Tonight's program is a symphonic journey,
touching down in seven different countries,
and with the help of video and music,
we'll gain an appreciation for how 19th-century Europe
helped shape the beautiful world that we live in today.
The theme of the concert is romanticism and nationalism.
Nearly all the music we'll hear today
is from about the same generation,
from the late 1800s, from the Romantic Age,
and this music championed national causes
and it also supported this exciting notion
of common people finally taking the reins in their society.
From Norway to Italy, from England to the Czech Republic.
This piece is from Italy,
and it evokes the struggles of the Italian-speaking states
as they set their sights on independence.
Remember, before 1870, like Germany,
Italy was just a bunch of little states
surrounded by mightier states
that really didn't want to make room
for a new country on the map.
For Italian nationalists, romantic music served
as a bugle call on the battlefield,
and their favorite music was opera.
Melodramatic, bombastic, it just seemed to fit
a country that expresses itself with such emotion.
The very most popular
opera composer was Giuseppe Verdi.
His operas were the rage.
People would fill the opera houses.
They'd stand on their seats and together they'd sing
the dramatic Verdi arias,
as if raising their voices in unison for Italian statehood.
This next piece was written in 1871,
the same year that Italy was united.
It's from the Verdi opera Aida.
While it's set in ancient Egypt,
when you listen to it, the pharaoh could almost be
a stand-in for the triumphant king of a newly united Italy.
Up next from Verdi's Aida, the "Triumphal March."