CCM: Composition, Musicology, & Theory

16-HILT-662 (3 U or 3 G): Genre Topics: Twentieth-Century Opera: Anti-Opera? (Joe, MWF 9:00-9:50). Twentieth-century opera is characterized by many innovative and experimental approaches in terms of musical style, dramaturgy, and aesthetics. This course focuses on those operas that challenge the traditional concept of opera. Beginning with Bertolt Brecht's anti-Wagnerian aesthetics, it examines the aesthetic and ideological positions of the composers and librettists of such operas as well as their music. Among the works to be examined are György Ligeti's Le grand macabre, Philip Glass's Einstein on the Beach, Harrison Birtwistle's The Mask of Orpheus, John Cage's Europeras, and Meredith Monk's Atlas.

16-HILT-846 (3 G): Twentieth-Century Advanced Topics: Kurt Weill's Music-Theater Works (mcclung, TH 2:00-3:20). Kurt Weill's oeuvre has proven to be problematic for disciples of twentieth-century modernism, as evinced by the critical construct of the “Two Weills.” This bifurcation has enabled critics and apologists to foreground the young modernist of the Weimar Republic at the expense of distancing the composer for the American musical theater. Rather than accepting this schizophrenic portrait, this special topics course will explore Weill's European and American music-theater works through different lenses, which will demonstrate how the composer was able to embrace musical modernism and to move beyond it.

16-HILT-982 (4 G): Seminar in Musicology: The Art of Criticism: Music History and the Popular Press (Poriss, W 2:0042:50). The popular press has long exerted tremendous influence over the manner in which music is composed, disseminated, performed, and received. Since the late eighteenth century, and earlier, critics have developed rhetorical strategies that are still employed and understood in both the public and scholarly realm today. In this class we will investigate the art of music criticism, examining a wealth of primary writings by writers as various as Eduard Hanslick, E. T. A. Hoffmann, Richard Wagner, Hector Berlioz, Anthony Tomassini, and Alex Ross and secondary sources by Scott Burnham, Ruth Solie, Richard Taruskin, and many more. We will investigate these writings in close comparison with the musical works, operatic and symphonic, being critiqued.

Winter

16-HILT-662 (3 U or G): Genre Topics: J. S. Bach's Keyboard Works (mcclung, MWF 11:00-11:50). This special topics course will examine J. S. Bach's works for solo keyboard by collection or publication, including Das wohltemperirte Clavier, the “English Suites,” the “French Suites,” Das Orgelbüchlein, the Clavierübung Parts I-IV, and Die Kunst der Fuge. Questions for consideration will include ornamentation, national style, sources, tempi, and editions. A proportion of each class will be spent listening to Bach's keyboard music and discussing the formal principles of design in relationship to various Baroque forms.

16-HILT-846 (3 G): Twentieth-Century Advanced Topics: Opera and Cinema (Joe, TH 11:00-12:20). This course examines multivalent relationships between opera and cinema-aesthetic, cultural, historical, ideological, or technical-drawing on theories developed in diverse disciplines, such as cinema studies, psychoanalysis, and gender studies as well as music. Course readings will be selected from the writings of various composers and scholars, e.g., Richard Wagner, Arnold Schoenberg, Theodor Adorno, Marcia Citron, and Susan McClary. The works to be analyzed range from such films as Charlie Chaplin's Burlesque of Carmen and Zeffirelli's Callas Forever to such operas as Berg's Lulu and Philip Glass's La Belle et la bête.

16-HILT-982 (4 G): Seminar in Musicology: The Culture of Music in Late Eighteenth-Century Austria (Morrow, W 2:00-4:50). During the late eighteenth century a variety of musical cultures flourished in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. We will take a close look at several of these cultures, in particular those of the Imperial Court Kapelle, the private Kapelle of the aristocracy, the Benedictine Abbey at Melk, and the cities of Salzburg, Prague, and Vienna. Though a close reading of selected primary sources, recent scholarship, and musical compositions, we will examine the ways that patronage, geography, economic circumstances, and local musical traditions helped to shape the creation of musical works.

Spring

16-HILT-661 (3 U or G): Composer Topics: George Gershwin and the Nature of Crossover (mcclung, TH 2:00-3:20). The term “crossover” has become common in musical discourse with “crossover artists” and “crossover albums” with “crossover appeal.” This course will survey the prototypical “crossover composer,” George Gershwin. With one foot planted firmly in Tin Pan and Shubert Alleys, and the other gingerly resting in the concert hall, Gershwin forged a career in both vernacular and cultivated music that has become a model for subsequent composers such as Philip Glass, John Corigliano, and Tan Dun. The various dichotomies that Gershwin's career bridged (serious/popular, black/white, jazz/legit, East Coast/West Coast, etc.) will be explored.

