Music 111: Introduction To Music
Spring 2016 (M-W-F, 11:00-11:50)
Steve Saunders
Office: 235 Bixler
Phone: x5677; e-mail: sesaunde
Class Homepage: http://www.colby.edu/music/saunders/MU111
Class Moodle Page: https://moodle.colby.edu/course/view.php?id=8311 (e-reserves)
Office Hours: MW 9:00-10:00 (but drop by any time!)
Overview
Music 111 is an overview of Western art music from the earliest surviving examples of
notated music through classical compositions of the present. The first two weeks of the
course furnish an introduction to fundamentals of music theory and develop a technical
vocabulary for discussing music. The remainder of the course unfolds chronologically,
dividing into 6 units covering the so-called Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, Classical,
Romantic, and Modern/Post-Modern periods.
Music 111 is, in part, a history course: you will study composers' biographies and the
cultures in which various musical compositions arose. Yet the emphasis in this course
will be less on facts about music, than on musical works themselves--above all on
music's mysterious power to move us as listeners. This means that much of the time you
devote to the course will be spent in an activity that should be enriching, and often,
thrilling: listening to some of the greatest masterworks of Western music. It also means
that you will be forced to rely on skills that you may not have used in a college-level
course before. While conventional study skills will come in handy in this course, it will
be equally critical for you to develop your ability to listen analytically to music. In other
words, plan on spending lots of time listening!
Textbook Purchases
•
Wright, Craig, Listening to Music, 6th ed. (Minneapolis: West Publishing, 2011)
•
Wright, Craig, 5-CD Set to accompany Listening to Music, 6th ed.
The purchase of the CD set is required. You will be required to identify and analyze most of the
works in the set. Besides, by the end of the term you won't be able to live without a recording of
the Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique.
1
Requirements and Evaluation
You will integrate information from a variety of sources in MU111: from lectures, from
assigned readings in the text and on e-reserve, from listening assignments on the textbook
CDs, and from other listening assignments available as streaming audio from our class
webpages, http://www.colby.edu/music/saunders/MU111. The web-based assignments
will guide your listening to assigned works, augment information from the text or
lectures, and help you to improve your listening skills. You are responsible for all
assigned reading and listening on exams. You may also want to use the study aids on our
class web page. Your grade will be based on:
1. Scores from four hour exams (60%).
The listening portion of the exams will contain some identification questions
(i.e., identifying the composer and work after hearing an excerpt, not always
the beginning!). There will also be questions that allow you to demonstrate
your increasing awareness of music's style, form, salient melodic and harmonic
features, etc. Be certain to work through the listening exercises in the text and
CDs carefully.
2. The score on a final exam (30%). The final is cumulative.
3. Concert requirement (10%).
See detailed description on the following page.
Attendance
Regular attendance is crucial to your success; you are responsible for obtaining lecture
notes for any missed lectures. Powerpoint presentations are also available from the class
webpage. I will generally allow one make-up exam per student for hour exams missed
because of athletic trips, illness, or personal emergencies, provided that you notify me by
the class before the exam. There are no excused absences from the final exam. Please
turn off cell phones before coming to class—the penalty is that I get to answer if it rings
or see whom you’re texting.
Academic Honesty
Plagiarism and cheating are serious offences and can result in your dismissal from the
course with a failing grade. The library has valuable resources about common forms of
academic dishonesty:
(http://libguides.colby.edu/content.php?pid=446871&sid=3788970)
2
Concert Requirement
A. CONCERT ATTENDANCE: Attendance at five concerts. Four of the concerts
should be of Western Art Music; you will receive a copy of the Colby Concert
Calendar early in the semester and updated lists later in the semester. The fifth
concert can be of any type music. You can also count one concert in which you
are a performer. You receive credit for the five concerts by turning in a program
that includes your name and, in the margins, brief notes on one or two salient
features of each work on the concert. See me if you attend a concert for which
there is no program.
B. CONCERT REPORT: Select a single work (or movement) that you particularly
enjoyed from one of the concerts. With my OK, you can also choose a recorded
work, as long as it is one that we have not studied. The ideal length is a work
that lasts 3-7 minutes. Listen to the piece in several performances; follow a
score if you read music. Then write a 3-4 page (double-spaced) essay about the
work modeled on the treatment of works in the Wright text.
Your paper should have two parts:
1) A brief historical introduction to the composer, the background of the work;
and/or the historical context. Avoid plagiarism: be sure to footnote all your
sources; do not use sources from the web without evaluating their quality.
Begin by consulting the major scholarly encyclopedia for music the Grove
Dictionary of Music and Musicians (available online via “Oxford Music
Online”): http://0-www.oxfordmusiconline.com.library.colby.edu
2) a listening guide to the piece that captures what you hear in the piece that
seems important to convey to other listeners. Your listening guide should
identify the recording that you used and include timings. It can be similar to the
ones found in the Wright text. Exemplary reports typically:
•
•
•
•
Clarify the overall form of the piece;
Divide the work into logical sections;
Make note of important structural features (e.g., returns of major themes;
variation; climaxes; tempo changes, transitions; sequences, etc.);
Use technical musical terms accurately.
Concert report is due at the last class meeting of the semester.
3
Music 111: Course Syllabus
DATE
TOPIC
ASSIGNMENT
(To be completed before each lecture)
A Vocabulary for Music
W Feb. 3
F. Feb. 5
Music, Why Bother?
Music's Temporal Dimension:
Rhythm, Meter, and Tempo
M Feb. 8
Music's Horizontal Dimension:
Intervals, Scales, and Melody
W Feb. 10
Music's Vertical Dimension:
Harmony, Tonality, and Texture
F Feb. 12
Other Musical Parameters:
Color, Dynamics, and Form
M Feb. 15
Exam 1: Musical Vocabulary
_________________
Read Syllabus/Visit Web Page
Wright: 2-7; 12-21
L: Exercise 2, pp. 18-19 (Intro
CD pkged with text/track #4)
MU 111, Assignment #1 (on
class web page/library CD)
Wright: 22-33
L: Exercise 3, pp. 25-26 (Intro
CD pkged with text/track #6)
MU 111, Web Assignment #2
Wright: 34-40 ; 56-58 (reread
26-28)
L: MU 111, Web Assignment #3
Wright: 41-55; 59-64
L: Exercise on p. 64 (Mouret,
Intro CD/track 27)
MU 111, Web Assignment #4
_________________
Music in Medieval Europe
W Feb. 17
Chant: Music and Liturgy in the Middle Ages
Alternate assignment for Unit 1 Due
F Feb. 19
The Beginnings of Polyphony:
Organum and the Notre Dame School
M Feb. 22
Machaut and the Ars Nova
4
Wright: 66-71; 76-78
Taruskin: “Persistence”(e-rsrv)
L: All the Ends of the Earth 1/1
O Redness of Blood, 1/2
I Must Sing, 1/7
Wright: 72-73
Taruskin “Notre Dame” (e-rsv)
Bonds, “A History,” (e-reserv)
L: All the Ends, 1/1 (again)
Perotin: Viderunt omnes, 1/3
Wright: 73-76; 79-80
L: MU111, Assignment #5
The Renaissance
W Feb. 24
F Feb 26
M Feb 29
W March 2
F March 4
Renaissance Rebirth: Dufay and His
Contemporaries
"The Notes Must Do as He Wills":
Josquin des Prez and the Music of the
High Renaissance
The Madrigal: Renaissance Sex, Sensuality and
Seduction
Moral Dilemmas and Perfect Art: Palestrina and
Church Music in the Late Renaissance
Exam 2: Medieval and Renaissance
Wright: 78-79 (again); 81-83
L: MU111, Assignment #6
Wright: 83-86 (Exercise #14)
Atlas: Inventions in Style &
Transmission (e-reserve)
L: Ave Maria, 1/9
Wright:89-93 (Exercise #15)
L: MU111, Assignment #7
Wright: 86-89
L: Gloria, 1/10
Agnus Dei, 1/11
_________________
The Baroque Era
M March 7
W March 9
The Early Baroque:
Music in an Age of Excess
Monody, Monteverdi, and the Birth of Opera
F March 11
Instrumental Music of the Baroque and
Stories without Words
M March 14
The Music of J. S. Bach and the
Idea of Artistic Greatness
W March 16
Hallelujah!: The Music of George Frederic
Handel
5
Wright: 94-102
L: MU111 Assignment #8
Wright: 103-115
L: MU 111 Assignment #9
Wright: 116-26 (Exercise #18)
L: Pachelbel Canon, IntroCD, 11
Corelli, Trio Sonata, 1/2124
Vivaldi Concerto, 1/25
Wright: 127-42
(Exercise #20)
L: Awake, 1/30-31, 2/1, 2-2
Brandenburg Cto. 5, 1/27-29
Fugue in g minor, 1/26
Wright:143-51 (Exercise #21)
L: Water Music, 2/3-4
Messiah: He Shall Feed His
Flock, 2/5-6
Hallelujah, Intro-CD/20
The Classical Period
F March 18
Music in the Age of Enlightenment
March 19-27
M March 28
Spring Break
The Sonata and Other Forms of the Classical Era
W March 30
The Joke as Art, or The Music of Franz
Josef Haydn
F April 1
Amadeus: Mozart the Myth/Mozart the Man
M April 4
Exam 3: The Baroque and Classical Eras
Wright: 154-63
L: If You Want to Dance, 2/7
Mozart Horn Cto., 2/14
Emperor Quartet, 2/18-19
_________________
Wright: 168-87
L: Little Night Music, 2/8-10,
and track 11
Symph. #94 (III), 2/12-13
Wright: 163-65; 188-98
L: Assignment #10 includes:
Surprise Sym., II, Intro/25-6
Symphony 88, IV
Wright: 165-67; 198-208
L: Concerto in G, 2/20-22
Notte e giorno, 2/27-28
La ci darem la mano, 2/29-30
_________________
The Romantic Era and Beyond
W April 6
Beethoven: The Composer as Hero
F April 8
Schubert and the Dawn of Romanticism
M April 11
Music, Drugs, and Inspired Madness:
Berlioz and Romantic Program Music
W April 13
The Romantic Piano: Schumann, Chopin, and
Liszt
F April 15
M April 18
No Class
Music as Religion: The Music Dramas
of Richard Wagner
W April 20
Brahms the Conservative?
