How Thomas Morley's madrigals engage with English self-perception and myth; how Leon Janacek and Frederic Chopin respond to political events; how magnified emotions feed artistic creation; how artists convert terrible human experiences into art.

How music and history intersect in the career of George Frideric Handel; the circumstances in which George Ludwig of Brunswick-Luneberg becomes King George I of England; his patronage of Handel, whose success leads to the creation of masterpieces.

How European events shape Mozart's music and personal circumstances; the threat of the Ottoman Empire; the Turkish vogue in European art and fashion; the Turkish elements in Mozart's opera, "The Abduction from the Harem"; Mozart's decline and death.

How events beginning in revolutionary Paris inspire the content of Haydn's "Mass in the Time of War"; the French Revolution's drama; the rise of Napoleon; the threat his war machine poses to Vienna; the character of Haydn's mass within this context.

How Beethoven identifies with Napoleon; the clashes after the French Revolution; the military conflicts between Napoleon and the Habsburg empire; the meanings in Beethoven's "Farewell Sonata", which depicts the departure of the composer's patron.

Tracing Beethoven's animosity toward the French; the unfolding debacle of Napoleon's Peninsular War against Portugal and Spain; how Beethoven comes to compose "Wellington's Victory", which is both a success and an aberration in his musical output.