Current Course Offerings (Spring 2022)
For times, location, and other information see here.
M402 History and Literature of Music II (Jillian Rogers)
M410 (4772) #Latergrams (Giovanni Zanovello)
Tour early-modern Europe with your ears open! This course is an imaginary trip through nine European cities—Paris, Bruges, Lyon, Mantua, Florence, Rome, Venice, Constance, and Geneva. In addition to learning about each place we will try to imagine the sounds that accompanied exceptional occasions and the daily life of citizens, clergy, aristocrats, and royals. We will focus on specific musical events such as parades, civic ceremonies, church music, memorable solo performances, street music, music lessons, and private musical meetings of various kinds and give you a first orientation in the geography of European culture. This course will help you understand how music affected the daily life of people of the past, develop the skill of describing early-modern musical events and draw interdisciplinary parallels among music, arts, religion, politics, and intellectual history.
Because class time will involve individual and group activity on assigned materials, class attendance is strictly mandatory.
M410 (8190) Recording from Edison to Spotify (Sergio Ospina Romero)
This course focuses on the history of sound recording technologies and the recording industry, from the invention of the phonograph in 1877 to the realm of digital streaming in the 21st century. Alongside with the study of the social, cultural, and musical worlds related to modern massive entertainment, it is an opportunity to tackle two big issues: on the one hand, the material design and functioning of recording technologies throughout the acoustic, electric, and digital eras; on the other hand, the development of transnational businesses around these technologies as well as the musical and social dynamics related to the cultural legitimization of recorded sound. Although phonographs, turntables, stereos, iPods, and smartphones are at the center of these stories, they are not the only technological guests. We will also explore the world of player-pianos, cinema, and radio with the aim of having a broader perspective of the industrial scenario that shaped modern entertainment.
M501 (7269): Proseminar in Music History and Literature (Maria Fokina)
- Technologies and Conventions of Spectacle in Eighteenth-century Opera: through readings and the analysis of specific case studies, we will investigate how opera creators utilized theatrical spaces and stage design technologies and media to finesse the visual aspects of operatic representations.
- Gender in Nineteenth-Century Russian Music: an investigation of selected compositions through the lens of gender construction, women patrons and musicians, and the ways that gender representation shaped operatic plots, reception, and performance.
- World-Building in Psychedelic Rock Music and Video Games: a study of how musicians and sound artists build and create coherent and self-contained sound worlds to simulate immersion into a fictional space.
M501 (7293): Proseminar in Music History and Literature (Molly Covington)
- Baroque Instrumental Music: an introduction to historiography and important methodologies, including performance practice, analysis, reception and interpretation, and construction of meaning in music.
- “Exotic” Opera in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries: representations of identity on stage through the analysis of exemplary works, with a focus on political and cultural contexts, as well as musical style.
- Jazz in the Twentieth Century: an exploration of such questions as “What historical and cultural elements influenced the development of jazz? Where is the line between popular music and art music? How does technology impact jazz and other popular musics in the 20th century?”
M501 (7295): Proseminar in Music History and Literature (Sarah McDonie)
- Music and Place: Analysis of how a selection of sacred repertoire of pre-1750 music from Italy, France, and Germany engages with ideas of space and place. We will pay special attention to how people have historically used music as a tool of experience and how sound and music shape our sense of place today.
- Living Technologies: Analysis of the relationship between music and technology from the late twentieth century to the present day, centered on the exploration of questions of agency—how do we work with technologies and how do technologies work with us?—through case studies, each dedicated to a different sound technology.
- Performance—What Is It? Study of examples of performance from a range of time periods and traditions. We will explore different ways of thinking and talking about what performance is and what it does with an emphasis on written vs. performative or oral-based repertoires.
M510 (9701): Chorale Settings 1500-1750 (Daniel Melamed)
M510 (8822): Operas and Plays (Kristina Muxfeldt)
M510 (13808): Teaching Music History (Halina Goldberg)
Imagine competing for your college professor dream job and being asked to teach a music history class as part of your interview…. Help is here!
This course is designed as preparation for teaching music history at the college level. We will address wide range of practical issues: understanding various institutions of higher learning and different student constituencies (large state universities vs. small private liberal arts colleges, music majors vs. non-majors); deciding on course topics and structuring a course (assessing existing textbooks and other teaching resources, creating syllabi, effective testing and assignment); developing teaching skills, such as preparation of lectures, planning student-centered activities, and engaging students in discussion; cultivating diversity & inclusion in the classroom; dealing with specific issues that arise in classroom environment (sexual harassment and violence, behavior problems, addressing the needs of distressed students or students with disabilities).
