MUS331J PDF. Music and the Poetic Text. Crosslisted as MUS 387L: and MUS 331J: MWF, MRH 2.

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1 Prof. Robert S. Hatten Office: MRH Office phone: Office hours: 1 MW; other times TBA MUS331J PDF Music and the Poetic Text Crosslisted as MUS 387L: and MUS 331J: Butler School of Music The University of Texas MWF, MRH Spring 2016 I. Course Objectives The focus of the course will be on the ways musical texts and their associated poetic texts negotiate meaning through their distinctive and shared forms of musical structuring (at all levels, including meter, phrase rhythm, rhyme, assonance, alliteration, sound symbolism, rhetorical structure, and form). Specific goals include: 1. Understanding the musical and structural features of poetic texts, in order to grasp their contributions to meaning (denotative, connotative, and tropological). 2. Understanding how composers have found means to represent or express or enhance various musical features of poetic texts, whether in vocal settings or in works inspired by poetic texts. 3. Understanding how composers may have further interpreted the meanings to be found in poetic texts. 4. Exploring repertoire ranging among several languages (English, German, French) in various historical styles and genres (opera, Lied, popular song, voice and orchestra, Requiem). II. Required materials, available at Co-op East 1. Pinsky, Robert. The Sounds of Poetry (paperback) New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Music and the Poetic Text Coursepack I (Schubert through Debussy) 3. 3-ring binder, paper, #2 pencils Other useful primers on poetry (not required): Ciardi, John. How a Poem Means, 2nd ed. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, Fussell, Paul. Poetic Meter and Poetic Form, rev. ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, Hollander, John. Rhyme s Reason: A Guide to English Verse, 3rd ed. New Haven and London: Yale University Press,

2 Kinzie, Mary. The Poet s Guide to Poetry. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, Oliver, Mary. Rules for the Dance: A Handbook for Writing and Reading Metrical Verse. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, Turco, Lewis. The Book of Forms: A Handbook of Poetics, 3rd ed. Hanover and London: University Press of New England, Also recommended (undergraduate text, not required): Stein, Deborah, and Robert Spillman. Poetry into Song: Performance and Analysis of Lieder. Oxford: Oxford University Press, III. Grading Class preparation and participation in discussion 20% Assignments and interpretive essays 40% Major paper/project & presentation (12 pages) 40% (30% paper, 10% presentation) (No Final Exam) 100% IV. Policies 1. All academic policies for the Butler School of Music and the University of Texas apply. 2. Any student with a documented disability who requires academic accommodations should contact Services for Students with Disabilities at (voice) or (Video Phone) as soon as possible to request an official letter outlining authorized accommodations. Please arrange to meet with me during an office hour so we can discuss your letter and make plans to accommodate your needs. 3. You are responsible for making up any class work missed. No late assignments will be accepted for a grade; however, if an excused late assignment is received before graded assignments are returned, a NG (no grade) will be assigned instead of a zero and that assignment will not count against the assignment average. Short, extra-credit quizzes to check on your reading, listening, or analysis may not be made up. These will support your shorter written assignment average (25% of your grade). 4. Please let me know of any religious observances or music professional tours, auditions, or school-sponsored performances involving class absence well in advance to arrange for timely completion of assignments. Other legitimate absences include sickness (provide doctor s note) or death in immediate family. I cannot give an incomplete for the course except in cases of extreme hardship AND if a majority of the work has been satisfactorily completed. You may have one unexcused absence without penalty. Your participation grade (20%) will be reduced by half a point for each unexcused absence beyond that number. 5. Plagiarism or cheating will result in an automatic F for the assignment or paper in question. See me if you have any questions about what constitutes plagiarism. 6. Please type (on computer, 12-point type, double-spaced, standard font and 1-inch margins) all written analytical assignment answers and essays. Please use pencil (or colored pencil) for other exercises involving labeling of scores, line diagrams, and notationall analytical labeling of scores and poems should be done in pencil or colored pencil (no pen). Any graphs or reductions may be done in Finale (etc.) or by hand in pencil. All essays must include numbered pages (bottom center), title page, footnotes, 2

3 and bibliography, all printed out clearly and stapled (no folders, please). Use spellcheck or an editor, if needed. The title page should include the following information: Title, author, course number, professor, date. You may use the following citation style in the body of your paper instead of a footnote, unless text content is included in the note: (Meyer 1973: 22). Append a bibliography of works referenced in your paper (use whichever established format you choose, but be consistent). V. Books on Reserve in the Fine Arts Library (2-hour loan period). Required readings will also be available on Canvas for the course. Abbate, Carolyn. Unsung Voices: Opera and Musical Narrative in the Nineteenth Century. Princeton: Princeton University Press, ML3858 A Bell, A. Craig. Brahms: The Vocal Music. London: Associated University Presses, ML410 B8 B Bernac, Pierre. The Interpretation of French Song, trans. W. Radford. London: Victor Gollancz, 1978 [1976]. MT892 B4 Brody, Elaine, and Robert A. Fowkes. The German Lied and Its Poetry. NYU, ML2829 B76 Dunsby, Jonathan. Making Words Sing: Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Song. Cambridge, MT120 D Fischer-Dieskau, Dietrich. Schubert s Songs: A Biographical Study, trans. Kenneth S. Whitton. NY: Limelight, 1991 [1976]. ML410 S3 F Hallmark, Rufus, ed. German Lieder in the Nineteenth Century. Schirmer, ML G Hirsch, Marjorie Wing. Schubert s Dramatic Lieder. Cambridge, ML410 S3 H Komar, Arthur, ed. Schumann: Dichterliebe. Norton, M S375 D5 Kramer, Lawrence. Music and Poetry: The Nineteenth Century and After. Berkeley: University of California Press, ML3849 K Franz Schubert: Sexuality, Subjectivity, Song. Cambridge, ML410 S3 K Kramer, Richard. Distant Cycles: Schubert and the Conceiving of Song. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, ML410 S3 K Malin, Yonatan. Songs in Motion: Rhythm and Meter in the German Lied. Oxford, ML2505 M Parsons, James, ed. The Cambridge Companion to the Lied. Cambridge, ML2829 C Perrey, Beate Julia. Schumann s Dichterliebe and Early Romantic Poetics. Cambridge, MT121 S38 P Rosen, Charles. The Romantic Generation. Cambridge, MA: Harvard,

