MUS 131A Fall 2018 History of Music I: Ancient through Early Baroque Professor Karen Desmond

Size: px

Start display at page:

Download "MUS 131A Fall 2018 History of Music I: Ancient through Early Baroque Professor Karen Desmond"

Cori Boyd
5 years ago
Views:

MUS 131A Fall 2018 History of Music I: Ancient through Early Baroque Professor Karen Desmond (kdesmond@brandeis.edu) The charivari in the Roman de Fauvel, BnF fr.

1 MUS 131A Fall 2018 History of Music I: Ancient through Early Baroque Professor Karen Desmond The charivari in the Roman de Fauvel, BnF fr. 146, folio 34r (copied Paris, c ) Class times: Mondays and Wednesday, 2:00-3:20 PM, Slosberg Rm 215. Office hours: Mondays and Wednesdays, 1-2pm, or by appt. Slosberg Rm 222. TA: Christina Dioguardi This class is a survey of music history from the early Middle Ages to the beginning of the 17th century, considering major styles, composers, genres, and techniques of musical composition from a historical and analytical perspective. LEARNING OUTCOMES 1. You will have an in-depth knowledge of the content, techniques, and style of specific Western European repertoires from the Middle Ages to the early 17th century; 2. You will be able to identify significant features of these repertoires through listening and examination of scores, and to apply the appropriate technical terminology and analytical techniques within oral and written narrative descriptions and analyses of this music;

2 2 3. You will be able to communicate on the intersections between cultural, social, and political landscapes and artistic artifacts and activity, and the value of these artifacts and activities to particular societies; 4. You will be able to write a lengthy research paper with scholarly rigor, integrating previous scholarship with your own analytical observations and interpretations of medieval and Renaissance repertoires, either at the level of close reading of particular works, or a stylistic assessment of a larger repertoire. You will also learn to use the resources of a university research library. REQUIREMENTS It may appear that there are many requirements for this class, however, these requirements have been carefully planned to ensure cumulative learning throughout the semester and to reduce the need for cramming before lengthy exams or rote memorization. The weekly listening logs encourage the cumulative learning of the repertoire and its style and techniques, and the responses to the reading facilitate full class participation in class discussions and ground your growing understanding of the period s musical style within a larger historical understanding. Your learning of the technical terminology and understanding of medieval and Renaissance musical techniques and style is assessed through regular short in-class quizzes. Class participation is augmented by the opportunity to participate in a performance of a medieval work with a leading international ensemble, and in a musicological research project led by Professor Desmond. There is no final exam; your cumulative knowledge of musical style and its historical context is applied to an intensive written project, which is completed in stages throughout the semester. Quizzes (towards Learning Outcomes 1 & 2): 25% There will be four quizzes (dates noted in the Course Outline and Schedule below) throughout the semester to facilitate and assess the learning of terminology and the development of listening skills. They will consist mostly of short-answer, multiple-choice, and/or word-matching questions, including responses to audio excerpts. The terms and skills to be tested in each quiz will be posted on Latte. Listening Logs (towards Learning Outcomes 1 & 2): 15% Credit/No Credit. If your listening log meets the following requirements you will receive full credit. If not, you will receive no credit. You must submit 10 listening logs over the course of the semester. Each Friday (by 5pm) you will write responses to the listening assigned for that week; these help you focus your thinking about the music repertoires we are studying and expand your knowledge of these repertoires. A prompt will be posted on Latte to focus your response. You will receive credit for your log when you have a made a good faith effort to write something about your reaction to the works assigned, with reference to the terminology and concepts learned in class. Class Participation, including regular attendance and contribution to discussion of readings (towards Learning Outcome 3): 10% Reflection on readings (5% of the 10%): Credit/No credit. Completing the readings prior to the Friday class is required. Before the second class of the week (usually a Wednesday, but sometimes not because of the structure of the Fall Semester schedule), by 10 am, please post on Latte one thoughtful discussion question or observation on the reading(s) for that class. Leading the class discussion (5% of the 10%): One class each week, usually the Wednesday class, two students will lead our discussion of the week s reading. The students will present an overview of main arguments in the reading, propose relevant and thought-provoking discussion questions, and guide the class dialogue for approximately 20 minutes. Each student will lead at least one, and most likely two, class discussions.