16-HILT-661 (3 U or G): Composer Topics: Johannes Brahms (Morrow, MWF 1:00¬-1:50). During his lifetime and in subsequent scholarship, Brahms has at times been labeled a traditionalist, at times a progressive. We will investigate various aspects of his biography from this perspective, looking at his engagement with older musical styles, his role in the New German controversy, and his position in the culture of late nineteenth-century Vienna. After a survey of his compositional output, we will focus on a smaller number of works, including the Fourth Symphony, the Piano Quintet, the German Requiem, and selected Lieder and piano works, for intensive study and stylistic analysis.

16-HILT-844 (3G): Eighteenth-Century Advanced Topics: The Symphonies of Joseph Haydn (Morrow, TH 11:00-12:20). Joseph Haydn wrote symphonies throughout his career, which spanned the most symphony-intense decades in music history. We will examine his symphonies from stylistic, theoretical, and aesthetic perspectives, investigate the ways in which circumstances of performance may have shaped his compositional decisions, and explore his relationship to the music of his contemporaries.

16-HILT-982 (4 G): Seminar in Musicology: Postmodernism and Music (Joe, W 2:00-4:50). The term “postmodernism” has emerged as one of the most frequently used terms to characterize the cultural, intellectual, and socio-political climate of the post-1960s. In the area of music, the postmodern period is characterized by the explosion of compositional innovations-collage, minimalism, operatic experiments, and others. This course explores the aesthetic and ideological backgrounds that motivated musical postmodernism. It also examines how postmodernism and post-structuralism promoted the birth of the “new musicology,” often called the “postmodern musicology.”


