MHL 603 – TOPICS IN MUSIC HISTORY: 20^TH AND 21^ST CENTURIES

Instructor: Luciano Chessa

Email: lucianochessa@yahoo.com

Class meets: Wednesdays, 9:30-11:50, Room 507

Office Hours: Wednesdays (by appointment) Room 546

Website: www.sfcmhistory.com/

Topic 1 – Igor Stravinsky, Life and Works

Jan 18 Intro

“Russian” period

Repertory: Petrushka (1), Rite (1)

Viewing: Rite (Joffrey), Petrushka (Paris Ballet)

Jan 25 “Neo-classicism”

Repertory: Symphonies of Wind Instruments; Orpheus

Reading: Taruskin on Rite (OHWM); Hamm on Petrushka

Viewing: Final Chorale

Prep 1 due on Monday Jan 23 (Taruskin and Hamm)

Feb 1 Later years

Repertory: Agon

Reading: Edward Cone, “Stravinsky, Progress of a Method“

Viewing: Agon (NYC Ballet)

Prep 2 due on Monday Jan 30 (Cone)

Topic 2 – The Rise and fall of 12-tone music

Feb 8 Listening quiz 1 (Stravinsky)

Classical procedures and terminology

Repertory: Schoenberg, Wind Quintet (1), Webern, First Cantata

Feb 15 Serialism

Repertory: Babbitt, 3 Compositions; Stockhausen, Kreuzspiel; Stravinsky, In memoriam Dylan Thomas

Reading: Schoenberg, “Composition with 12 Tones”

Boulez: “Schoenberg is Dead”

Prep 3 due on Monday Feb 13 (Schoenberg and Boulez)

Feb 22 Free treatment

Repertory: Berg, Violin Concerto ; Copland, Piano Quartet; Stravinsky, Agon

Reading: Jennifer DeLapp-Birkett, “Aaron Copland and politics”; Shostakovich: “Music and the times”

Prep 4 due on Monday Feb 20 (DeLapp-Birkett and Shostakovich)

Topic 3 – Experimental Music

Feb 29 Listening quiz 2 (12-tone music)

What is experimental music?

Repertory: Ives, 3 quarter-tone pieces; Schaeffer: 5 studies of noise; Cage, 4’33”

March 7 Instrumental techniques and technologies

Repertory: Cowell, Advertisement, The Banshee; Cage, The Perilous Night; Nancarrow, Studies; Berio, Sequenza for Trombone

Reading: Cage, “Experimental music”

Cameron, “Experimental music”

Prep 5 due on Monday March 5 (Cage and Cameron)

March 14 Improvisation and chance

Repertory: Scelsi, Maknongan (versions for double bass, B flat bass-tuba, bassvoice); Cage, Concert for Piano and Orchestra;

Reading: Rzewski, “Little Bangs”

Viewing: Casa Scelsi

Prep 6 due on Monday March 12 (Rzewski)

Topic 4 – 20^th-century opera

March 26 Listening quiz 3 (Experimental music)

Traditional dramaturgy in the 20^th century

Berg, Wozzeck

Viewing: Wozzeck

April 4 New dramaturgy

Janacek: From the House of the Dead

Reading: Excerpt from Dostoyevsky’s “House”

Viewing: From the House of the Dead

Prep 7 due on Monday April 2 (Dostoyevsky)

April 11 Opera?

Philip Glass: Einstein on the beach (excerpts); Robert Ashley: Perfect Lives (excerpts),

Reading: Rockwell “Post-cagean Experimentation & New Kinds of Collaboration” and “The Orient, the Visual Arts & the Evolution of Minimalism”

Viewing: Perfect Lives (TV version)

Prep 8 due on Monday April 9 (Rockwell)

Topic 5 – Art/Pop/Folk

April 18 Listening Quiz 4 (Opera)

Creating national music

Repertory: Copland, Billy the Kid; Villa Lobos, Choros #7

April 25 Folk & pop as the route to modernism

Repertory: Bartok, Improvisations, Op.20; 5^th quartet; Ives, Putnam’s camp; Crumb: Wayfaring Stranger (2); Bolcom, Innocence and Experience

Reading: Bartok: “Influence of Peasant Music”

Constant Lambert, “Nationalism and the modern scene”

Prep 9 due on Monday April 23 (Bartok and Lambert)

May 2 Listening Quiz 5 and Final exam