Théodore Géricault’s hugely imposing painting The Raft of the Medusa has stimulated imaginative responses from numerous artists ever since its creation in 1819, including composer Hans Werner Henze and his librettist Ernst Schnabel, who were inspired by Géricault to write a political oratorio on the painting’s tragic historical subject in 1967. Noted for its harsh-edged sounds, and melding a tender depiction of suffering with scathing irony and gripping dramaturgy, the political scuffles and rowdiness that broke out at its aborted premiere lifted the work into the canon of great classical music scandals.