Music M656 Course Schedule
Music M656
Music Since 1900:
Modernism, Tradition, and the Avant-Garde
Spring 2008
Course Schedule
Table of Contents
Asterisks (*) denote readings and listening excerpts about which you are
to write in your journal. The writing assignments are informal and are to be
written in your journal. Because the writing assignments will
be discussed in class, they cannot be accepted late. See the
journal webpage
for detailed instructions on the journal.
Use the "listening:" links below to
access the listening assignments through Variations2 or to obtain more
information on the assigned recordings, including full names and titles,
performers, and call numbers for the CDs and scores.
WEEK ONE
Tuesday, January 8
introduction to the course: goals and syllabus
modern music, modernism in music, and what makes music modern
Thursday, January 10
the origins of modernism in the nineteenth-century concert hall
historicism, emulation, and progressivism in modern music
WRITING ASSIGNMENT (in your journal):
- According to William Weber's article (below), what was the chain of
events that led to the establishment of a permanent repertoire of musical
classics in the nineteenth century?
reading:
- the syllabus and journal webpage (for your
own peace of mind, please read these and ask questions now)
- William Weber, "Mass Culture and the Reshaping of
European Musical Taste, 1770-1870," International Review of the
Aesthetics and Sociology of Music 8 (June 1977): 5-22.
- *J. Peter Burkholder, "Museum Pieces: The Historicist Mainstream in
Music of the Last Hundred Years," Journal of
Musicology 2 (Spring 1983): 115-34.
WEEK TWO
Tuesday, January 15
Schoenberg (1): from tonality to atonality
reading:
- Arnold Schoenberg, "National Music (2)," in Style and Idea:
Selected Writings of Arnold Schoenberg, ed. Leonard Stein, trans. Leo
Black (London: Faber & Faber, 1975), 172-74. [RESERVE: ML 60 .S33
1975]
- *Arnold Schoenberg, "Brahms the Progressive," in Style and Idea,
398-441 (with notes on p. 532). [RESERVE: ML 60 .S33 1975]
- *Ethan Haimo, "Schoenberg and the Origins of Atonality," in
Constructive Dissonance: Arnold Schoenberg and the
Transformations of Twentieth-Century Culture, ed. Juliane Brand and
Christopher Hailey (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997),
71-86. [RESERVE: ML 410 .S28 C66]
listening:
- Schoenberg, "Erwartung," Op. 2, No. 1
- *Schoenberg, 15 Poems
from "The Book of the Hanging Gardens," Op. 15
Thursday, January 17
Schoenberg (2): atonal works
Erwartung and amotivic atonality
Pierrot Lunaire and "composing with the tones of a motive"
reading:
- Arnold Schoenberg, "Two Letters to Ferruccio Busoni," in Morgan,
13-19.
listening:
- *Schoenberg, Erwartung, Op. 17, Scenes 1-3
- *Schoenberg, Pierrot Lunaire, Op. 21, Part I (nos. 1-7)
Schoenberg (3): Schoenberg the Reactionary
the logic, purpose, structure, and meaning of twelve-tone music
analysis and discussion of the Piano Suite and Fourth Quartet
reading:
- Arnold Schoenberg, excerpts from "Composition with Twelve Tones,"
in Morgan, 85-96.
- *J. Peter Burkholder, "Schoenberg the Reactionary,"
in Schoenberg and His World, ed. Walter Frisch (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1999), 162-91. [RESERVE: ML 410 .S28 S36]
listening:
- *Schoenberg, Klaviersuite [Piano Suite], Op. 25
- Schoenberg, Fourth String Quartet, Op. 37, first movement
Thursday, January 24
Webern: musicology, organicism, and "The Path to the New Music"
those left out of the canon, and why: forming groups for group
presentations
listening:
- Webern, Three Little Pieces for Violoncello and Piano, Op. 11
- *Webern, Symphony, Op. 21
WEEK FOUR
Tuesday, January 29
JOURNALS DUE
the rhetorical and the organic: Alban Berg and the possibility of
popularity
imitations of tonality and of traditional musical types:
how can something sound tonal and not be tonal?
reading:
- J. Peter Burkholder, "Berg and the Possibility of
Popularity," in Alban Berg: Historical and Analytical Perspectives,
ed. David Gable and Robert P. Morgan (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1991), 25-53. [RESERVE: ML 410 .B47 A59]
- *Joseph N. Straus, "The 'Anxiety of Influence' in
Twentieth-Century Music," Journal of Musicology 9 (Fall 1991):
430-47.
listening:
- *Berg, Wozzeck, excerpts: Act I, scenes 1 and 3, and Act III
- Berg, Violin Concerto
Thursday, January 31
a different "path": Richard Strauss, musical rhetoric, and the
survival of tonality
neo-classic, neo-Baroque: reviving/revisiting historical styles
and the vogue for early music as a form of modernism
neo-tonality in Hindemith: what is tonality in the twentieth
century, anyway?
