Schiller Institute on YouTube Schiller Institute on Facebook RSS

Home >

Invitation:

An Evening of Schumann,
Verdi, and Victory Over Evil

Saturday, February 20th, 7:00  pm 

Suggested donation $10 

The Schiller Institute cordially invites you to a musical exploration of the minds and hearts of two great individuals dedicated to the principle that the only way to change a rotten culture, a rotting economy, and a depraved political system, is by demonstrating the alternative—in the realm of Classical art!

The concert is sponsored by the Schiller Institute— named after the “Poet of Freedom” Friedrich Schiller, who wrote the “Ode to Joy,” and founded by the internationally recognized stateswoman Helga Zepp- LaRouche. Participating will be the Schiller Institute’s Manhattan Community Chorus, soon to be extended to Brooklyn, which is dedicated to reviving Classical culture as a moral institution, through the performance of great works at the natural tuning pitch of A=432 Hz, as demanded by Giuseppe Verdi for the best development of the bel canto human singing voice.

This bel canto vocal placement required by Verdi’s operas reflects one and the same view of mankind as does the highest expression of the German Classical Lied, two forms of musical composition which are beautifully coherent, though arising from two different strains of Europe’s language culture. That unifying idea is the principle that man is uniquely distinguished from the beasts by his creativity, his potential to discover new, universal principles which expand  man’s  mastery  of,  and  citizenship  in  one’s nation, one’s century of life, and even in the Solar System and the galaxy beyond.

Today that creative spark is in danger of being snuffed out in countless ways, by those who would have us believe that man be but a talking beast, and that war be a “normal” condition of mankind. Therefore, in this concert we present works of two composers who took up the battle to enkindle and protect that creative spark: Robert Schumann (1810– 1856) and his Italian contemporary Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901).

Schumann and his wife Clara (1819–1896) were an integral part of the revolutionary Classical current which included not only J.S. Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Johannes Brahms, but also the economist Friedrich List, founder of the anti-British “American System” of political economy, following in the footsteps of New York’s Alexander Hamilton. And Verdi, for his part, was a passionate fighter for  ridding the Italian peninsula of the feudal system of the Austro-Hungarian imperial occupiers, and for unifying Italy under the banner of the highest expression of Classical culture and drama in the tradition of William Shakespeare.

The Schiller Institute therefore invites you to become part of the struggle they embodied to create a more beautiful culture of cooperation among nations.

The works to be performed are:

 

  Join the Schiller Institute Chorus
in Manhattan or Brooklyn!

Diane Sare, founder of the Schiller Institute NYC Chorus, directing a Spiritual at a recent Musikabend in Manhattan.

The Manhattan Chorus, rehearses every Thursday evening, from 6:30 – 8:00 PM, near Lincoln Center.

The new Brooklyn Chorus will have its first rehearsal on Wednesday, March 2nd, from 7:00 – 8:30 PM, in the Red Hook area of Brooklyn. All music performed at the Verdi Tuning!

Beginners welcome! Call Margaret at 646-509-5451, or email newyorkchorus@schillerinstitute.org for more info, or if you’d like to join .