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PSO Soundtracks Presents a Talk by Historian and Author Jerrold Seigel on “The Paris of Hector Berlioz, 1830”

By Carolyn Dwyer, Princeton Symphony Orchestra
Princeton, NJ—On Wednesday, March 19, at 7 pm, at the Princeton Public Library, The Princeton Symphony Orchestra Soundtracks Series continues with “The Paris of Berlioz, 1830: Revolution, Romanticism, and the Artist as Symbol,” a talk given by Dr. Jerrold Seigel, Professor Emeritus of History at New York University. Dr. Seigel will discuss the romanticism of Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique as it relates to the culture and politics of Paris in 1830. He will explain what it was, about that time and place, that encouraged Berlioz to develop a symphonic narrative of a painful, personal history to serve as a metaphor for the lives of other people. Free and open to the public; light refreshments are served.
Dr. Jerrold Seigel, the William J. Kenan, Jr. Professor Emeritus of History at New York University, received his Ph.D. from Princeton in 1964, and taught there until 1988.  His interests include the history of social and cultural theory, the development of thinking about selfhood and subjectivity, and the relations between art and society.  He is the author of Bohemian Paris, Culture, Politics and the Boundaries of Bourgeois Life, 1830-1930 (1986), a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism, The Idea of the Self: Thought and Experience in Western Europe since the Seventeenth Century (2005), and Modernity and Bourgeois Life (2012).  He is an avid amateur cellist and the husband of Jayn Rosenfeld, for many years the principal flutist of the PSO. 
The talk is a prelude event to the Princeton Symphony Orchestra’s Classical Series Concert Nights and Dreams which will take place on Sunday, March 30, at 4:30 pm, at Richardson Auditorium. The concert program includes Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique, the premiere of Princeton composer Julian Grant’s Dances in the Dark, and Benjamin Britten’s Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings. A preview concert is scheduled at The College of New Jersey on Saturday, March 29, at 8 pm. For more information, visit www.princetonsymphony.org.
The PSO Soundtracks Series is presented in partnership with The Princeton Public Library, exploring music and related topics, including background on the music that the PSO performs, concert themes, and what happens behind the scenes at the PSO.