Courses Offered in Spring 2018 (106AY 2S)

This course focuses on a number of the most significant and controversial issues in the recent scholarship of Romantic music, as well as various trends in 19th-century aesthetics and performance practice. We will complement our discussion of scholarly debates with issues in musicianship such as performance practice. This focus is intended to help students develop independent and critical judgment on these issues, to strengthen their research and academic writing skills, and to sustain these skills with the aid of their performance background.
We will begin by examining critical concepts and issues related to weekly topics and prepare for more in-depth discussion of these issues. Between week 4 and week 16, students will then take turns leading the discussion. You will be assigned one of the required readings and provide the class with a handout, introducing, demonstrating, and evaluating the arguments included in the article in question. Each presenter will decide which repertory to focus on. He or she will also be in charge of selecting a recording of the relevant musical works and providing musical examples for the rest of the class. Presenters are strongly encouraged to demonstrate their points on their major instrument as an alternative to playing a recording. The required reading assignments are due at the beginning of each class meeting. You will be expected to raise questions about, and to provide criticism of, the presenter’s viewpoints.

To practice the basic scholarly skills of reading, writing and editing, and to discuss individual research projects of senior students. Two highlights are the preparation of abstracts for TWMF 2018, and the program of our institute's semester concert.

The Seminar in Performance Practice (or, Performing Practice) is an introductory course on all aspects of the way in which music is and has been performed, with special emphasis on the importance of a historical awareness as a pre-requisite for modern performers. In this comprehensive study, there is no limitation on the kinds of approach to solving interpretational problems, and the basis of the course is to help students reach for a more convincing rendition of the work he or she performs.
The study will require a wide range of reading from historical treatises, critical writings, to present-day discussion on interpretation issues. Actual music will be used for performance studies, and where possible, discography will aid our perspective on the original instrument sound and the various interpretive styles. Students are encouraged, last but not least, to gain first hand experience if at all possible, on some period instruments for important references.

For musicology majors and other students who are interested in independent study, this course will engage historical documents to understand the thinking on music in the early 20th century, especially on the topics of modernism. After the introductory session, which reviews the conceptions of the new and modern in earlier periods (ars nova, musica nuova etc.), the first half of the course will look at the two major regional developments (German, French), and the second half will concentrate on neoclassicism and dodecaphony. Participants will learn to read historical sources and current literature sensitively and critically, and gain experience in academic writing.