Théodore Géricault's larger-than-life painting The Raft of the Medusa has stimulated a great many artists ever since it's creation in 1819. Also Hans Werner Henze and his Librettist Ernst Schnabel were inspired by Géricault and wrote a political oratorio on the painting's tragic historical subject in 1967. Notable for it's harsh and bright sounds, tender depiction of suffering, scathing irony, and gripping dramaturgy, the agitation at the failed premiere lifted the work into the canon of great classical scandals.