F April 22
Impressionism in France
M April 25
Exam 4: Romanticism and Impressionism
6
Wright: 209-27
L: Pathétique Sonata, 3/1-3
Symphony #5, 3/4-13
Wright: 228-52 (Ex 30)
L: MU 111 Assignment #11
Wright: 253-66 (Exercise 32)
L: Sym. fantastique, 3/16-17
Romeo and Juliet, 3/18-21
Wright: 267-75
L: Mazurka 4/1
Nocturne in c# minor 4/2
Wild Hunt, 4/3
_________________
Wright: 276-99 (Exercise 34)
L: Verdi, Un di felice, 4/4
Wagner, Liebestod, 4/10-11
Wright: 300-313 (Exercise 37)
L: MU111 Assignment #12
Wright: 318-31 (Ex. #38)
L: Afternoon of a Faun, 5/4-6
Voiles (Sailes), 5/7
Ravel, Rhapsodie esp., 5/8
_________________
From Modernism to Post-Modernism
W April 27
Modernism and the “Crisis of Tonality”
F April 29
M May 2
Colby Liberal Arts Symposium (No Class)
Early Modernism I:
The Music of Igor Stravinsky
Early Modernism II:
3 S's: Schönberg, Serialism, and the Second
Viennese School
Whither Music?
Music in the Post-Modern World
W May 4
F May 6
7
Wright: 313-19; 332-36; 349362
L: Mahler, Symph. #4, 5/1-3
Symphony #5, 5/14-16
Concerto for Orch., 5/17
Putnam’s Camp, 5/18-19
_________________
Wright: 337-43 (Exercise 39)
L: Rite of Spring, 5/9-10
Wright: 343-48
L: MU111, Assignment #13
Concert Papers Due
Wright: 362-79
L: Appalachian Spring, 5/2022
Concerto Grosso, 5/23
Poème èlectronique, 5/24
Short Ride, 5/25
LISTENING REQUIREMENTS FOR EXAMS
Exam #2
Anonymous
Hildegard of Bingen
Coutess of Dia
Perotinus
Machaut
Chant: Vidernunt omnes (All the Ends of the Earth) CD1/1
O rubor sanguinis (O Redness of Blood)
CD 1/2
I Must Sing
CD 1/7
Organum: Viderunt omnes (All the Ends of the Earth) CD 1/3
Je vivroire lement (I Should Lead a Happy Life) LISTENING #5
Notre Dame Mass (Kyrie)
LISTENING #5
also (CD1/4-6)
Dunstable
Dufay
Dufay
Binchois
Josquin des Prez
Josquin des Pres
Weelkes
Gibbons
Arcadelt
Palestrina
Quant en Moy(When I was first visited by Love) LISTENING #5
How Beautiful You Are (Quam pulchra es)
LISTENING #6
Veni creator Spiritus (Come, Creator Spirit)
This Month of May
Veni creator Spiritus
Ave Maria
El grillo (The Cricket)
As Vesta Was from Latmos
Hill Descending
The Silver Swan
The White and Sweet Swan
(Il bianco e dolce cigno)
Missa Papae Marcelli,Gloria and Agnus Dei
8
LISTENING #6
LISTENING #6
Also (CD1/8)
LISTENING #6
CD 1/9
LISTENING #7
LISTENING #7
also (CD1/14)
LISTENING #7
LISTENING #7
CD1/10-11
Exam #3
Gabrieli, G.