3 3 Short Assignment I (towards Learning Outcomes 1 & 3): 10%. Credit/No credit. Participation in the Boston Camerata performance of The Tale of Fauvel: A Political Fable from Medieval France, on Sunday, October 28, 2018, at 4pm at the First Church, Boston on Marlborough St, see #program-25. The music department will cover the cost of your attendance at the concert. This will require learning some music from the Roman de Fauvel to perform at the concert, details to follow. Readings and listening assignments during this week will also focus on the Roman de Fauvel. Brandeis has a free campus shuttle on Sundays to Marlborough St in Boston, which is a minute walk from the performance venue. See the timetable here: Short Assignment II (towards Learning Outcome 2): 5%. Credit/No credit. Participation in a music encoding Encode-athon to be held in the Music Department on Friday November 16-Saturday November 17. Drop-in for an hour or more on either Friday or Saturday (or both days) to learn about the digital encoding of medieval music and to contribute your transcriptions to Professor Desmond s Measuring Polyphony music repository ( More details to follow. Attendance is taken at every class. If you need to miss class due to illness, a family emergency, or for religious observances, you must contact me beforehand via or make prior arrangements with me in class. More than two unexcused absences will affect your class participation mark, dropping the total grade by 1.5% for each unexcused absence. Research Paper (towards Learning Outcomes 1, 2, 3, & especially 4): 35% 2,400 words, submitted in three stages. Submission 1 (5% of the 35%): Close reading of one work (Due October 25 by 5pm) Credit/No Credit. If Draft 1 meets the following requirements you will receive full credit. If not, you will lose the 5%. In the title of your submission, identify the composition you have chosen to focus on from the list in Latte. Locate the modern edition of the piece, and a recording of the work, using the list of resources provided on Latte. Locate the text and translation of the work, using the resources provided on Latte. Submit a scan of the text and translation; and a scan of the modern edition with five significant moments in the score, marked up with numbered boxes. Submit a 500-word narrative description of the work, referring specifically to the five marked-up boxes and using some technical terminology. Submission 2 (10% of the 35%): Situating your chosen work in the larger context (Due November 20 by 5pm) Credit/No Credit. If Draft 2 meets the following requirements you will receive full credit. If not, you will lose the 10%. Submit a 1000-word draft narrative (your bibliography may be included in this word count) on your work that includes the following elements: Identify the genre of your work. Situate your work within the output of the composer (i.e., identify the number of works written by the composer in this genre, and where this work falls within this output). In the case of anonymous works, skip this requirement. Identify other composers also writing works in this same genre during the lifetime of your composer. If your work is anonymous simply identify the number/extent of works written in this genre during this century that this work was composed. Compare and contrast your work with at least one other work in this genre either written by the same composer or written by another composer. Include marked-up scans (with at least 5 marked-up elements) of the two works to accompany this narrative. Propose a thesis statement.

4 4 Final submission (20% of the 35%): Final Paper (Due December 14 by 5pm) Extensions only granted if requested before the due date, with a good justification. If no extension granted, a late paper will go down by one grade level (i.e., an A becomes an A-) each day. Submit your final 2,400-word paper. All papers must be submitted as MS Word or PDF documents, line spacing set at 1.5 lines, in 12-point Times New Roman font, with footnotes and a bibliography, and include illustrative music examples. The citations must be formatted following the Chicago Manual of Style. Your paper should have the following sections: an introduction that clearly has a clear thesis statement (the paper s main argument) and motive, that is, why the paper s key question(s) are interesting and important. a subsection (with an appropriate heading) that provides a close descriptive reading of your chosen work. a subsection (with an appropriate heading) that takes this evidence beyond the work in question, and offers an analysis and interpretation of the evidence. You may explore your work in more depth either by comparing it to at least one other comparable work, and/or situate within a larger repertoire of similar works, and/or contextualize it within the cultural landscape of the time. a conclusion. You will note, of the requirements for this course, if you submit 10 listening logs, attend class regularly, fulfill your participation requirements in the class discussion of the assigned readings, attend the Boston Camerata concert, participate in the Encode-athon, submit drafts 1 and 2 of your research paper, this is worth a full 55% of your final grade. This is a 4-credit course, and as such, you are expected to devote nine hours of work to this class outside of class time (doing assigned readings, listening, and other required work). Textbook This is the required textbook for this course. It is available in the Brandeis book store, used or new, and for rental. It is a score anthology so that you can follow along with the music in class, and study the music before class, while completing the listening assignments. You must bring this score anthology to class each day. Oxford Anthology of Western Music. Volume One: The Earliest Notations to the Early Eighteenth Century, edited by David J. Rothenberg and Robert R. Holzer, Richard Taruskin and Christopher H. Gibbs (Oxford, 2013) ISBN In the Course Outline below, compositions for which scores are not provided in the required Oxford anthology will be handed out in class (marked with an asterisk). Many of the class readings will be taken from the following book, which is available as an ebook through the Brandeis library. Richard Taruskin, Music from the Earliest Notations to the Sixteenth Century, The Oxford History of Western Music, vol. 1. New York: Oxford University Press, Class Policies Attendance in class is required and attendance will be taken each day. Two unexcused absences are allowed; further absences will affect your class participation mark.

