Building on Alex Ross’s lecture on Wagner, students and faculty of the Barenboim-Said Akademie explore nationalism in Germany in performed and electronic music of the 19th and 20th centuries. Wagner, in Siegfried Idyll, writes a piece for his wife Cosima steeped in the complexity of national mythology. Mendelssohn, a target of Wagner’s antisemitism in the essay Das Judentum in der Musik, leaps out of Beethoven’s shadow and writes his fourth string quartet dedicated to the Crown Prince of Sweden. Stockhausen uses the national anthems of Germany and Russia to create part of his masterpiece of electronic music and musique concrète, Hymnen (Region II).

In addition to lectures and music, the exhibition Dry, featuring works by photographer Abdo Shanan, will be on view during the Edward W. Said Days 2020 in the lobby of the Barenboim-Said Akademie.