Spring 2008

MUSC 850: Proseminar in Musicology
Sonata forms?
Prof. Tim Carter

Sonata “form” has become something of a cause célèbre in recent musicological discourse. Originally, it was considered a neat formal template by which composers, and analysts, might mold individual musical movements; apparent exceptions where the template did not fit would be explained away as composerly license, or even as a sign of genius. Schenker gave this model an additional twist by trying to decipher the musical processes underpinning, and animating, the template. However, as more and more exceptions emerged—and fewer and fewer movements were seen to fit the template—a looser approach was needed. As Charles Rosen famously advocated, sonata form was not a “form” at all, but rather, a principle, or even a style. Thus it became a matter of musical syntax. But syntax implies rhetoric, and rhetoric implies meaning. Thus James Hepokoski and Warren Darcy now speak of “sonata theory” as a question of genre on the one hand, and semiotics on the other, yet they also return to some kind of notion of form.

We shall examine sonata forms in orchestral, chamber, and operatic music of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries to see just how they “work”—if they do—and how they have been construed in the literature. But several more fundamental issues will also emerge. Should we view this music according to the models of its time, or through modernist rose-tinted spectacles? And either way, do we think we are somehow getting into the mind of the composer or not?

MUSC 930: Seminar in Music Theory
Theodor W. Adorno
Prof. Felix Wörner

 Over the last two decades or so, the writings of the German philosopher Theodor W. Adorno (1903-1969) have received increasing attention in Anglo-American musicological discourse. Although far from universally approved, his critical writings on music and modern society, on music and technology, on music and mass culture, and on compositions, composers, works, and on music aesthetics of the Western Art Music remain thought-provoking and relevant for our thinking about music and culture even today, nearly 40 years after his death. Through close reading of selected texts, selected mainly, but not exclusively, from his musical writings, the seminar will introduce participants to Adorno’s main ideas. Readings will be chosen from Essays on Music. Theodor W. Adorno, selected, with introduction, commentary, and notes by Richard Leppert (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002); Philosophy of Modern Music, translated by Anne G. Mitchell and Wesley V. Blomster (New York: Continuum, 1949); Beethoven: The Philosophy of Music, edited by Rolf Tiedemann and translated by Edmund Jephcoll (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998); Towards a Theory of Musical Reproduction: Notes, a Draft, and Two Schemata, edited by Henri Lonitz and translated by Wieland Hoban (Cambridge: Polity, 2006). Further reading, some inevitably in German, will be assigned to participants during the semester. The Adorno biography by Stefan Müller-Doohm (translated by Rodney Livingstone) is highly recommended as a general introduction. Participation includes regular informal presentations in class and a research-based paper to be formally presented to the class.

MUSC 950: Seminar in Musicology
Classical Music during World War II
Prof. Annegret Fauser

Intentionally transnational in its perspective, this seminar explores the intersections between music, politics, and society during World War II (1939-45), focusing on classical music composed, performed, published, and recorded during war years. In using “classical” music, I distinguish the repertoire studied in this seminar from jazz, popular song, and folk music. However, the boundaries between genres were fluid, especially when it came to film music.

We will examine war music in (among others) Britain, France, Germany, Italy, the Soviet Union, and the United States of America. Other issues include music’s use for propaganda and the roles of music in exile, in internment camps, and in concentration camps. In addition to war-time concert life, opera performances, and music-making in other venues (including military bases), we will consider the role of broad-casting, recording and publication of music as well as musicological and critical discourse during the war years. Participants are expected to give short presentations on weekly reading (or research) assignments and to prepare a substantial research-based paper.