5 5 No use of social media or non-class related activity on phones or laptops during our class meetings (no texting, s, Facebook, etc.). Brandeis Policy Statements Students with disabilities: If you are a student with a documented disability on record at Brandeis University and wish to have a reasonable accommodation made for you in this class, please see me immediately. Academic Integrity: You are expected to be honest in all of your academic work. Please consult Brandeis University Rights and Responsibilities for all policies and procedures related to academic integrity. Students may be required to submit work to TurnItIn.com software to verify originality. Allegations of alleged academic dishonesty will be forwarded to the Director of Academic Integrity. Sanctions for academic dishonesty can include failing grades and/or suspension from the university. Citation and research assistance can be found at LTS - Library guides. This means that you submit your own work, and that all material and information taken from other sources, including any paraphrases of the work or ideas of another person (note this is broader than simply referencing direct quotations) is acknowledged in correct scholarly form. I am required to report violations of academic integrity to the Director of Academic Integrity. If you have any questions about quoting, citing, or referring to another person s work, please ask before submitting your paper; I am happy to discuss it with you. COURSE OUTLINE AND SCHEDULE The readings are to be responded to and discussed on the Friday of the week in which they are listed. The works listed under Listening are to be responded to in the log to be submitted by the Monday of the following week. Works indicated with an asterisk (*) are not in the required Anthology textbook, and the scores will be handed out in class. Aug 29 (Wed). Introduction. Sept 5,6 (Wed/Thu). Plainchant: Mass and Office liturgies; the development of music notation. Reading (by this Thu): Taruskin, chapter 1, up to and including Psalmody in Practice: The Office. Listening (by Wed Sep 12): Anthology no. 2, 3, and 4 (various chants for mass and office). Sep 12, 17 (Wed/Mon). Plainchant: strophic forms; medieval understandings of pitch relationships. Reading (by Fri Sept 21): Taruskin, chap.2, Sequences and How they were performed ; and chap.3, Tonaries and Theory and the art of teaching. Listening (by next Mon): Hildegard, Columba aspexit. Anonymous, Stond well, moder*. Anonymous, Stabat iuxta*. Sep 25 (QUIZ), 26 (Tu/Wed). Secular monophony: amour courtois and the genres of trouvère song. Reading (by this Wed): Taruskin, chap. 4 France and Geographical Diffusion. Listening (by next Mon Oct 2): Moniot d Arras, Ce fut en mai. Adam de la Halle, Je muir, Je muir. Adam de la Halle, Bone amourete. De la Halle, Hareu li maus*.