4 ML196 R Stein, Deborah. Poetry into Song: Performance and Analysis of Lieder. NY: Oxford, MT110 S Stein, Jack. Poem and Music in the German Lied from Gluck to Hugo Wolf. Harvard, ML2829 S76 Wenk, Arthur B. Claude Debussy and the Poets. Berkeley, ML410 D28 W4 Winn, James A. Unsuspected Eloquence. Yale, ML3849 W58 Youens, Susan. Retracing a Winter s Journey: Schubert s Winterreise. Cornell, MT115 S37 Y Schubert s Poets and the Making of Lieder. NY: Cambridge, ML410 S3 Y Schubert s Late Lieder: Beyond the Song-Cycles. Cambridge, ML410 S3 Y VI. ASSIGNMENTS for the first four weeks. Begin assignment on the day listed and complete by the next class unless otherwise indicated. I. The Music of Poetry Wed, Jan. 20 Study (and read the poems out loud more than once) Pinsky, Sounds of Poetry, 3-24 (Intro, Theory, Accent & Duration). Review and complete the poetic analysis of Frost s Bereft and Stevens s The Snow Man (Pinsky, p. 23) begun in class (for analysis, use the printouts on pp. 6-7 below). Fri, Jan 22 Read (and read the poems out loud) Pinsky, (Syntax and Line) Study Hatten, Terms and Strategies for Patterned Poetry, I-IV; XII-XIII (on pp , below). Written assignment 1 due Jan. 30. Write a 3-page analysis and discussion of form, poetic techniques, and their expressive effect in Elizabeth Bishop s One Art. Carefully mark/label scansion, rhyme, and other musical effects (using proper terminology) on the spaced printout of the poem (p , below) and include as pages 4-5 of your paper. Mon, Jan. 25 Study Hatten, Terms and Strategies, V-XI (pp , below). Read (and read the poems out loud) Pinsky, (Technical Terms and Vocal Realities) Wed, Jan. 28 Finish studying Hatten, Terms and Strategies, XIV-XXIV (pp , below) Read (and read the poems out loud) Pinsky, (Like and Unlike Sounds). 4

5 Fri, Jan. 30 (Assignment 1 due in class) Finish poetic analysis of Mercer s Moon River (p. 8, below) and analysis of Mancini s musical setting (distributed in class) for discussion on Monday. Mon, Feb. 2 Discussion of text setting strategies. Read and study p. 23 of syllabus, below. Creative project in class: setting Eden Davis s I shall flay a rabbit. Continue composing a melodic text setting for this poem for Wednesday. Wed, Feb. 4 Returning Assignment 1; discussion Playing and discussing your compositional settings of I shall flay a rabbit. Comparison with Prof. Hatten s setting. Listen to Schumann, Frauenliebe und Leben, nos (score in Coursepack I) II. German Lieder Fri, Feb. 6 Bring Coursepack I to class. We will begin with a close analysis of Schumann s Seit ich ihn gesehen, from Frauenliebe und Leben (#1). Listen to the remainder of this cycle for Monday, with special attention to the next three songs. Reading assignment: Agawu, Theory and Practice in the Analysis of the Nineteenth-Century Lied, (concentrate on his analysis of Seit ich ihn gesehen ) from JSTOR (access the following URL from a UT Library computer) Mon, Feb. 9 Discussion of Agawu s article. Continued analysis and interpretation of songs from Frauenliebe und Leben. Written assignment 2 (due Mon, Feb. 16) on Schumann s Eichendorff Liederkreis, Op. 39: In der Fremde and Mondnacht. 1. Listen to Mondnacht (coursepack, p. 20) and read/study Cacioppo, Poem to Music: Schumann s Mondnacht Setting, on Canvas. 2. Write a 5-page interpretive essay on In der Fremde (coursepack, p. 14) using the Cacioppo essay as a model, while also including the kinds of issues discussed in class for other Schumann songs. Include a harmonic analysis on a xerox of the score (label keys, Roman numerals, cadences), and an analysis of the poem (typed separately) marking scansion of meter, rhyme scheme, and form. Your essay should not catalogue every detail of your harmonic and poetic analyses, but SUMMARIZE and INTERPRET typical features, GENERALIZE unique principles of organization, and PARTICULARIZE those details that are striking or unusual as they provide special contributions to expressive meaning. Include in your discussion: relationship of the poem s form with the music s form (note especially where the song returns, 5

6 and in what key!), Romantic themes/ imagery, notable poetic features, musical representation/expression of images/features/stimmung/poetic progression, and any ways in which the music goes beyond the poem in capturing its implied meanings. 6

Pre-Requisite: Prerequisite includes MUT 2117 Music Theory IV with a grade of C or higher.

Pre-Requisite: Prerequisite includes MUT 2117 Music Theory IV with a grade of C or higher. Instructor: Dr. Laura Joella, Director of Orchestral Studies joella@fau.edu, 561-297-2262, office: A&L 235 Office Hours: TBA, and by appointment. Please check the Faculty Information link on BlackBoard