listening:
- *Strauss, Salome, conclusion
- Strauss, Ariadne auf Naxos, Vorspiel, opening
- Hindemith, Kammermusik No. 5, Op. 36, No. 4, first movement
- *Hindemith, Mathis der Maler Symphony, first movement
WEEK FIVE
Tuesday, February 5
FIRST EXAMINATION
symbolism and symmetry: Debussy and Scriabin
reading:
- Claude Debussy, "Three Articles for Music Journals," in Morgan,
161-66.
listening:
- Debussy, "Nuages," from Nocturnes
- *Debussy, La Mer
- Debussy, "Voiles" and "La Cathédrale engloutie,"
from Preludes, Book I
- Scriabin, Prelude, Op. 48, No. 1, and Prelude,
Op. 74, No. 3
WEEK SIX
Tuesday, February 12
Stravinsky from The Rite of Spring through neo-classicism
reading:
- Igor Stravinsky, excerpts from Poetics of Music, in Morgan,
24-30.
- *Edward T. Cone, "Stravinsky: The Progress of a
Method," Perspectives of New Music 1/1 (Fall 1962): 18-26.
- *Scott Messing, "Polemic as History: The Case of
Neoclassicism," The Journal of Musicology 9 (Fall 1991): 481-97.
listening:
- *Stravinsky, Le Sacre du Printemps
- Stravinsky, Symphony in C, first movement
- *Stravinsky, The Rake's Progress, Act II, Scene 2
Thursday, February 14
Bartók: integrating peasant and classical traditions without
compromising the distinctive traits of either
reading:
- *Béla Bartók, from "Two Articles on the Influence of
Folk Music," in Morgan, 166-72.
listening:
- Bartók, Mikrokosmos, nos. 123, 141, and 148
- *Bartók, Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta
WEEK SEVEN
Tuesday, February 19
JOURNALS DUE
Charles Ives and the European mainstream: the "peripheral" composer
as a measure of the central intellectual issues of the first four
decades of the twentieth century
Ives and autobiographical music: capturing in music a present-day
scene, a memory of long ago, an experience of the spirit
WRITING ASSIGNMENT:
- Write a brief essay, ca. 800 words, comparing the approaches
of Bartók and Ives to the problem of writing art music in the
classic-romantic tradition that makes significant use of national or
regional materials. Draw on the readings for today and last Tuesday,
and use examples from the listening list to illustrate
your points. (Make sure you have read the readings and done the listening
for both days before you write!)
reading:
- Charles Ives, excerpt from the Epilogue to Essays Before
a Sonata, in Essays Before a Sonata, The Majority, and Other
Writings, ed. Howard Boatwright (New York: W. W. Norton, 1970), 75-82.
[RESERVE: PS 3517 .V3 E78 1970]
- Charles Ives, "Music and Its Future," in Morgan, 64-69.
- J. Peter Burkholder, "Ives and the Nineteenth-Century European
Tradition," in Charles Ives and the Classical Tradition, ed.
Geoffrey Block and J. Peter Burkholder (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1996), 11-33 (notes on 152-56). [RESERVE: ML
410 .I95 C35]
listening:
- Ives, Symphony No. 3, third movement
- Ives, The Unanswered Question
- *Ives, The Fourth of July
Thursday, February 21
other American modernists: George Gershwin, William Grant Still,
Ruth Crawford Seeger, and Aaron Copland
reading:
-
William Grant Still, from "Horizons Unlimited," in Morgan, 151-53.
- *Judith Tick, "Dissonant Counterpoint Revisited:
The First Movement of Ruth Crawford's String Quartet," in A
Celebration of American Music: Words and Music in Honor of H. Wiley
Hitchcock, ed. Richard Crawford, R. Allen
Lott, and Carol J. Oja (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1990),
405-22. [RESERVE: ML 200 .C44]
listening:
- Gershwin, Preludes for Piano
- *Still, Afro-American Symphony, first movement
- *Crawford, String Quartet
- Copland, Piano Variations
WEEK EIGHT
Tuesday, February 26
two mid-century masters: Britten in England, Messiaen in France
reading:
- Mervyn Cooke, "Owen, Britten and Pacifism," in Britten: War
Requiem (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1996), 1-19. [RESERVE: ML 410 .B83 C76]
listening:
- *Britten, War Requiem, Requiem aeternam and Dies irae
- *Messiaen, Quartet for the End of Time, movements I and V
SECOND EXAMINATION
the avant-garde and experimental traditions before the Second World War
Satie, Thomson, and the deflation of Romantic aspiration
Ives, Cowell, and exploration of new musical resources
WRITING ASSIGNMENT:
- Write a brief essay, no more than 500 words, in which you summarize
Gillmor's article and explain how Satie's Trois Gymnopédies
and Embryons desséchés exemplify the "avant-garde" as
Gillmor describes it.
reading:
- Jean Cocteau, excerpt from "Cock and Harlequin," in Morgan, 20-24.
- Erik Satie, excerpts from Memoirs of an Amnesiac,
in Morgan, 215-17.
