We've done music history, too, which, like art history, can be especially fun if you try creating things in the style of the artist/period. Or at least learning to identify the style when you see/hear it. Although there is plenty of difficult material in biographical studies of artists and composers, there is also the uplifting aspect of the beauty that they created, which I think adds a certain redemptive/transformative quality to the tragedy.

...pronounced like the long vowel and first letter of the alphabet...