Fall 2009

MUSC 850: Proseminar in Musicology
Renaissance Mantua
Prof. Anne MacNeil

Renaissance Mantua is an introductory, interdisciplinary seminar on the material culture of the Gonzaga court from the marriage of Gian Francesco II and Isabella d’Este (1490) through the reign of Vincenzo I and Eleonora de’ Medici (1612). This was an extraordinarily rich era in the history of Mantua and of northern Italy. It encompasses the first patronage of Italian music and musicians at court; the construction of the Palazzo Tè; the organization of performing forces for the newly-built basilica of Santa Barbara and the Teatro all’antico; the composition of Monteverdi’s first opera Orfeo and his Vespers of 1610; and the first performance of Battista Guarini’s tragicomedy Il pastor fido.

In studying the Gonzaga court, we will focus on working with primary sources—learning to transcribe, translate, and analyze letters, payment records, music, and festival descriptions from photographs of original documents; and learning how to read music from original notation. Writ large, we will seek to understand how the manifestation of durable goods informs our understanding of Renaissance Mantuan music and culture. Topics of discussion will include current scholarship on the Mantuan court; the organization of the court and its workforce; interactions among music, spectacle, literature, architecture, and engineering; the production of wedding festivities and carnival celebrations; the role of women in the creation of culture; Mantuan printers and paper manufacturing; and the representation of Mantuan culture to the outside world. 

Music 850: Proseminar in Musicology
Music and Poetry in the Middle Ages
Prof. Hana Vlohá-Wörner

In the course of the Middle Ages, Latin authors enlarged the liturgical repertory by composing additional chants such as tropes, sequences, versus, rhymed offices among others. Texts of these new chants often reflected ongoing theological discussions as well as changes in the liturgy; their melodies show an extreme variety of styles representing different regions (South and North France, Italy, Central Europe) or, even, schools (St Gallen), and, from the 12th century on, many of them include elements of early polyphonic compositions.

In the seminar, we will focus on ‘case studies’ representing primarily (but not exclusively) 11th and 12th century–Aquitanian repertory. Analyzis of chants as for their musical style and changes during their transmission will be a topic as well as their relationship to the liturgical, theological and historical context.

MUSC 950: Seminary in Musicology
Compositional Process in the Sketches and Scores of Robert Schumann
Professor Jon Finson

As the bicentenary of Robert Schumann’s birth approaches in 2010, musicological conferences across the world are preparing to celebrate his life and music. In preparation for these events we will study how Schumann created his works by examining his compositional process in his symphonies, songs, and chamber music. We will read some of the classic literature on the composer by authors such as Hallmark, Newcomb, Hoeckner, and many others. We will also explore and transcribe the composer’s autograph scores and sketches in facsimiles and microfilms held in the Music Library’s and my private collections. Classroom reports and projects will give practice in preparing a term paper that students may use for scholarly presentations and publications.

Music 970: Seminar in Ethnomusicology
Ethnomusicology and the African Diaspora
Professor David F. García

African cultures and music formed an integral part in the emergence of musical cultures in the Americas. The music of the Americas has similarly shaped much of African music since the nineteenth century. These musical traditions and ongoing exchanges throughout Africa and the Americas articulate in many ways a complex reality that populations have shared based on experiences of racial discrimination and empowerment. These historical, social, political, and cultural processes constitute the African diaspora.

This seminar will examine the African diaspora as it pertains to its varied music traditions and its musicological and ethnomusicological scholarship. The class will study early and contemporary theoretical literature of the African diaspora written by W.E.B. DuBois, Erich M. von Hornbostel, Melville Herskovits, Fernando Ortiz, Richard Waterman, Frantz Fanon, Amiri Baraka, Paul Gilroy, Kofi Agawu, and Samuel Floyd. We will also examine representative case studies by Eric Lott, Guthrie Ramsey, Veit Erlmann, Gage Averill, Robin Moore, Peter Wade, Ronald Radano, Ingrid Monson, Katherine Hagedorn, Eric Porter, John Gennari, David Garcia, and Heidi Feldman. In addition we will study the relevant work of Jean-Paul Sartre, Homi Bhabha, Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and others to inform our critique of the readings above. (Please note that some of these readings may change.)

Term projects might range from original research papers on relevant musical repertories to detailed intellectual histories of important theoretical paradigms and methods of study.