- Alan M. Gillmor, "Erik Satie and the Concept of the Avant-Garde,"
Musical Quarterly 69 (Winter 1983): 104-19.
listening:
- Satie, Trois Gymnopédies
- Satie, Embryons desséchés
- *Thomson, Four Saints in Three Acts, excerpt from Act III
- Ives, Scherzo: All the Way Around and Back
- Cowell, The Tides of Manaunaun
- *Cowell, The Banshee
Thursday, March 6
the liberation of sound: futurism, Varèse, and electronic music
the post-electronic orchestra: music of texture and process
reading:
- Ferruccio Busoni, excerpts from Sketch of a New Esthetic of
Music, in Morgan, 51-58.
- *Luigi Russolo, "The Art of Noises," in Morgan, 69-76.
- *Edgard Varèse, "The Liberation of Sound," in
Morgan, 69-76.
- Iannis Xenakis, "Free Stochastic Music," in Morgan, 101-5.
- György Ligeti, excerpt from "Metamorphoses of
Musical Form," in Morgan, 106-14.
listening:
- *Varèse, Intégrales
- Varèse, Poème electronique
- *Xenakis, Pithoprakta
- Penderecki, Threnody
- *Ligeti, Atmosphères
Spring Break
WEEK TEN
Tuesday, March 18
changes: the career of John Cage
post-war serialism and super-serialism in the U.S.A. and Europe
reading:
- John Cage, "Experimental Music," in Morgan, 30-35.
- *Milton Babbitt, "The Composer as Specialist" (published in High
Fidelity as "Who Cares If You Listen?"), in Morgan, 35-41.
- Pierre Boulez, "Tendencies in Recent Music," in Morgan, 76-82.
listening:
- Cage, Amores
- *Cage, Sonatas and Interludes, excerpts: Sonatas I-V, with
First Interlude
- Cage, Etudes Australes, No. 1
- Babbitt, Three Compositions for Piano, No. 1
- *Messiaen, Mode de valeurs et d'intensités
- Boulez, Structures, Book Ia
Thursday, March 20
quotation and neo-romanticism: the uses of history
once more around emulation: is it avant-garde to write like Mahler or
Strauss?
reading:
- *Michael Hicks, "Text, Music, and Meaning in Berio's Sinfonia, Third
Movement," Perspectives of New Music 20 (1981-82): 199-224.
- *John Rockwell, "The Return of Tonality, the Orchestral Audience, and
the Danger of Success: David Del Tredici," in All American Music:
Composition in the Late Twentieth Century
(New York: Knopf, 1983), pp. 71-83. [RESERVE: ML 200.5 .R62]
listening:
- *Berio, Sinfonia, Section III
- *Del Tredici, Final Alice, opening section
minimalism and beyond: Steve Reich, Arvo Pärt, and John Adams
WRITING ASSIGNMENT:
- Write a brief essay, no more than 800 words, in which you contrast the
compositional approaches and philosophy of Milton Babbitt, John Cage,
David Del Tredici, and Steve Reich. Of these four
composers, whose approach do you find most appealing, and why?
reading:
- Steve Reich, excerpts from Writings about Music, in Morgan,
115-20.
- *Timothy A. Johnson, "Minimalism: Aesthetic, Style, or Technique?,"
Musical Quarterly 78 (Winter 1994): 742-73.
listening:
- Reich, Come Out
- *Reich, Tehillim parts I and II
- Reich, Different Trains, first movement
- Pärt, Cantus in memory of Benjamin Britten
- *Adams, Harmonielehre, Part I
Thursday, March 27
recent American pragmatists and individuals
reading:
- Eva Rieger, "'I Recycle Sounds': Do Women Compose Differently?," in
Morgan, 145-50.
- *Julie Schnepel, "Ellen Taaffe Zwilich's Symphony No. 1: Developing
Variation in the 1980s," Indiana Theory Review 10 (1989): 1-19.
listening:
- Crumb, Makrokosmos, Volume I, excerpts
- *Zwilich, Symphony No. 1, first movement
- Tower,Silver Ladders
- *Corigliano, Symphony No. 1, first movement
JOURNALS DUE
other recent trends and music in the 1990s (and 2000s?)
reading:
- *Michael Kowalski, "The Exhaustion of Western Art Music,"
Perspectives
of New Music 21 (1982-83): 1-14.
- *Evan Ziporyn, "Who Listens if You Care?," in Morgan, 41-48.
Thursday, April 3
First group presentation
Group Presentations
Final group presentation
Thursday, April 24
the mockery of the past
summaries and reflections, final thoughts and evaluation: where we have
been, what we have seen, what we have missed, and where we want to go
next time
Thursday, May 1, 5:00-7:00 PM
[an earlier alternative or substitute time may be scheduled]
Back to Top
Last updated: 4 January 2008
URL: http://www.music.indiana.edu/som/courses/m656/M656schd.html
Copyright © 1998-2008 by J. Peter Burkholder