M510:  Women in Music

Spring 2006

Indiana University     School of Music

 

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Listening assignments for works in the Briscoe Anthology can be found online through the music library's Variations project.

Week 1 (1/10 and 1/12)

Introduction and Women in Antiquity

Framing Questions

Readings:  Selections from Musicology and Difference and Feminine Endings (Susan McClary)

One-page summary:  What questions are raised about women in music?  What questions would you like to raise?

Week 2 (1/17 and 1/19)

The Medieval Woman

Reading:  Neuls-Bates, selections 1-6; Bowers and Tick, Chapters 2-3

Listening:  Briscoe, Hildegard of Bingen; Countess of Dia

Musical Autobiography

Prepare a list of women composers and performers in your music collection; reflect on your collection, noting where women are present and absent; select a favorite to share with the class.

Week 3 (1/24 and 1/26)

The Renaissance Woman

Reading:  Neuls-Bates, 7-9; Austern, in Cecilia Reclaimed, pp. 52-69; Bowers and Tick, Ch. 4

Listening:  Briscoe, Anne Boleyn and Maddalena Casulana

Historiography of Women Musicians

Reading:  Choose sections of Arthur Elson and Sophie Drinker

One-page summary:  What are the different perspectives of these two authors?  How do they describe women musicians?  Up until this point, how much of your musical education has included readings on women musicians?  How has the inclusion or exclusion of women in music history affected your own knowledge and interest in women composers?  How do you think most people view women as musicians, especially as composers?

Week 4 (1/31 and 2/2)

Court Musicians and the Seventeenth Century

Reading:  Bowers and Tick, Chapters 5-6

Listening:  Briscoe, Isabella Leonarda

Gender Stereotypes in Music

Rita Steblin, "The Gender Stereotyping of Musical Instruments in the Western Tradition"

One-page summary:  What are the main stereotypes affecting women in western music?  Are any of these stereotypes still apparent in musical education today?  How have you witnessed gender stereotyping in your own experiences?  How might gender stereotypes also affect men?

Week 5 (2/7 and 2/9)

The Caccinis and Barbara Strozzi

Reading:  Neuls-Bates 10; Suzanne Cusick, "Of Women, Music and Power,"  Musicology and Difference, pp. 281-304; Bowers and Tick, Ch. 7

Listening:  Briscoe, Francesca Caccini; Barbara Strozzi

Concepts of Femininity

Linda Austern, "'Alluring the auditorie to effeminancie':  Music and the idea of the feminine in early modern England"

One-page summary:  What are some of the concepts associated with the feminine in Renaissance England?  Have any of these ideas carried over into our time?  What are the philosophical origins of some of these concepts?

Week 6 (2/14 and 2/16)

The Venetian Ospedale and Musical Education

Reading:  Neuls-Bates, 12

Feminism in Musical Scholarship

Choose selections from McClary, Feminine Endings and Citron, Gender and the Musical Canon.  One-page summary:  Compare and contrast the selections you read; do you agree or disagree with the arguments of these scholars?  What would be the ideal relationship between feminism and musical scholarship?

Week 7 (2/21 and 2/23)

Jacquet de la Guerre and Anna Amalie

Reading:  Neuls-Bates, 11; Bowers and Tick, Ch. 8

Listening:  Briscoe, Jacquet de la Guerre and  Suite in D Minor (1707) tracks 31 and 37; and Briscoe, Anna Amalie

Gender in Musical Scholarship

Choose selections from Gender, Sexuality and Early Music and Musicology and Difference.  One-page summary:  Compare and contrast these authors' views on gender in music.  Do you agree or disagree with any of their arguments?  How do (or have) perceptions of gender affect(ed) your own education?  How do your own perceptions of gender affect your approach to musical analysis and performance?

Week 8 (2/28 and 3/2)

Eighteenth-Century Oratorio and Song Composers

Reading:  Neuls-Bates 16; Bowers and Tick, Ch. 9

Listening:  Briscoe, Maria Margherita Grimani

Midterm Exam

Week 9 (3/7 and 3/9)

Late Eighteenth-Century Vienna

Reading:  Neuls-Bates, 14-15

Listening:  Briscoe, Marianne von Martinez, Maria Theresa von Paradis

Nineteenth-Century Vocal Music

Reading:  Neuls-Bates, 22-23; Bowers and Tick, Ch. 9

Listening:  Briscoe, Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, Clara Schumann, “Liebst du um Schönheit”, Pauline Viardot-Garcia

Spring Break:  3/13-3/17

Week 10 (3/21 and 3/23)

Nineteenth-Century Instrumental Music

Reading:  Bowers and Tick, Ch. 10

Listening:  Briscoe, Maria Agata Szymanowska, Louise Farrenc, Clara Schumann

Presentations

Week 11 (3/28 and 3/30)

America in the Nineteenth Century

Reading:  Neuls-Bates, 19-21, 39; Bowers and Tick, Ch. 13

Listening:  Briscoe, Amy Beach

Europe, 1880-1918

Reading:  Neuls-Bates, 24, 46; Bowers and Tick, Ch. 12

Listening:  Briscoe, Cécile Chaminade, Lili Boulanger, Alma Mahler, Ethel Smyth

Week 12 (4/4 and 4/6)

Twentieth-Century British Composers

Listening:  Briscoe, Thea Musgrave, Rebecca Clarke

Presentations

Week 13 (4/11 and 4/13)

Twentieth-Century Continental Europe

Listening:  Germaine Tailleferre, Gracyna Bacewicz

Presentations

Week 14 (4/18 and 4/20)

America Since 1920--Reshaping Traditions

Listening:  Briscoe, Julia Perry, Ellen Taafe Zwilich

America Since 1920--Experimental and Serial Music

Reading:  Bowers and Tick, Ch. 15; Neuls-Bates 48

Listening:  Briscoe, Ruth Crawford Seeger, Vivian Fine, Louise Talma, Pauline Oliveros

Week 15 (4/25 and 4/27)

Gender and Musicology/Presentations