Peri
Strozzi
Blow a Trumpet in the New Moon
Far from Your Light
I Want to Die
Monteverdi
Caccini
Grandi
Happy is the Man (Beatus vir)
Amarilli mia bella
O quam tu pulchra es
Monteverdi
Orfeo (3 excerpts)
LISTENING #8
LISTENING #8
LISTENING #8
(also CD 1/18)
LISTENING #8
LISTENING #9
LISTENING #9
(O How Beautiful You Are)
1. Toccata
2. At the bitter news/Thou art dead
3. Powerful spirit
Purcell
Pachelbel
Corelli
Vivaldi
Bach, J. S.
Handel
Mozart
Haydn
When I Am Laid in Earth from
Dido and Aeneas
Canon in D
Trio Sonata in C Major
Concerto in E Maj., "The Spring"
First Movement
Cantata, Awake, a Voice is Calling
(excerpts)
Brandenburg Concerto #5
(1st movement)
Fugue in G minor
Water Music (Minuet & Trio)
Messiah
(He Shall Feed His Flock)
(Hallelujah Chorus)
If You Want to Dance, aria from
The Marriage of Figaro
Horn Concerto, K. 495, III
A Little Night Music
1st and 3rd Movements
Piano Concerto in A Major
1st Movment
“Notte e giorno fatticar” from
Don Giovannni
“La ci darem la mano” from
Don Giovanni
Symphony #94, "The Surprise"
2nd Movement
Symphony #94, "The Surprise"
3rd Movement
Symphony #88 in G Major
4th Movment
String Quartet Op. 76, no. 3
"The Emperor," 2nd Movement
9
LISTENING #9
(also CD 1/15-17)
LISTENING #9
also (CD 1/20)
IntroCD/11
CD 1/21-24
CD 1/25
CD 1/30-31 and
CD 2/1-2
CD 1/27-29
CD 1/26
CD 2/3-4
CD 2/5-6
Intro CD/20
CD 2/7
CD 2/14
CD 2/8-10, 11
CD 2/20-22
CD 2/27-28
CD2/30
LISTENING #10
(also on Intro CD /25-26)
CD2/12-13
LISTENING #10
CD 2/18-19
Exam #4
Beethoven
Schubert
Schumann, R.
Schumann, C.
Berlioz
Tchaikovsky
Chopin
Liszt
Brahms
Wagner
Verdi
Debussy
Ravel
Piano Sonata, Op. 13 "Pathétique"
(1st Movement)
Symphony #5 (complete)
Heidenröslein
Gretchen at the Spinning Wheel
Erlkönig (The Erl-King)
You Ring on My Finger
If You Love For Beauty
CD 3/1-3
Symphonie Fantastique (V)
Romeo and Juliet
Mazurka in Bb Major
Nocturne in C# minor
Transcendental Etude #8, Wild Hunt
Violin Concerto, III
CD 3/16-17
CD 3/18-21
CD 4/1
CD 4/2
CD 4/3
CD 3/4-13
LISTENING #11
LISTENING #11
LISTENING #11
LISTENING #11
LISTENING #11
Also (IntroCD 23)
LISTENING #12
(also CD4/21-23)
Allegro energetico LISTENING #12
Symphony No. 4, IV,
Tristan und Isolde: Liebestod
La Traviata, “Un di felice”
Prelude to The Afternoon of a Faun
Prelude from Bk. I, Voiles (Sails)
Rapsodie espagnole, III
CD 4/10-11
CD 4/4
CD 5/4-6
CD 5/7
CD 5/8
New for Final Exam (in addition to a selection of earlier works)
Mahler
Symphony No. 4 (IV)
CD 5/1-3
Shostakovich
Bartók
Ives
Stravinsky
Schönberg
Copland
Zwilich
Varèse
Adams
Symphony No. 5 (IV)
CD 5/14-16
Concerto for Orchestra (IV)
CD 5/17
Putnam’s Camp, Redding, CT
CD 5/18-19
Le sacre du printemps
CD 5/9-10
(Intro and Augurs of Spring)
The Stars Rejoice” from Gurre-Lieder LISTENING #13
"Speak No More," from The Book
LISTENING #13
of the Hanging Gardens
“Madonna” from Pierrot lunaire
LISTENING #13
Trio from Suite for Piano (1924)
also (CD 5/111)
LISTENING #13
also (CD 5/12)
Appalachian Spring (excerpts)
Concerto Grosso 1985, III
Poème életronique (opening)
Short Ride in a Fast Machine
CD 5/20-22
CD 5/23
CD 5/24
CD 5/25
10