Global Arc

The contrasting careers and oeuvres of the two greatest representatives of the late baroque in music will be considered both individually and comparatively. Prerequisite: a year of theory or instructor's permission.

This course examines over a millennium of music, art, literature, and culture in Venice, using as its lens the theatricality of the city's unique topography, environment, and geographic position. Moving between modern and medieval, from the stage to the street, this course explores the lasting fascination of this ephemeral, implausible place. Topics include: public opera; civic ritual; tourism; Venice in fiction and film. An excursion to Venice will take place over the spring break.

A study of the integration of music, language, and drama through close reading of the seven completed operas of Mozart's maturity. One three-hour class-seminar. Prerequisite: one year of music theory or instructor's permission.

A survey of Beethoven's works, touching in addition upon his life, the music of his contemporaries, and his influence upon later composers. Two 90-minute classes. Prerequisite: a year of theory (105/106) or instructor's permission.

An introduction to Richard Wagner's operas, to Wagner as a revolutionary presence in 19th-century musical and aesthetic thought, to Wagner's theoretical and polemical prose writings, and contemporary writings about him. Three hours. Prerequisite: a year of theory or instructor's permission. Ability to read German helpful but not necessary.

A detailed survey of Russian national and international composers. Topics of discussion and analysis will include magic opera, realism, orientalism, the relationship between composers and poets of the Russian Symbolist era, the World of Art movement and the Ballets Russes, Soviet film music, Soviet arts doctrine, and musical aesthetics (especially as they pertain to authorship and identity). Prerequisites: 105 or permission of instructor. Two 90-minute classes.

This course will help students to develop new approaches as an improviser via transcribing solos of various jazz icons and analyzing their melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic content. We will also implement analytical tools from modern classical music (not typical used in jazz) and discuss how these techniques can be reverse-engineered to create fresh ideas and new modalities in how we organize improvisational scenarios.

We will study Beethoven's thirty-two piano sonatas with a special emphasis on the later ones. The class is centered on theoretical analysis that requires an advanced knowledge of tonal syntax.

Songs and Songwriting will offer undergraduates the opportunity to study songs and songcraft in an intense, supportive small-group workshop. Songs are mysterious musical forms. They can be as simple as nursery rhymes or as complicated as miniature symphonies. They are inherently multidisciplinary, engaging one's ear for language as much as for music. They demand a knack for melody as well as an architectural sense of form and proportion. They rely on timeworn formulas and cliches, but there is no blueprint for writing them; a great song always catches you off guard.

This course presents a cross-disciplinary and multi-modal approach to African music, dance, and culture. Co-taught by a master drummer and choreographer (Tarpaga) and an ethnomusicologist (Steingo), students will explore African and African diasporic performance arts through readings, discussions, listening, film analysis, music performance, and composition.