Gresham College provides outstanding educational talks and videos for the public free of charge. There are over 2,500 videos available on our website. Your support will help us to encourage people's love of learning for many years to come.
Scriabin was Rachmaninov’s classmate at the Moscow Conservatoire, and enjoyed comparable fame during his lifetime, and yet today he is much less known, especially outside Russia.
Dr Riley is a Senior Lecturer in Music and Director in Postgraduate Studies in Music at the University of Birmingham. His scholarly interests lie in the analysis and criticism of Western art music from the eighteenth to the twentieth century.
Toy pianos were first made in the 19th century. This lecture/recital tells the story of an instrument originally marketed at children, that subsequently made a surprising transition into the professional sphere.
James Nye is a writer and composer based on the Isle of Wight. He studied music at the University of Surrey, completing dissertations on the music of Thelonious Monk (1987), and Vic Hoyland (1989), and becoming a Master of Music in
Jeremy Summerly is a British conductor, a Fellow of the Royal School of Church Music and was Visiting Professor of Music History at Gresham College 2019-2022.
A singer in a church of 450-650 was appointed in the same way as a gravedigger - too lowly to demand the bishop's attention. Arrangements were increasingly made to school singers in the great metropolitan churches of the West, as will be demonstrated.
This lecture will look at change ringing, which is ringing a series of tuned bells (as you might find in the bell tower of a church) in a particular sequence, and this has exciting mathematical properties. We will also ask: why are bells bell-shaped?
It has been known since antiquity that there are simple “harmonic” relationships between notes that sound appealing together. This lecture introduces the mathematics of pitch, scales, and just temperament. The pitch of a sound is not its only important property.
Login
