Topics Courses and Seminars Offered by the Musicology Faculty

Academic Year 2008–2009

(Times subject to change; see quarterly updates.)

PRE-REQUISITES

Course Level	Undergraduate	Graduate
500- and 600-Level Topics Courses	Completion of 16-HILT-111–113 and 211–213 or permission of the instructor.	Passing grade on the relevant segment of either the Music History Placement Exam or Graduate History Review, or permission of the instructor.
800-Level Advanced Topics Courses	800-level courses are not open to undergraduates.	Successful completion of Graduate Research and Writing (16-HILT-821) AND a passing grade on the relevant segment of either the Music History Placement Exam or Graduate History Review, or permission of the instructor.
900-Level Seminars in Musicology	900-level courses are not open to undergraduates.	Open to M.M.-Music History and Ph.D.-Musicology students. Students in other doctoral programs by permission of the instructor.

Fall

16-HILT-660 (4 U or 4 G). Genre Topics: “Broadway and the Quest for Opera” (mcclung, TH 11:00–12:20, and Sun 6:00–9:00). Although Oscar Hammerstein II quipped that opera was the way that people lost money on Broadway, composers on the Great White Way have nevertheless experimented with melding the genres. This course concerns American musical theater works that have challenged prevailing musico-dramatic norms and made increased musical demands upon the actors, such as requiring a “heightened” or “continuous” singing style or complex ensemble numbers. Nine Broadway operas will be considered in their entirety: Treemonisha, Porgy and Bess, Street Scene, Most Happy Fella, West Side Story, Jesus Christ Superstar, Sweeney Todd, Les Misérables, and Rent.

16-HILT-662 (3 U or 3 G). Genre Topics: Sixteenth-Century Secular Song (Schlagel, TH 2:00–3:20). Unlike the fifteenth century, during which the “international” style of the formes fixes chansons dominated secular song composition, the sixteenth century witnessed the development of a multiplicity of regional secular genres in a variety of tongues. In this course we will sample French, Italian, German, Spanish, and English songs of the sixteenth century with an aim toward identifying stylistic similarities and differences. We will also consider secular song in the context of contemporary literary trends, the rise of print culture, and the growing sense of national identity in early modern Europe.

16-HILT-846 (3 G). Twentieth-Century Advanced Topics: “Minimalism as Musical and Cultural Practice” (Joe, MWF, 9:00–9:50). This course explores compositional aesthetics and techniques of minimalism, focusing on three composers: John Adams, Philip Glass, and Steve Reich. Diverse genres of their work will be examined, including symphony, opera, and multi-media work. Among the issues to be explored are minimalism’s spiritual kinship with Zen Buddhism and Hinduism, its practice of non-linear temporality, and its engagement with popular music. This course also considers socio-cultural, ideological, and commercial issues minimalism addresses, for instance, its relationship to American mass media and advertising, as explored in Robert Fink’s Repeating Ourselves.

16-HILT-982 (4 G). Seminar in Musicology: “Musical Change” (Peattie, W 2:00–4:50). This seminar will explore analytical and socio-cultural aspects of musical change and will focus on the discourse surrounding musical change as well as on case studies. Topics considered will include style and periodization, acculturation, musical change, and hybridity. Case studies will include examples from western and non-western music and will range from a study of processes of musical change and hybridity in contemporary world and popular music, to examples of transnational styles and style change in the Baroque and Medieval periods. The seminar will consider musicological writings on style and periodization as well as ethnomusicological literature on acculturation, processes of musical change and hybridity.

Winter

16-HILT-663 (3 U or 3 G). Music in Culture Topics: “Music and National Identity in the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries” (Morrow). In traditional narratives of music history, music nationalism is often described as the result of newly-emerging national consciousness in the late nineteenth century, particularly on the periphery of Europe. Beginning in the eighteenth century, however, music played the more exciting role of helping to define national identity. This course will explore music’s role in the national histories of France, Italy, and the German-speaking regions of Europe, looking at musical styles, political rhetoric, and the support for composers and musical institutions.

