Gresham College Lectures

Nicholas Kenyon looks back at the development of one of the most distinctive buildings of our time, shedding new light on its origins, looking at the changes across the years, and considers the thinking that will guide its renewal for the next 40 years.

A lecture by Sir Nicholas Kenyon CBE

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:

https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/thomas-gresham-21

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.

Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk

Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege

Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollege

England’s Reformation was supposed to bind the nation into a single ‘Church of England’. In fact the country was shattered into a kaleidoscope of religious variety. Amid the confusion, a few English people embraced radical possibilities: mystics turned religion into an allegory, separatists created democratic, self-governing communes, utopians explored ideas ranging from pacifism to full-blown revolution.

This lecture traces how this radical edge of the English Reformation helped shape some of the most apparently secular aspects of the modern world.

A lecture by Alec Ryrie

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:

https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/radical-reformation

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.

Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk

Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege

Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollege

The Jewish communities of London have a rich musical-liturgical history, stretching back to the mid-17th century. This lecture will consider some of the main musical developments since then, beginning with the Sephardi and Ashkenazi synagogues which stood practically side-by-side in the City of London for 250 years.

We will examine the birth of the Anglo-Jewish choral tradition, the split with the Reform movement and its musical consequences, and the new music brought more recently by immigrants from Eastern Europe and Arab lands.

A lecture by Chazan Eliot Alderman

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:

https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/synagogue-music-history

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.

Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk

Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege

Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollege

At one point in his life, Shostakovich considered the career of a concert pianist. He was talented enough to become a Soviet competitor at the international Chopin Competition of 1927, but he was struck down with acute appendicitis, and he had to leave with only a diploma rather than a major prize. Whether his pain and disappointment soured his relations with the piano we cannot be sure, it is astonishing that his piano music studiously avoids the virtuosity he had assiduously cultivated as a young performer. Almost all his piano writing is in some way experimental, conceptual, challenging the pianist to make sense of piano writing that often seems ungrateful, not unlike Musorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, which we heard in the first lecture of this series.

Even so, Shostakovich’s monumental cycle of Preludes and Fugues stands at the very core of his output. Written “for the desk drawer” in his most difficult years, following a second round of official criticism, it often rejoices in the very “formalism” he was accused of. Following the example of J.S. Bach, Shostakovich offers us twenty-four strictly constructed fugues in all the keys, each preceded by a free-flowing prelude. The set takes us on a fascinating journey, beginning with near-pastiches of Bach, into a world where Russian folk song can meet Jewish cantillation, and where Baroque idioms meet modernism, with extremes of emotion that can rival any of Shostakovich’s symphonies.

A lecture by Marina Frolova-Walker and Peter Donohue

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:

https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/shostakovich-piano

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.

Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk

Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege

Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollege

The Common Law was conceived as a thing comprising beautiful and simple principles.

Has English law and procedure lost its way? Where are we to go in the 21st Century?

A lecture by The Rt Hon Lord Justice Haddon-Cave

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:
https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/law-complexity

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.

Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk
Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollege

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Were the Crusades an early example of European colonialism? What value did the crusading frontier hold for the knights who fought to defend it? What was the relationship between the Crusades and the knightly culture of chivalry? To answer these questions requires a new approach to the Crusades, one focused as much on cultural production as military encounter.

In this lecture, we explore the nexus between three powerful forces that shaped the medieval world: holy war, knighthood, and the expansion of Europe.

In partnership with the Fulbright Commission

A lecture by Nicholas Paul

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:

https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/crusades

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.

Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk

Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege

Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollege

Caroline Lucretia Herschel (1750-1848) was the first woman professional astronomer, and by the time of her death she had been awarded the Royal Astronomical Society Gold Medal and had discovered 8 comets. In this talk Dr Sheila Kanani combines the story of a pioneering woman astronomer, with an account of the science behind comets, asteroids and meteors.

This talk will end with a demonstration of how to make a comet model using kitchen ingredients.

A lecture by Sheila Kanani

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:

https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/caroline-herschel

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.

Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk

Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege

Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollege

In 1615 Katharina Kepler, illiterate mother of the astronomer Johannes Kepler, was accused of being a witch.

At that time in Germany, there was a witch ‘craze’. Over half of the c.50,000 executions in Europe for witchcraft between 1500 and 1700 took place in Germany. During the next 6 years Katharina fought her accusation.

The astronomer took over her legal defence in 1620. This lecture explores this astonishing story, and asks how the witch craze affected people’s lives.

A lecture by Ulinka Rublack FBA

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:

https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/keplers-mother

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.

Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk

Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege

Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollege

Due to the Duke of Marlborough's military genius and the crush that Queen Anne had on his wife, the duchess, the Marlboroughs were presented with two of the greatest houses of the age.

Blenheim and Marlborough House encapsulate the architectural rivalries and ambitions of patrons and architects illuminating the febrile atmosphere of the last days of the Stuart dynasty.

A lecture by Simon Thurley CBE

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:
https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/marlborough-mansions

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.

Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk
Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollege

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The Magnetic Resonator Piano invented by Andrew McPherson sees electromagnets suspended above the strings of a regular grand piano, allowing for control of minute details of shimmering resonance, crescendo from silence, and sustained "bowed" sounds that the performer can shape directly from the keyboard scanner while retaining the use of the original mechanism. The instrument transforms into an unrecognisable and stunning electroacoustic cyborg.

The lecturer, a concert pianist and improviser, will introduce this instrument to the audience from a performance perspective.

A lecture by Xenia Pestova Bennett

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:

https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/cyborg-piano

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.

Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk

Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege

Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollege