Aaron Krumheuer

On a morning in May of 1803, Ludwig van Beethoven sat behind his piano on the stage of Augarten Theatre in Vienna and premiered his now-famous Violin Sonata No. 9 in A major, Op. 47. Reading the score over his shoulder was George Augustus Polgreen Bridgetower, the up-and-coming, biracial, African-Polish prodigy. The sonata had just been finished the night before, and there was no time for a rehearsal. The violinist took a chance at improvising, mimicking a difficult piano run, and Beethoven beamed. “Once more, my dear fellow!” he jumped up and shouted, and the two played the movement again.

Psalms is the book in the Bible containing 150 chapters of verse. Some sing to praise God and give thanks, while others lament misfortune and ask for guidance. Jacqueline Osherow said she sees the Psalms as some of the most beautiful poetry ever written.

As President Barack Obama’s appointee to head the largest federal arts agency, Rocco Landesman’s job is to make “A Case for the Arts.” Landesman is the chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. He will be Week Four’s first morning lecturer and will talk on “Art Works: A Conversation in Three Acts” at 10:45 a.m. today in the Amphitheater.

The Writers’ Center this week welcomes Jacqueline Osherow and Janice Eidus, two writers who will lead workshops into the cross-currents of culture and the center of writing. Both writers will read selections from their work at 3:30 p.m. Sunday at the Literary Arts Center at Alumni Hall and later in the week as part of the Chautauqua Jewish Writers’ Festival.

Writer-in-residence Ron MacLean has high hopes for art. It can open the imagination, expand our feelings and even make us better people, he said.

Martha Dodd was a young, beautiful American living in Berlin in 1933. The daughter of the U.S. Ambassador, she cavorted in elite circles of German society and fell in love with top Nazi officials. Not until the first spasm of Hitler’s vicious executions did she turn against her suitors and become a Soviet spy.

Poet-in-residence Aimee Nezhukumatathil has a deep affinity with the late marine biologist Rachel Carson, who once wrote “the more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us, the less taste we shall have for destruction.”

Writers at Chautauqua will have a chance to take out their novel or screenplay and confer with a literary agent this week at the Writers’ Center. Ken Sherman will hold workshops from 3:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. today and Wednesday at the Alumni Hall ballroom.

A longtime visitor to Chautauqua’s Amphitheater, Harvard University professor Michael Sandel returns to ask the question: What’s the right thing to do? Sandel will speak twice today. He will give a morning lecture at 10:45 a.m. in the Amphitheater, as well as a Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle lecture at 3:30 p.m. in the Hall of Philosophy. Sandel’s lectures come to Chautauqua nearing the end of the Week Two theme of “Applied Ethics: Government and the Search for the Common Good.”

As a Civil Rights crusader, the spirit of Martin Luther King Jr.’s fight for equality runs alongside the Week Two theme of “Government and the Search for the Common Good.” Yet his gospel of nonviolence was a dangerous one to preach. The first Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle selection for Week Two is Hellhound on his Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the International Hunt for his Assassin by Hampton Sides.

Some say poetry should address only universal themes, while others argue the work of a poet is inseparable from his life. Week Two poet-in-residence Andrew Mulvania will address the debate that is older than Walt Whitman. Mulvania will present his lecture “Poetry and the Self: Autobiography in American Poetry” at 12:15 p.m. today on the front porch of Alumni Hall.

The writers-in-residence for Week Two will help writers channel the dead in their poetry and push their fiction characters into danger. Poet-in-residence Andrew Mulvania and prose writer-in-residence Toni Jensen will lead workshops throughout the week, and both will give readings of their work at 3:30 p.m. Sunday on the front porch of Alumni Hall.