This sample topic proposal illustrates the format and the kind of content expected in the Prospectus and Bibliography in Assignment 3. Your topic, of course, will address music before 1750. Thanks to former Indiana University Associate Instructor John F. Anderies for drafting the proposal from which this has been adapted.
(STUDENT NAME)
Music M401
(AI NAME)
September 24, 2007
Prospectus and Bibliography
Topic:
Foreshadowing in Mahler's Kindertotenlieder and Sixth Symphony
Proposal:
Gustav Mahler believed that his compositions anticipated fate, and that
what he created in music, his life would bring about afterwards. In two
of his works completed in 1904--the Sixth Symphony and his song cycle,
Kindertotenlieder (Songs on the Death of Children)--Mahler seems to
have predicted events in his life to come: in the summer of 1907, Mahler
was forced to resign from his position at the Vienna Opera, his youngest
daughter died, and he was diagnosed with a terminal heart condition. In
Kindertotenlieder, it is mainly the morbid texts that seem to hint
at the death of Mahler's daughter. In the Sixth Symphony, primary and
secondary musical themes portray Gustav and Alma Mahler, respectively.
Likewise, the orchestration of the three anvil strikes in the Finale
corresponds to the three tragic events of 1907, ultimately spelling the
death of the symphonic hero, Mahler himself. Mahler and his wife both
believed these works to have been prophetic, stating such in memoirs
throughout their lives. This paper will demonstrate the parallels
both Alma and Gustav Mahler drew in their memoirs and other writings
between these two musical works and later tragic events, and show that
they considered these two works to be not merely autobiographical, but
particularly prophetic.
One of the questions I hope to raise through this study is what
such beliefs can tell us about the music itself. Should later events
change our understanding of and response to a piece of music, in the same
way that knowledge of a pre-existing program or of earlier events in the
composer's life may do? Or should we resist imposing such meanings
retrospectively, even if the composer did so himself?
Preliminary Bibliography
Bass, Edward. "Counterpoint and Medium in Mahler's Kindertotenlieder."
Music Review 50 (1989): 206-14.
Birchler, David Carl. "Nature and Autobiography in the Music of Gustav
Mahler." Ph.D. diss., University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1991.
Blaukopf, Herta, ed. Gustav Mahler, Richard Strauss: Correspondence
1888-1911. Translated by Edmund Jephcott. London: Faber and
Faber, 1984.
Blaukopf, Kurt. Gustav Mahler. Translated by Inge Goodwin. New York:
Limelight Editions, 1985.
Del Mar, Norman. Mahler's Sixth Symphony: A Study. London: Eulen Books,
1980.
Kennedy, Michael. Mahler. The Master Musicians Series. London: J. M.
Dent and Sons, 1974.
Kravitt, Edward. "Mahler's Dirges for His Death: February 24, 1907."
Musical Quarterly 64 (1978): 328-53.
La Grange, Henri-Louis de. Mahler. New York: Double Day, 1973.
Lewis, Christopher. "La chronologie des Kindertotenlieder." Revue Mahler
1 (1987): 21-45.
Mahler, Alma. And the Bridge is Love. London: Hutchinson, 1958.
________. Gustav Mahler: Memoirs and Letters. Translated by Basil
Creighton. New York: Viking Press, 1946.
________. Forward to Selected Letters of Gustav Mahler, edited by Knud
Martner. New York: Faber and Faber, 1979.
Mahler, Gustav. Symphony VI: A Minor. Forward by Hans Ferdinand Redlich.
New York: Edition Eulenberg, 1968.
Mitchell, Donald. Gustav Mahler: Songs and Symphonies of Life and Death.
Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1985.
Rabinowitz, Peter J. "Pleasure is Conflict: Mahler's Sixth, Tragedy, and
Musical Form." Comparative Literature Studies 18 (1981): 306-13.
Specht, Richard. Introduction to Kindertotenlieder, by Gustav Mahler. London:
Philharmonia, n.d.
Last updated: 17 August 2007
URL:http://www.music.indiana.edu/som/courses/m401/M401stp.html
This page was created and is maintained by J. Peter Burkholder
Copyright © 1997-2007 by J. Peter Burkholder
The proposal and bibliography were drafted by John F. Anderies and
revised by J. Peter Burkholder.