Coursework will include some readings, but emphasis will be placed on applied projects. Over the course of the semester you will develop a teaching portfolio consisting of syllabi, assignments, tests, and teaching statements for job applications.
M510 (34629): Film Music (Daniel Bishop)
M510 (34781): Writing About Music (Daniel Melamed)
M525 (7027): Survey of Operatic Literature (Devon Nelson)
M527 (2874): Symphonic Literature (Devon Nelson)
Current Course Offerings (Fall 2021)
For times, location, and other information see here.
M401 History and Literature of Music I (Massimo Ossi)
M410 (18215): Beethoven (Kristina Muxfeldt)
M501 (17293): Proseminar in Music History and Literature (Maria Fokina)
- Staging and Technologies of Spectacle in Pre-1800 Opera: through readings and the analysis of specific case studies, we will investigate how opera creators utilized theatrical spaces and stage design technologies and media to finesse the visual aspects of operatic representations.
- Gender in Nineteenth-Century Russian Music: an investigation of exemplary compositions through the lens of gender construction, women patrons and musicians, and the ways that gender representation shaped operatic plots, reception, and performance.
- World-Building in Psychedelic Rock Music and Video Games: a study of how musicians and sound artists build and create coherent and self-contained sound worlds to simulate immersion into a fictional space.
M501 (17294): Proseminar in Music History and Literature (Molly Covington)
- Baroque Instrumental Music: an introduction to historiography and important methodologies, including performance practice, analysis, reception and interpretation, and construction of meaning in music.
- “Exotic” Opera in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries: representations of identity on stage through the analysis of exemplary works, with a focus on political and cultural contexts, as well as musical style.
- Jazz in the Twentieth Century: an exploration of such questions as “What historical and cultural elements influenced the development of jazz? Where is the line between popular music and art music? How does technology impact jazz and other popular musics in the 20th century?”
M501 (17295): Proseminar in Music History and Literature (Aaron Riedford)
M501 (17296): Proseminar in Music History and Literature (Sarah McDonie)
- Music and Place: Analysis of pre-1600 repertoires from France and Italy such as chant and motets with special attention to how people used music and sound as tools of experience and how music and sound help create our sense of place.
- Living Technologies: Analysis of the relationship between music and technology from the late twentieth century to now, centered on the exploration of questions of agency—how do we work with technologies and how do technologies work with us?—through case studies, each dedicated to a different sound technology.
- Performance—What Is It?: Study of examples of performance from a range of time periods and traditions. We will explore different ways of thinking and talking about what performance is and what it does with an emphasis on written vs. performative or oral-based repertoires.
M501 (20593): Proseminar in Music History and Literature (Meredith Michael)
- Approaching Music Historically: an introduction to a variety of music-historical methods, including performance practice, hermeneutics, intellectual history, and cultural criticism, focusing on early music scholarship and selected major repertories.
- Music and the Arts in Nineteenth-Century France: How did people in the original context understand this music? What cultural factors contributed to its meaning? How does our current “canon” differ from the canon at the time? We will answer these questions by looking at political, literary, scientific, and stylistic factors.
- Music, Humanity, and the Cosmos: how musical depictions of outer space (classical, film, and popular) have expressed philosophies, fears, and ambitions for the future of humanity.
M501 (47337): Proseminar in Music History and Literature (Meredith Michael)
- Approaching Music Historically: an introduction to a variety of music-historical methods, including performance practice, hermeneutics, intellectual history, and cultural criticism, focusing on early music scholarship and selected major repertories.
- Music and the Arts in Nineteenth-Century France: How did people in the original context understand this music? What cultural factors contributed to its meaning? How does our current “canon” differ from the canon at the time? We will answer these questions by looking at political, literary, scientific, and stylistic factors.
- Music, Humanity, and the Cosmos: how musical depictions of outer space (classical, film, and popular) have expressed philosophies, fears, and ambitions for the future of humanity.