		Special Topics Courses and Seminars Offered by the Musicology Faculty Academic Year 2005–06 (Times subject to change; see quarterly updates. Course prerequisites below.) Fall 16-HILT-662 (3 U or 3 G): Genre Topics: Twentieth-Century Opera: Anti-Opera? (Joe, MWF 9:00-9:50). Twentieth-century opera is characterized by many innovative and experimental approaches in terms of musical style, dramaturgy, and aesthetics. This course focuses on those operas that challenge the traditional concept of opera. Beginning with Bertolt Brecht's anti-Wagnerian aesthetics, it examines the aesthetic and ideological positions of the composers and librettists of such operas as well as their music. Among the works to be examined are György Ligeti's Le grand macabre, Philip Glass's Einstein on the Beach, Harrison Birtwistle's The Mask of Orpheus, John Cage's Europeras, and Meredith Monk's Atlas. 16-HILT-846 (3 G): Twentieth-Century Advanced Topics: Kurt Weill's Music-Theater Works (mcclung, TH 2:00-3:20). Kurt Weill's oeuvre has proven to be problematic for disciples of twentieth-century modernism, as evinced by the critical construct of the “Two Weills.” This bifurcation has enabled critics and apologists to foreground the young modernist of the Weimar Republic at the expense of distancing the composer for the American musical theater. Rather than accepting this schizophrenic portrait, this special topics course will explore Weill's European and American music-theater works through different lenses, which will demonstrate how the composer was able to embrace musical modernism and to move beyond it. 16-HILT-982 (4 G): Seminar in Musicology: The Art of Criticism: Music History and the Popular Press (Poriss, W 2:0042:50). The popular press has long exerted tremendous influence over the manner in which music is composed, disseminated, performed, and received. Since the late eighteenth century, and earlier, critics have developed rhetorical strategies that are still employed and understood in both the public and scholarly realm today. In this class we will investigate the art of music criticism, examining a wealth of primary writings by writers as various as Eduard Hanslick, E. T. A. Hoffmann, Richard Wagner, Hector Berlioz, Anthony Tomassini, and Alex Ross and secondary sources by Scott Burnham, Ruth Solie, Richard Taruskin, and many more. We will investigate these writings in close comparison with the musical works, operatic and symphonic, being critiqued. Winter 16-HILT-662 (3 U or G): Genre Topics: J. S. Bach's Keyboard Works (mcclung, MWF 11:00-11:50). This special topics course will examine J. S. Bach's works for solo keyboard by collection or publication, including Das wohltemperirte Clavier, the “English Suites,” the “French Suites,” Das Orgelbüchlein, the Clavierübung Parts I-IV, and Die Kunst der Fuge. Questions for consideration will include ornamentation, national style, sources, tempi, and editions. A proportion of each class will be spent listening to Bach's keyboard music and discussing the formal principles of design in relationship to various Baroque forms. 16-HILT-846 (3 G): Twentieth-Century Advanced Topics: Opera and Cinema (Joe, TH 11:00-12:20). This course examines multivalent relationships between opera and cinema-aesthetic, cultural, historical, ideological, or technical-drawing on theories developed in diverse disciplines, such as cinema studies, psychoanalysis, and gender studies as well as music. Course readings will be selected from the writings of various composers and scholars, e.g., Richard Wagner, Arnold Schoenberg, Theodor Adorno, Marcia Citron, and Susan McClary. The works to be analyzed range from such films as Charlie Chaplin's Burlesque of Carmen and Zeffirelli's Callas Forever to such operas as Berg's Lulu and Philip Glass's La Belle et la bête. 16-HILT-982 (4 G): Seminar in Musicology: The Culture of Music in Late Eighteenth-Century Austria (Morrow, W 2:00-4:50). During the late eighteenth century a variety of musical cultures flourished in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. We will take a close look at several of these cultures, in particular those of the Imperial Court Kapelle, the private Kapelle of the aristocracy, the Benedictine Abbey at Melk, and the cities of Salzburg, Prague, and Vienna. Though a close reading of selected primary sources, recent scholarship, and musical compositions, we will examine the ways that patronage, geography, economic circumstances, and local musical traditions helped to shape the creation of musical works. Spring 16-HILT-661 (3 U or G): Composer Topics: George Gershwin and the Nature of Crossover (mcclung, TH 2:00-3:20). The term “crossover” has become common in musical discourse with “crossover artists” and “crossover albums” with “crossover appeal.” This course will survey the prototypical “crossover composer,” George Gershwin. With one foot planted firmly in Tin Pan and Shubert Alleys, and the other gingerly resting in the concert hall, Gershwin forged a career in both vernacular and cultivated music that has become a model for subsequent composers such as Philip Glass, John Corigliano, and Tan Dun. The various dichotomies that Gershwin's career bridged (serious/popular, black/white, jazz/legit, East Coast/West Coast, etc.) will be explored. 16-HILT-661 (3 U or G): Composer Topics: Johannes Brahms (Morrow, MWF 1:00¬-1:50). During his lifetime and in subsequent scholarship, Brahms has at times been labeled a traditionalist, at times a progressive. We will investigate various aspects of his biography from this perspective, looking at his engagement with older musical styles, his role in the New German controversy, and his position in the culture of late nineteenth-century Vienna. After a survey of his compositional output, we will focus on a smaller number of works, including the Fourth Symphony, the Piano Quintet, the German Requiem, and selected Lieder and piano works, for intensive study and stylistic analysis. 16-HILT-844 (3G): Eighteenth-Century Advanced Topics: The Symphonies of Joseph Haydn (Morrow, TH 11:00-12:20). Joseph Haydn wrote symphonies throughout his career, which spanned the most symphony-intense decades in music history. We will examine his symphonies from stylistic, theoretical, and aesthetic perspectives, investigate the ways in which circumstances of performance may have shaped his compositional decisions, and explore his relationship to the music of his contemporaries. 16-HILT-982 (4 G): Seminar in Musicology: Postmodernism and Music (Joe, W 2:00-4:50). The term “postmodernism” has emerged as one of the most frequently used terms to characterize the cultural, intellectual, and socio-political climate of the post-1960s. In the area of music, the postmodern period is characterized by the explosion of compositional innovations-collage, minimalism, operatic experiments, and others. This course explores the aesthetic and ideological backgrounds that motivated musical postmodernism. It also examines how postmodernism and post-structuralism promoted the birth of the “new musicology,” often called the “postmodern musicology.” PRE-REQUISITES 500- and 600-Level Topics Courses Undergraduate: Completion of 16-HILT-111–113 and 211–213 or permission of the instructor. Graduate: Passing grade on the relevant segment of the Music History Placement Exam or relevant segment of Graduate History Review, or permission of the instructor. 800-Level Advanced Topics Courses Undergraduate: These courses are not open to undergraduates. Graduate: Successful completion of Graduate Research and Writing (16-HILT-821) AND passing grade on either the relevant segment of the Music History Placement Exam or Graduate History Review, or permission of the instructor. 900-Level Seminars in Musicology Open to M.M.-Music History and Ph.D.-Musicology students. Students in other doctoral programs by permission of the instructor.