16-HILT-848 (3 G). Music in Culture Advanced Topics: “The Art of Silence: Beyond John Cage” (Joe). “Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter; ...,” wrote John Keats in his poem “Ode on a Grecian Urn.” This course examines the art of unheard melodies—that is, silence—focusing on Cage, Messiaen, Webern, Nono, and Salvatore Sciarrino. We will also trace the art of silence to pre-20^th-century music, such as early Western chant, Haydn’s symphonies, Schumann’s Carnaval, and Boethius’s concept of musica mundana. In addition, the course will explore musical meanings of silence in the broader cultural context, considering the celebration of silence in different cultures, such as Sufi, Indian, and Japanese traditions, and in different artistic areas, including visual art, film, and literature.

16-HILT-8## (3 G). Advanced Topics: Writing a Thesis, Document, or Dissertation” (mcclung). The writing of a thesis, document, or dissertation requires a special combination of skill-sets rarely developed in most classroom settings, such as compiling a comprehensive bibliography, crafting an original topic, preparing a proposal, writing grant proposals, registering a topic, coordinating the writing and revising of chapters, obtaining copyright permissions, and working with a committee of readers. This course is intended for those graduate students near the end of their coursework who are poised to begin such a self-directed project.

16-HILT-982 (4 G). Seminar in Musicology: “Historiography and Ideology” (Morrow). The construction of history has always been shaped by the agendas and ideology of its writers, who have selected their data and crafted their narratives to tell the story they wanted to tell. We will begin with a study of historiographical methods (reading essays by Leopold von Ranke, Hayden White, Lawrence Stone, Leo Treitler, Lydia Goehr, etc.), then will examine and critique historical accounts of eighteenth-century music. Using insights gained from these readings, we will discuss alternative ways of constructing narratives of music history. For their final projects, students may focus on a historical period or genre of their choice.

Spring

16-HILT-661 (3 U or 3 G). Composer Topics: “Scott Joplin and the Politics of Ragtime” (mcclung). This course considers the short and meteoric rise of Scott Joplin and “jig” piano, and will explore how ragged rhythms became a racial marker on the minstrel stage and through black face performance traditions. In addition to surveying the composer's biography, we will analyze the originality of his piano rags, songs, and musical-theater works. Ancillary topics will include the World Columbian Exposition (1893), “School of Classic Ragtime,” women ragtime composers, novelty piano, and the ragtime revival.

16-HILT-663 (3 U or 3 G). Music in Culture Topics: “The New German School and its Legacy” (Kregor). By the middle of the nineteenth century, the small town of Weimar had become the acknowledged capital of the so-called “New German School,” with Berlioz, Liszt, and Wagner at its tripartite head. This course will examine the changing ideologies of the school’s founders and adherents, as well as alternatives—both written and musical—produced by musicians to the south. Particular focus will be given to genres and forms that were practiced during the period, including the symphonic poem, music drama, and programmatic symphony. A consideration of the New German School’s influence abroad and legacy throughout the rest of the century will serve as conclusion.

16-HILT-841 (3 G). Medieval Advanced Topics: “The Dialects of Chant” (Peattie). This course will examine the regional dialects of liturgical chant in the West that flourished before the adoption of the Frankish-Roman or Gregorian dialect as the central repertory. We will consider the music and liturgical sources of the Gallican, Mozarabic, Old Beneventan, and Ambrosian chant repertories. The course will focus on what we can and cannot know about these partially preserved repertories, and consider the problem of reconstructing and gaining access to lost traditions. These repertories will be considered in the context of the Roman and Frankish chant traditions, and the course will examine the relationship between center and periphery in sources and chant historiography. This topic will require students to work extensively with primary sources in facsimile and to read and transcribe a variety of neumatic notations.

16-HILT-844 (3 G). Eighteenth-Century Advanced Topics: “Haydn Symphonies in Context” (Morrow). This seminar-style class will look at Haydn’s symphonies against the background of eighteenth-century conventional practice, using the theories of Leonard Meyer and the analytical system of Hepokoski & Darcy. We will discuss his style, the performance practices and venues associated with his symphonies, his reception by his contemporaries, and his treatment in modern scholarship.

16-HILT-982 (4 G). Seminar in Musicology: “Stephen Sondheim’s Broadway Musicals” (mcclung). The subject of this seminar will be Stephen Sondheim’s sixteen Broadway musicals and the critical issues surrounding his career as a “collaborative dramatist.” The seminar is not intended as a survey of the shows per se; rather we will consider the substantial body of critical discourse that has been written about Sondheim and his compositional process, eclecticism, motivic integration, “long lines,” musical characterization, and dramatization of the music and lyrics.