6 6 Oct 3 (Wed). 13th-century organum: Polyphony and the notation of rhythm. Reading (by this Wed): Taruskin, chapter 6, up to and including Whys and Wherefores. Listening (by next Mon Oct 8): Leonin, Viderunt omnes. Perotin, Viderunt omnes. Oct 8, 10 (Mon/Wed). The medieval motet. The Roman de Fauvel. Reading (by this Wed): Taruskin, chap. 7 up to and including section on Franconian notation ; chap. 8 up to More Elaborate Patterning. Listening (by next Mon): Anon., L autre jour/au tens pascour/in SECULUM. On parole/a Paris/FRESE NOUVELE. Philippe de Vitry (attrib.), Tribum que non abhorruit/quoniam/merito. Charivari episode from the Roman de Fauvel. Oct 15 (QUIZ), 17 (Mon/Wed). 14th-century and early 15th-century songs; medieval counterpoint. Reading (by this Wed): Taruskin, chapter 9, up to and including the section on Functionally Differentiated Counterpoint but you can skip the section on Cantilena. Listening (by next Mon): Guillaume de Machaut, Douce dame jolie. Machaut, En mon cuer. Philippus de Caserta, En remirant. Francesco Landini, Non avrà ma pietà. Guillaume Du Fay, Adieu ces bons vins de Lannoys. Gilles Binchois, Deuil angoisseux. Ockeghem, Ma bouche rit*. Oct 22, 24 (Mon/Wed). The rise of European music. England and the Continent. Reading (by this Wed): Taruskin, chap. 11, Dunstable to end. Listening (by next Mon): Anonymous, Sumer is icumen in; Anonymous, Thomas gemma Cantuariae; Thomas cesus; Dunstable, Quam puchra es. Du Fay, Ave maris stella. Anonymous, Missa Caput, Kyrie. Johannes Ockeghem, Missa Caput, Kyrie. Submission 1 of Research Paper Due October 25 by 5pm. Oct 29 (QUIZ), 31 (Mon/Wed). The cyclic mass. Reading (by this Wed): Taruskin, chap.12, the sections titled: The Cyclic Mass, Caput and the Beginnings of Four- Part Harmony, Patterns of Emulation, The Man at Arms, Pervading Imitation, and Old and Young Alike Pay Tribute. Listening (by next Mon): Antoine Busnoys, Missa L home armé, Sanctus, Agnus Dei. Nov 5, 7 (Mon/Wed). Josquin. Reading (by this Wed): Taruskin, chapter 14, up to and including A Model Masterpiece. Listening (by next Mon): Josquin des Prez, Ave Maria... virgo serena. Josquin, Missa L homme armé super voces musicales, Agnus Dei*; Fevin, Missa super Ave Maria, Kyrie. Nov 12, 14 (Mon/Wed). Church music in England in the 16th century. Introduction to Music Encoding. Reading (by this Wed): Taruskin, chap.16, Utopia, and the sections from Byrd until the end of the chapter. Listening (by next Mon): William Byrd, two Agnus Dei movements from The Mass in Four Parts, The Mass in Five Parts. Hugh Aston, Ave Maria dive matris.* Orlando di Lasso, Tristis est anima mea.*

7 7 Nov 19 (Mon) The Reformation. Reading (by this Mon): Taruskin, chap. 18, section on the The Lutheran Chorale. Listening (by next Mon): Martin Luther, Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland.* Martin Luther, Ein feste Burg.* Walther, Ein Feste Burg*; Walther, Christ Lag in Todesbanden. Submission 2 of Research Paper Due November 20 by 5pm. Nov 26, 28 (QUIZ) (Mon/Wed). Printing: Madrigals and Motets. Reading (by this Wed): Taruskin, chap. 17, Music Printers and the sections from The Literary Revolution to Exterior Nature. Listening (by next Mon): Arcadelt, Il bianco e dolce cigno. Cipriano de Rore, Dalle belle contrade d oriente. Luca Marenzio, Solo e pensoso. Gesualdo, Moro e lasso. Dec 3 No class (to make up for class attendance at Boston Camerata on Sun Oct 28, and the November Encode-athon ). Dec 5, 10 (Wed/Mon). Early 17th-century vocal: Humanism and the birth of opera. Reading (no log due): Taruskin, Music in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, chapter 1 (optional) Listening (no log due): Claudio Monteverdi, Lamento della Ninfa*. Monteverdi, L Orfeo, Act II. Monteverdi, L incoronazione di Poppea, Act I, scene 10; Act III, scene 8 (final duet Pur ti miro ). Final Submission of Research Paper Due December 14 by 5pm.

MUS 131A Spring 2018 History of Music I: Ancient through Early Baroque

MUS 131A Spring 2018 History of Music I: Ancient through Early Baroque Tuesdays and Fridays, 11:00-12:20 PM, Slosberg Music 215 Professor Karen Desmond (kdesmond@brandeis.edu). My office hours are Tuesdays