Electives Offered by the Musicology Faculty

Spring Quarter 2009

 

16-HILT-571 (0-1 U or 0-1 G). Early Music Lab

 

Sec. 001	(sackbutts & shawms)	MW	12:00–12:50	E3250	Schlagel
Sec. 002	(recorders)	MW	10:00–10:50	E3250	Schlagel
Sec. 003	(advanced viols)	TH	05:00–05:50	E3250	Pappano
Sec. 004	(voices)	MW	12:00–12:50	E3230	Stucky R.
Sec. 005	(beginning viols)	TH	04:00–04:50	E3250	Pappano

 

 

16-HILT-661 (3 U or 3 G). Composer Topics: “Scott Joplin and the Politics of Ragtime” TH 11:00–12:20 (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” TH 02:00–3:20 (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). MWF 01:00–01:50 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. They will be considered in the context of the Roman and Frankish chant traditions, and we 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” MWF 11:00–11:50 (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” W 2:00–4:50 (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.

 

Course Prerequisites

 

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 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 Musicology Seminars	900-level courses are not open to undergraduates.	Open to MM in Music History, PhD in Musicology, and PhD in Theory students. Students in other doctoral programs by permission of the instructor.