimt, Kokoschka, Schiele and Their Contemporaries (4th ed., Phaidon, 2015)Hans-Peter Wipplinger (ed.), Vienna 1900: Birth of Modernism (Walther & Franz König, 2019)Hans-Peter Wipplinger (ed.), Masterpieces from the Leopold Museum (Walther & Franz König)Stefan Zweig, The World of Yesterday: An Autobiography (University of Nebraska Press, 1964)In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio ProductionSpanning history, religion, culture, science and philosophy, In Our Time from BBC Radio 4 is essential listening for the intellectually curious. In each episode, host Melvyn Bragg and expert guests explore the characters, events and discoveries that have shaped our world.
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54:11
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54:11
Fanny Burney
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the life and work of the 18th-century novelist, playwright and diarist Fanny Burney, also known as Madame D'Arblay and Frances Burney. Her first novel, Evelina, was published anonymously and caused a sensation, attracting the admiration of many eminent contemporaries. In an era when very few women published their work she achieved extraordinary success, and her admirers included Dr Johnson and Edmund Burke; later Virginia Woolf called her 'the mother of English fiction'.With Nicole Pohl Reader in English Literature at Oxford Brookes UniversityJudith Hawley Professor of Eighteenth-Century Literature at Royal Holloway, University of LondonandJohn Mullan Professor of English at University College London. Producer: Simon Tillotson.
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44:25
Sappho
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Greek poet Sappho. Born in the late seventh century BC, Sappho spent much of her life on the island of Lesbos. In antiquity she was famed as one of the greatest lyric poets, but owing to a series of accidents the bulk of her work was lost to posterity. The fragments that do survive, however, give a tantalising glimpse of a unique voice of Greek literature. Her work has lived on in other languages, too, translated by such major poets as Ovid, Christina Rossetti and Baudelaire.WithEdith Hall Professor of Classics at King's College, LondonMargaret Reynolds Professor of English at Queen Mary, University of Londonand Dirk Obbink Professor of Papyrology and Greek Literature at the University of Oxford Fellow and tutor at Christ Church, OxfordProducer: Simon Tillotson.
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46:02
Beowulf
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the epic poem Beowulf, one of the masterpieces of Anglo-Saxon literature. Composed in the early Middle Ages by an anonymous poet, the work tells the story of a Scandinavian hero whose feats include battles with the fearsome monster Grendel and a fire-breathing dragon. It survives in a single manuscript dating from around 1000 AD, and was almost completely unknown until its rediscovery in the nineteenth century. Since then it has been translated into modern English by writers including William Morris, JRR Tolkien and Seamus Heaney, and inspired poems, novels and films.With:Laura Ashe Associate Professor in English at the University of Oxford and Fellow of Worcester CollegeClare Lees Professor of Medieval English Literature and History of the Language at King's College LondonAndy Orchard Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at the University of OxfordProducer: Thomas Morris.
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46:29
Bruegel's The Fight Between Carnival and Lent
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Pieter Bruegel the Elder's painting of 1559, 'The Fight Between Carnival And Lent'. Created in Antwerp at a time of religious tension between Catholics and Protestants, the painting is rich in detail and seems ripe for interpretation. But Bruegel is notoriously difficult to interpret. His art seems to reject the preoccupations of the Italian Renaissance, drawing instead on techniques associated with the new technology of the 16th century, print. Was Bruegel using his art to comment on the controversies of his day? If so, what comment was he making? CONTRIBUTORSLouise Milne, Lecturer in Visual Culture in the School of Art at the University of Edinburgh and Edinburgh Napier UniversityJeanne Nuechterlein, Senior Lecturer in the Department of History of Art, University of YorkMiri Rubin, Professor of Medieval and Early Modern History and Head of the School of History at Queen Mary, University of LondonProducer: Luke Mulhall.
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