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Archive of Schiller Institute Videos

Amateur Drama, Poetry and Musical Presentations
Performed at Schiller Institute Events over the Years

A performance of Schiller's Mary Stuart in Houston, 1998.

Since our founding in 1984, the Schiller Institute has been in the forefront of the battle to save humanity from an impending worldwide New Dark Age and create a new Golden Renaissance. Each November, throughout the world we have Schiller Institute events with music, poetry recitations, and other presentations as part of Birthday celebrations for Friedrich Schiller, the Poet of Freedom.  

Often, international Schiller Institute Conferences and Concerts have featured collaborative work among professional artists and amateur performers, and can be found on the “International Conferences” page, the Various Excepts from Schiller Institute Conferences and Concerts page, and Music Pages. Numerous regional and local Schiller events were presented without the benefit of hands-on professional guidance, but were performed with passion and a love of ideas, attempting to be truthful to the authors, composers or playwrights.  The archive presented here is a compilation of (unedited) Schiller Institute events that have been recorded since 1984. Much of the video quality is poor due to the original recordings, but we hope the ideas and the joy of presenting them are communicated, in the spirit of the American Celebrations of the Poet of Freedom of 1859. (see below)  

 

Drama:

Works by Schiller

Don Carlos, Houston, 1994: Part I   Part II   Part III  Part IV

The Maid of Orleans, Houston, November 18, 2001: AVI format     MP4 format

Mary Stuart, Houston, 1998: AVI Format: Part I    Part II    FLV format: Part I    Part II

The Parasite, Part I   Part II  Cast and Credits

Wallenstein, Houston, 1999 Wallenstein_Camp_Selection

Wilhelm Tell, Houston, 1991 and November 11, 2000

Houston, 1991 to 1995:  Part I    Part II   Part III   Part IV   Part V

Works by Shakespeare

Sonnets: 121  52  12  64  90  44

Henry V: Act 2 Chorus  Act 3 Chorus  Act 4 Chorus

HamletAct 3 Scene 1 Ophelia Soliloquy  Act 4 Scene 7 Gertrude Soliloquy

Works of Plato

The Republic, Philadelphia, date unknown

Symposium, Philadelphia, date unknown

Other Videos on Drama:

The Big Knife by Clifford Odets: Robert Beltran Discussion from 2004 President's Day ICLC/Schiller Institute Conference

 

 

Music:

Joseph Haydn:

"Stabat Mater" Schiller Institute Chorus and Orchestra (February 1995 ICLC/Schiller Institute Conference, Reston, Virginia)

 

Classes:

"Greek Tragedy and Statecraft", by Gerry Rose

On Motivführung (Motivic Thorough-Composition in Music) by Fred Haight (1994)

 

 

Friedrich Schiller, Poet of Freedom.

Celebrate Schiller's Birthday ~ November 10.  Friedrich Schiller was born November 10, 1759 and died May 9, 1805. Celebrate his birthday with poetry readings, music performances and dialogue. Get some friends together, and discuss Schiller's concept of achieving true freedom--"It is through Beauty that One Proceeds to Freedom." To participate in annual events and concerts, call 703-297-8368. Read more 

As William Cullen Bryant said in 1859 at a Schiller Celebration in New York: “…We may therefore well say to the countrymen of Schiller: 'Schiller is yours, but he is ours also. It was your country may have given him birth, but the people of all nations have made him their countryman by adoption...'  We of this country, too must honor Schiller as the Poet of Freedom. He was one of those who, if he could worship aught visible to the human eye shaped by the human fancy, he would rear an altar to liberty, and bring to it at the beginning and close of every day his offering of praise. Schiller began to write when our country was warring with Great Britain for its independence and his genius attained the maturity of manhood just as we had made peace with our powerful adversary and stood upon the earth a full-grown nation. It was then that the poet was composing his noble drama of Don Carlos, in which the Marquis of Posa is introduced as laying down to the tyrant Philip of Spain, the great law of Freedom. In the drama of the Robbers, written in Schiller's youth, we are sensible of a fiery vehement destructive impatience with society, on account of the abuses which it permits; and enthusiasm of reform, almost without plan or object; but in his works composed afterwards we find the true philosophy of reform calmly and clearly stated, The Marquis of Posa in an interview with Philip tells him, at the peril of his life, truths which he never heard before, exhorts him to lay the foundations of his power in the happiness and affections of his people, by observing the democratic precept that no tie should fetter the citizen save the respect for the rights of his brethren, as perfect and as sacred as his own, and prophesies the approaching advent of freedom, which unfortunately we are looking for still...that universal Spring which could yet make young the nations of the earth…

"Yet Schiller was no made innovator. He saw that society required to be pruned, but did not desire that it should be uprooted...he would have it reformed, but not laid waste. What was ancient in its usages and ordinances, and therefore endeared to many, he would where it was possible improve and adapt to the present wants of mankind..."

Bryant then illustrated this point by citing lines from Wallenstein. He then spoke of Schiller's "last great dramatic work" William Tell, writing, "He took a silent page from history, and, animating the personages of whom it speaks with the fiery life of his own spirit, and endowing them with his own superhuman eloquence, he formed it into a living protest against foreign domination, which yet rings throughout the world. Wherever there are generous hearts, wherever there are men who hold in reverence the rights of their fellow-men, wherever the love of country and the love of mankind coexist, Schiller's drama of William Tell, stirs the blood like the sound of the trumpet..."