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Rule Britannia! Music, Mischief and Morals in the 18th Century

Suzy Klein

David Jeffcock

Paul Bullock

Rule Britannia! Music, Mischief and Morals in the 18th Century: Episode 1

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Factual: History

Music: Classical

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media: Arts

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Episode 1

BBC Four - Rule Britannia! Music, Mischief and Morals in the 18th Century, Episode 1

Suzy Klein investigates how music was used as a weapon in the fight for British identity.

Suzy Klein tells the story of the composers and musicians who shaped the 18th-century British musical map. She investigates music as a weapon in the fight for British identity.

Suzy Klein investigates music as a weapon in the fight for British identity; helping to cement the power of a new German royal family and used in Jacobite uprisings against them. She discovers why Italian opera was all the rage, thanks partly to a fascination with castrated male singers. 

When Handel arrived in London, the city realised it has a genius on its hands, a man capable of creating music of such power, vigour and vitality that it can stir the hearts of the whole nation. Music stirred a 'bottom up' revolution, as the Beggar's Opera brought the satirical, subversive songs of the street onto the British stage, inventing modern musical theatre as we know it. 

Featured music includes Rule Britannia, God Save the King, Handel's Water Music and Thomas Arne's guide to hating the French - Beer-Drinking Britons.

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The story of the composers and musicians that shaped Britain's 18th-century musical map.

Series in which broadcaster and writer Suzy Klein tells the story of the composers and musicians that helped shape the musical map of Britain in the 18th century.

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Rule Britannia! Music, Mischief and Morals in the 18th Century

Episode 1

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