To be held on Wednesday, 15 April 2026
Mozart, Haydn, Gluck, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Strauss, Mahler, Bruckner, Schoenberg – it reads like a list of the great and good in classical music – but the amazing thing is that every one of these musical geniuses lived and worked in Vienna. With slides showing Viennese art and architecture as well as audio excerpts by Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert, Johann Strauss and Mahler, this talk brings Vienna in its heyday to life.
Vienna’s proximity to nature, its politics and its burgeoning middle classes were all factors in the city’s cultural blossoming, but most important was Vienna’s geographical location at the heart of the Habsburg Empire.
We discover the special qualities that enabled one city to foster such a golden age for music. We’ll also look at the developments in visual art, architecture, science and politics which formed the backdrop to this unparalleled explosion of musical genius and discuss why it ended so abruptly with the First World War.
Emma Johnson
Emma Johnson is a clarinettist who has performed as a soloist all over the world. She also enjoys giving talks about music – Woodwind Wizardry and The Poet John Milton were both broadcast by BBC radio and she has lectured about composers Gerald Finzi and Malcolm Arnold for the internet company Tonebase, as well as about Schubert and Brahms for Martin Randall Travel.
Emma Johnson studied Music and English at Pembroke College, Cambridge University, where she was the first woman to be made an Honorary Fellow. She was honoured by the Queen with an M.B.E. in 1996. Her charity, the Emma Johnson Music Foundation, gives workshops in primary schools to introduce children to instrumental music.