The name Vista Lirica is taken from the Italian and means literally lyric view or, figuratively, lyric perspective. In this case lyric means a rapturous, unbridled expression through music and art.

Our Philosophy

In contrast to our present 21st century America, high art in 19th century Europe was the voice of revolution and social awareness. Today, while Renaissance art works are being restored, and their original vivid colors are exposed, Romantic music is often presented as something antiquated, ‘museumized’ and thus inapplicable to our modern world. The principle goal of Vista Lirica is to revitalize the ‘lyric perspective,’ and in so doing, show how the vitality of this era can be restored and how the essence of Romanticism is connected to our 21st c. reality.

When antiquating layers are stripped away from its presentation, its luster and essence come to the fore. When it is presented in settings that respect the value of its message, its message is further enhanced.

Vista Lirica is looking for such settings in which to perform, in additional to standard venues. In so doing, we are also looking to reach out to individuals and organizations (e.g., environmentalists, green architects) who are intrinsically allied to our vision and goals.

The Romantic Ideal

The Romantic movement was borne out of revolution: It was a response to the technological changes brought about by the Industrial Revolution—its factories and assembly lines. It was also a reflection of the French and American Revolutions which yielded individuality and self-expression. As individuals at this time experienced newly found freedom, the looming world of technology cast its shadow. The shadow brought with it a robotic uniformity that characterized factories and assembly lines—the offspring of industrialization. Artists felt the need to emphasize expression over structure, emotion over logic, spirituality over science and nature over the machine.

Two well-known examples of Romantic works; their place in the present time:

1. Ludwig van Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and Friedrich Schiller’s Ode to Joy:
What happened to classical music in the 1960s? Somehow all classical music became linked to the ‘establishment.’ What was overlooked was that Romanticism and many of the ideals of the 1960s were kindred in spirit. Beethoven was the quintessential longhaired idealistic revolutionary. And yet through pop culture, such as the song ‘Rollover Beethoven,’ he became a target of 1960’s unrest—thus he and all classical music were dismantled and disempowered. Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, and much of his music, delivers a vision of complete equality and liberation—as though it is an ongoing account of the storming of the Bastille. The Ninth Symphony takes the listener to the große Wurf—the ecstatic abandonment to the higher powers—that directing humankind from imprisonment to a glimpse into divine, higher consciousness. This is music that was written to empower and liberate—oddly, two key terms of the 60s (and yet it doesn’t kill brain cells).

A line from Schiller’s Ode to Joy, the text of this symphony, seems prophetic:

Deine Zauber binden wieder,
was die Mode streng geteilt.

Your [God’s] magic reunites,
that which custom has sharply divided.

In this case, 1960’s trends divided Beethoven’s music and its message from a generation of young people whose ideals were, in essence, the same as the Romantics’. (Stanley Kubrick certainly recognized this psychic dilemma when he made Clockwork Orange.)

2. Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein (1818):
In this novel, which most everyone knows in some permutation, Dr. Frankenstein’s scientific ambitions lead him into a ‘soulless’ place that was unimaginable only decades before 1818. His scientific intellect brings him to identify himself in the role of Creator—someone ‘outside’ and above the laws of the universe. From this false stance, he creates a monster that has a will of its own and runs a destructive path beyond what he can control. This is the perfect parable for today’s environmental crises: Similar to Dr. Frankenstein, 21st century technological corporations have been poisoning the environment in the name of ‘advancement’ and have assumed the same apart-from-the-world position; ambition and avarice have run amok as did Dr. Frankenstein’s monster, threatening our planet’s health and existence.