MHL 607 - TOPICS IN MUSIC HISTORY
(S-09)
These are the readings that will be assigned over the course of the semester. You'll find xeroxes in binders on reserve in the library. In addition I've posted a PDF of each reading on this website. Click on the links below to access them.
Topic 1 – Igor Stravinsky, Life and works
Edward T. Cone, “Stravinsky: The progress of a
method,” in Perspectives on Schoenberg and Stravinsky
(ed. Boretz and Cone, 1972), 155-194.
Charles Hamm, “The Genesis of Petrushka,” in Igor Stravinsky, Petrushka, An Authoritative Score . . . (ed. Charles Hamm, 1967),
3-20.
Richard Taruskin, “The Rite of Spring,”
in Richard Taruskin, The
Topic 2 – The Rise and fall of 12-tone music
Arnold Schoenberg, “Composition
with twelve tones,” in Classic Essays
on 20th-century Music (ed. R. Kostelanetz & J. Darby, 1996), 233-264. (1st published, 1950)
Dmitri Shostakovitch, “Music and the times,” in Contemporary Composers on Contemporary
Music (ed. E. Schwartz & B. Childs, 1978), 107-110 (1st
published, 1965)
Jennifer DeLapp-Birkett, “Aaron
Copland and the politics of twelve-tone composition in the early cold war
Pierre Boulez, “Schoenberg is Dead,” in Music
in the Western World (ed. P. Weiss & R. Taruskin, 1984), 507-509 (1st
published 1952)
Topic 3 – Experimental Music
John Cage, “Experimental music,” in Silence (1961), 67-75.
Brian Eno , “Forward,” in Experimental Music - Cage and Beyond.
Cameron Catherine M. Dialectics
in the Arts: The Rise of Experimentalism in American Music (1996), 1-9
Frederic Rzewski, “Little Bangs: A nihilist theory of
improvisation,” in Audio Culture (ed. C. Cox and D. Warner, 2004), 266-271.
Topic 4 - 20th-century opera
Feodor Doestoevsky , The House of the Dead
(1862), Chapter 9.
Joseph Kerman,
Opera as Drama (1952), “Introduction.”
John Rockwell, “Post-Cageian experimentation & new kinds of collaboration: Robert Ashley,” in All-American Music (1983), 96-108.
Topic 5 – Art/Pop/Folk
Béla Bartók, “The influence of peasant music on
modern music,” in Schwarz and Childs (1967), 72-79. (1st published,
1931).
Constant Lambert, “Nationalism and the modern scene,”
Music Ho! (1936/1966), 151-163.