Classical Music Riots…
I really do love Wikipedia, for instance, if it wasn’t for wikipedia I wouldn’t have come across this excellent list of Classical Music Riots. Yes, you read that right: at various points over the last 200 years classical music has been the catalyst for a number of riots.
Probably the most impressive of these was La muette de Portici (The Mute Girl of Portici), which sparked a riot that got very, very out of hand… But first, some background:
It all kinda started when Napoleon’s war on Europe was starting to go a bit pear shaped, and sometime in 1813, The Netherlands overthrew Napoleonic rule and then along with Britain began sorting out who should have what during the British-Dutch Treaty of 1814. During war with France, the British had occupied The Cape Colony and Dutch Ceylon (South Africa and Sri Lanka) and due to a love of safari and tea, were keen to hold on to them - as compensation, they gave The Netherlands what is now Belgium and Luxembourg.
Unfortunately, they all just didn’t get along that well. The Belgians were dominated over by the Dutch economically, politically, socially and religiously. This went on for a while, and presumably the downtrodden Belgians just sat around drinking beer and eating chocolate and getting more and more pissed off for the next 16 years…
Which brings us to the Opera (start playing it now in a different window). On 25 August 1830, at the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels, Daniel Auber’s La Muette de Portici was preformed in honour of the current King William I (who was also Dutch, and not very popular in Brussels). The Opera is a sentimental and patriotic one, suited to fire romantic nationalism, and halfway through the duet, “Amour sacré de la patrie”, (‘Sacred love of Fatherland’ - which you’re listening to now), someone presumably yelled something patriotic out, which was probably followed by some more yelling…
This yelling eventually escalated into a riot which then spilled out onto the street following the performance. The rowdy crowd then grew from there and while still yelling patriotic chants, swiftly began taking possession of government buildings. King William sent in the army, but after three days of bloody street fighting they were unable to retake Brussels. By the end of the year the short lived ‘United Kingdom of the Netherlands’ had disolved and by February the following year, Belgium was finally an independent country. All because someone got rowdy at the Opera.
(Apologies to any resident History-Buffs, Belgians or Classical Music Lovers if I got any of that wrong - feel free to correct)
