Romanticism in Philosophy and Music: Beethoven, AbdelWahab and Pink Floyd

The course aims at exploring the relation between philosophy and music through Romanticism - the movement that appeared roughly by the beginning of the 19th century in Europe and exerted considerable influence on all aspects of art, literature, and thought until the beginning of the 20th century. Together we are going to take a look at what constitutes Romanticism, its philosophical roots and elaborations, and Romantic music as was given birth to by the late works of Mozart and Haydn as well as the works of Beethoven and Schubert, reaching its end at the beginning of the 20th century with the works of Strauss and Mahler. We then move to take a closer look at the influence of Western Romantic on modern Arabic music, taking the works of Mohamed Abdel Wahab as a trajectory from which to listen to how Romanticism influenced his approach fusing Arabic and Western musical elements. From there we tune into mid-sixties art and progressive rock represented by the early works of Pink Floyd - the most popular band of progressive rock - and will see how Romanticism impacted their music and approach. In addition to the online classes, participants (residing in Cairo) are invited to listening sessions of the musical works we are going to discuss on CILAS' rooftop.