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

(F-08)

 

Instructor:                    John Spitzer

Email:                          jspitzer@sfcm.edu

Class meets:             Wednesday 9-11:20, Room 507

Office Hours:              Thursday (by appointment), room 405

Website:                     www.sfcmhistory.com/

 

 

Topic 1 – Igor Stravinsky, Life and works

 

Sept  10                     “Russian” period

Repertory: Petrushka; Rite

                       

Sept  17                     “Neo-classicism”

Repertory: Symphonies of Wind Instruments; Orpheus

Prep 1 due Mon 9/15

                       

Sept 24                      Later years

Repertory: Agon

Prep 2 due Mon

 

 

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

           

Oct     1                       Classical procedures and terminology

Repertory:  Schoenberg, Wind Quintet; Variations Op. 31; Webern, First Cantata

Quiz 1 (Stravinsky)

 

 Oct    8                       Serialism

Repertory:  Babbitt, 3 Compositions; Boulez, Structures Ia; Copland, Piano Quartet; Stravinsky, In memoriam Dylan Thomas

Prep 3 due Mon

                                                           

Oct   15                       Free treatment

Repertory: Berg, Violin Concerto ; Stravinsky, Agon; Dallapiccola, Piccola musica notturna

Prep 4 due Mon

 

 

Topic 3 – Experimental Music

 

Oct  22                        What is experimental music?

Repertory: Ives, 3 quarter-tone pieces; Schaeffer: 5 studies of noise; Scelsi, String quartet; Feldman, Rothko Chapel; Cage, 4’33”

Quiz 2 (12-tone music)

 

Oct  29                        Instrumental techniques and technologies

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

Prep 5 due Mon

                                                                                   

Nov  5                        Chance and improvisation

Repertory: Cage, Concert for Piano and Orchestra; Cage, Variations VII; Cardew, Treatise; Scelsi, Suite #9

Prep 6 due Mon

 

 

Topic 4 – 20th-century opera

 

Nov  12                       The legacy of Verdi and Wagner

                                    Repertory: Puccini, Madama Butterfly; Berg, Wozzeck   

                                    Quiz 3 (experimental music)

 

Nov 19                        Words and music

Repertory: Debussy,  Pelleas et Melisande (III/ii,iii,iv); Janacek: From the House of the Dead (act 2 excerpt)

Prep 7 due Mon

 

Nov 26                        Epic theater

Repertory: Weill, Mahagonny; Glass, Einstein on the Beach

Prep 8 due Mon

 

 

Topic 5 – Art/Pop/Folk

           

Dec  3                         Creating national music

Repertory: Vaughan Williams, Dives and Lazarus; Copland, Billy the Kid; Villa Lobos, Quintette        

                                    Quiz 4 (opera)

 

Dec 10                       Folk & pop as the route to modernism

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

Prep 9 due Mon

 

Dec 17                       Qulz 5 (art/pop/folk) and  Final exam