..and then the darkness.

[ajspiano]

So I was watching this documentary yesterday.

Cliff notes:
In 1783 this great big volcanic eruption happened in iceland.
It spewed MASSES of sulfur dioxide into the sky.
That stuff is poisonous.
It spread out like a giant toxic fog over a pretty reasonable portion of Europe.
The fog was so thick and vast that it left the sun "blood coloured" for months.
Its estimated that in britain, some 23,000 people died due to breathing the gas.
Further, there was an impact on the general weather..  resulting in hot storms followed by an obscenely cruel winter - resulting in a further 8000 deaths.

Thats a lot of people, if that had happened today the numbers would've been more like 150,000. - and thats only britain, not europe in general.

...

Anyway..  I figure it'd be kind of interesting to know what music was written in that location during that period, and see if it is reflective of that situation. So I'm wondering if there are specifics pieces that were written that can be nailed down as written in (not published in) the latter half of 1783 or early 1784?

Any ideas?

wiki says this for 1783..

Ludwig van Beethoven: Three Sonatas ('Kurfuerstensonaten') in E-flat, F, and D
Joseph Haydn – Cello Concerto in D
Michael Haydn – Symphony in E flat major
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Great Mass in C minor
Giovanni Battista Viotti – Concerto for Piano No. 7 in G
Samuel Wesley – Magnificat

its a small sample though, and there's no way I can tell exactly when they were written without more digging..  maybe there's some more obscure examples, or better references than wiki?

[j_menz]

Not much specific to the effect of the eruption that I can find, though you may consider that the explosion created disturbances in the weather patterns creating an el nino effect over much of europe. The resulting famine is regarded as one of the causative factors of the french revolution, resulting in quite a bit of music and possibly the whole of romaticism.

[ajspiano]

and possibly the whole of romaticism.

That seems a little bold..  I guess it would depend on how much faith you place in the butterfly effect.

[j_menz]

That seems a little bold..  I guess it would depend on how much faith you place in the butterfly effect.

I didn't say it was the only cause of the french revolution, merely that it was "a" cause. An important triggering cause though.

And without the french revolution, what of romanticism? It certainly would have looked different.

Surprised I didn't cop more flack, though.

[ajspiano]

Sometimes I half-read things..  in my mind I had somehow summarised your post to a fairly simple...

laki eruption ---> french revolution ---> Romanticism

 - as though thats pretty much all that happened between say, 1775 and 1800..

..I should know better.