For a variety of reasons, I've decided to overhaul my post-tonal theory class for next semester. First, I like to keep things interesting for me. Second, there are quite a few composers about whom I know very little (and I presume my students know very little), but they are important composers who deserve their day. Third, because a student who took an earlier incarnation of the class wanted to know why we didn't discuss any postmodern music.
We're going to focus on a core repertoire of pieces, roughly one from each decade from about 1940-1950 to the present:
I haven't done any preliminary analytical work on these pieces (I've looked at the Messiaen Quartet over the years, but never did anything substantial with it; the Rochberg was the subject of my master's thesis, and I'm eager to revisit it) and so I hope to have a mutual voyage of discovery with the students.
In the spirit of things interdisciplinary, I'm going to show the Saariaho opera in its entirety and invite students from theatre, dance, and art to come interact with the music students and discuss what aspects of the production are striking and/or relevant to what they do. I really wanted to include an opera in the class for that reason: it's so difficult to analyze because of the many symbols that interact in the work.
I'm going to assign a variety of readings: here, too, things that I probably should have read somewhere along the way but didn't for whatever reason. One of the tricky things about this particular class is that it's cross-listed as undergraduate and graduate. Both obviously have different requirements. I was thinking of having a "sliding scale" of readings: if you're a graduate theory major, read A, B, C, and D; a graduate non-theory major, read A, B, C; an undergraduate theory major, read A and B, and an undergraduate non-theory major read A. Some readings I have in mind include:
I'd happily entertain suggestions for other readings that might be good for the students (and I) to look at.
Finally, many of these composers have very little written about them or their music: that's one of the reasons that I selected many of them. In light of the presentation I saw yesterday, I thought it would be neat to create a wiki for the class and allow the students to add information and analysis as they found it.
The class is officially called Analytical Techniques II, and I thought I would follow that title rather literally: when confronted with an unfamiliar piece of music that doesn't "follow the rules" and about which little has been written, what do we do?
We're going to focus on a core repertoire of pieces, roughly one from each decade from about 1940-1950 to the present:
Messiaen, Quartet for the end of time
Wuorinen, Twelve short pieces for piano
Rochberg, Partita variations
O'Connor, Caprices for violin
Saariaho, L'amour de Loin
I haven't done any preliminary analytical work on these pieces (I've looked at the Messiaen Quartet over the years, but never did anything substantial with it; the Rochberg was the subject of my master's thesis, and I'm eager to revisit it) and so I hope to have a mutual voyage of discovery with the students.
In the spirit of things interdisciplinary, I'm going to show the Saariaho opera in its entirety and invite students from theatre, dance, and art to come interact with the music students and discuss what aspects of the production are striking and/or relevant to what they do. I really wanted to include an opera in the class for that reason: it's so difficult to analyze because of the many symbols that interact in the work.
I'm going to assign a variety of readings: here, too, things that I probably should have read somewhere along the way but didn't for whatever reason. One of the tricky things about this particular class is that it's cross-listed as undergraduate and graduate. Both obviously have different requirements. I was thinking of having a "sliding scale" of readings: if you're a graduate theory major, read A, B, C, and D; a graduate non-theory major, read A, B, C; an undergraduate theory major, read A and B, and an undergraduate non-theory major read A. Some readings I have in mind include:
Lyotard, The postmodern condition
Rochberg, The aesthetics of survival
Wuorinen, Simple composition
readings from Postmodern music/Postmodern thought
various other readings from "hard theory" sources: Lewin, Straus, Kramer, etc.
I'd happily entertain suggestions for other readings that might be good for the students (and I) to look at.
Finally, many of these composers have very little written about them or their music: that's one of the reasons that I selected many of them. In light of the presentation I saw yesterday, I thought it would be neat to create a wiki for the class and allow the students to add information and analysis as they found it.
The class is officially called Analytical Techniques II, and I thought I would follow that title rather literally: when confronted with an unfamiliar piece of music that doesn't "follow the rules" and about which little has been written, what do we do?