MHL 603 – TOPICS IN
MUSIC HISTORY: 20TH AND 21ST CENTURIES
(F-11)
Instructor: John
Spitzer
Email: john.spitzer@notes.sfcm.edu
Class
meets: Wednesday
9:30 -11:50, Room 507
Office
Hours: Tues.-Thurs.
(by appointment), room 405
Website: www.sfcmhistory.com/
Topic 1 – Igor
Stravinsky, Life and works
Aug 31 “Russian” period
Repertory: Petrushka (1),
Rite (1)
Sept 7
“Neo-classicism”
Repertory: Symphonies of Wind Instruments;
Orpheus
Preparation 1 - feedback due Monday Sept 5
Topic 2 – The Rise and
fall of 12-tone music
Sept 14
Classical procedures and terminology
Repertory: Schoenberg, Wind Quintet (mvts. 1, 4); Webern, First Cantata (mvt.
1)
Listening quiz 1 (Stravinsky)
21 Serialism
Repertory: Babbitt, 3 Compositions;
Stockhausen, Kreuzspiel; Stravinsky, In memoriam
Dylan Thomas
Preparation 2 - feedback due Monday Sept 19
Repertory: Berg, Violin Concerto; Copland, Piano
Quartet;
Preparation 3 - feedback due Monday Sept 26
Topic 3 – Experimental Music
Oct 5
What is experimental music?
Repertory: Ives, 3 quarter-tone pieces; Varese, Ionisation; Schaeffer: 5 studies of noise; Cage,
4’33”; Cardew, Great Learning
Listening quiz 2 (12-tone music)
Oct 12 Instrumental techniques and technologies
Repertory: Cowell,
Advertisement, The Banshee; Cage, The Perilous Night; Nancarrow,
Studies; Berio, Sequenza for
Trombone
Preparation 4 - feedback due Monday Oct 10
Repertory: Cage, Concert for Piano and
Orchestra; Scelsi, Maknongan
Preparation 5 - feedback due Monday Oct 17
Topic 4 – 20th-century
opera
Oct 26
The legacy of Verdi and Wagner
Repertory: Berg, Wozzek
Listening quiz 3 (experimental music)
Nov 2 New Dramaturgy
Repertory: Janacek: The House of the Dead
Preparation 6 - feedback due Monday Oct 31
Repertory: Glass, Einstein on the Beach; Ashley,
Perfect Lives
Preparation 7 - feedback due Monday Nov 7
Topic 5 – Art/Pop/Folk
Nov 16 Creating
national music
Repertory: Vaughan Williams, Dives and
Lazarus; Copland, Billy the Kid; Villa Lobos, Choros #7
Listening Quiz 4 (opera)
23
THANKSGIVING
Nov 30 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
Preparation 8 - feedback due Monday Nov 28
Dec 7 Listening Quiz 5
and Final exam