The Enlightenment

1750-1800
Sapere aude!
Dare to know!
Voltaire

The great ideas

Mankind, and individual people, had
the capacity to learn, to improve
themselves
Reason and scientific
experimentation, rather than
tradition and superstition, were the
foundations of knowledge

The philosophes
Developed these ideas in their writings
Voltaire
Charles Montesquieu
Denis Diderot
Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The ideas of the philosophes provided

a foundation for revolutions
The American Revolution and the Declaration of
Independence (1775-81):
All people are equal, equally capable of learning and
developing
People have the right to decide their own destinies:
life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness
Governments are intended to promote the public
good and be answerable to the people

The French Revolution

(1789)
Overthrow of the monarchy
People were citizens

Enlightenment ideas:
Education for all
Individual exercise of religion
Experimental science
The arts were to be enjoyed and
served a moral purpose
Nature the foundation of everything

The Industrial Revolution

The Steam Engine perfected and
made practical by James Watt in the
1760s
Consequence: Growth of factories
and industry cities, poverty, disease
---developments in sanitation,
disease control (vaccination)

The Enlightenment and

Music
More events that more people could
attend: public concerts, subscription
concerts
Concert spirituel (Paris) begins 1725
Vauxhall Gardens (London), music and
entertainments from 1729
Opera reform: more realistic depiction
of emotion, structure more flexible to
accommodate this

Vauxhall Gardens, 1779

Thomas Rowlandson

The Enlightenment and Music

Works to inform and instruct

Diderots Encyclopdie
C.P.E. Bach, Essay on the True Art of Keyboard
Playing
J. J. Quantz, On Playing the Flute

Rise of music printing

Development of the Conservatory in France (1794),

intended to provide military musicians

The composer as hero, as independent creative

musician

Biographies of composers and journals of music

Amateur music societies and performances

Denis Diderot, Encyclopdie

Leopold Mozart, School of Violin Playing,

1756

Denis Diderot, Encyclopdie

The Sublime
People wanted to be aware of their
own feelings and to be moved
The sublime and the beautiful
The sublime inspired fear and terror
Thr eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 1754
was considered the greatest example,
as it was natural

Joseph Wright of Derby, Vesuvius

from Portici (Huntington Library)