M502 (17387): Mozart Opera (Daniel Melamed)
M502 (20934): Cantatas of J. S. Bach (Daniel Melamed)
M502 (41043): Les Six (Jillian Rogers)
M510 (17742): Race in American Music Theater (Judah Cohen)
Musical theater, much like opera or other large-scale music-driven narratives, presents a rich landscape of racial representation. In this class, we’ll explore how race factors into the creation and recreation of about a dozen key American musical theater pieces, including Shuffle Along, Show Boat, West Side Story, Flower Drum Song, Pacific Overtures, The Gospel at Colonus, Jelly’s Last Jam, and Caroline, or Change. We will look at their “original” forms, but also follow their restagings over time to learn how these works balance artistic status with changing social movements and norms.
This course can count for the master’s degree music history requirement, the master’s or doctoral degree Other Required Credits general electives requirement, or the doctoral minor in music history. Diploma students with the appropriate pre-requisites can also take it as a part of the PD music course requirement.
M510 (18714): Jazz Around the World (Sergio Ospina Romero)
This course explores the history of the globalization of jazz and offers a survey of local jazz scenes in various parts of the planet. Rather than presenting jazz as an exclusive U.S. tradition spreading throughout the world, the course fosters an understanding of jazz as taking shape in a series of diasporic channels, defined by the constant flux of musicians, audiences, and mass mediated music as well as by its adaptation to different musical structures, social conditions, cultural meanings, and racial ideas. By studying how musicians in multiple locales around the world have engaged with jazz, the course furthers a discussion of what jazz is, of its significance in changing historical and cultural scenarios, and of the ways in which jazz has been shaped in the course of its global dissemination.
M510 (22366): Wagnerism (Phil Ford)
M510 (22988): Recording: Edison to Spotify (Sergio Ospina Romero)
This course focuses on the history of sound recording technologies and the recording industry, from the invention of the phonograph in 1877 to the realm of digital streaming in the 21st century. Alongside with the study of the social, cultural, and musical worlds related to modern massive entertainment, it is an opportunity to tackle two big issues: on the one hand, the material design and functioning of recording technologies throughout the acoustic, electric, and digital eras; on the other hand, the development of transnational businesses around these technologies as well as the musical and social dynamics related to the cultural legitimization of recorded sound. Although phonographs, turntables, stereos, iPods, and smartphones are at the center of these stories, they are not the only technological guests. We will also explore the world of player-pianos, cinema, and radio with the aim of having a broader perspective of the industrial scenario that shaped modern entertainment.
M525: Opera Survey (Giovanni Zanovello)
M527 Symphonic Literature (Devon Nelson)
M539 (11610): Bibliography (Shaw)
M539 (14502): Bibliography (Cochran)
M551 Introduction to Historical Musicology (Massimo Ossi)
M602 (11619): Music, Sound, and Violence (Jillian Rogers)
M602 (11879): Jazzin’ in the Americas (Sergio Ospina Romero)
For a long time, scholarship and media alike have framed jazz within the coordinates of US American exceptionalism, that is, as a music originated and developed exclusively within the United States. This course offers an opportunity not only to explore the international ventures of jazz, particularly across the Americas and the Caribbean, but to study jazz history in a way that makes justice to the transnational dynamics that made the music possible in the first place and that continued to shape it. Although the themes and repertoires under consideration span through the 20th and 21st centuries, a significant portion of the course will be devoted to the formative years of jazz as well as to the dialogues and exchanges between the United States and the Caribbean during the 1920s, the so called “jazz age.”
M602 (21346): Beethoven’s World (Kristina Muxfeldt)
M653 Baroque Music (Devon Nelson)
M655 Romantic Music (Halina Goldberg)
M657 Music since 1960 (Phil Ford)
Previously Offered Variable Topic Courses
Undergraduate:
M410 20th-Century Russian And Soviet Music (Domico)
M410 18th-Century Global Music Encounters (Nelson)
M410 Schoenberg and Modernism (Bane)
M410 Italian Opera 1600-1900 (Zanovello)
M410 Beethoven (Muxfeldt)
M410 Benjamin Britten (Dwinell)
M410 #Latergrams (Zanovello)
M410 Music and Technology in the 19th Century (Leone)
M410 Music in Judaism (Cohen)
M410 Sacred Works 15th-21st Century (Ables)
M410 Writing About Music (Melamed)
M410 Film Music (Lake)
M410 Beethoven String Quartets (Burkholder)
M410 Expression in Haydn and Mozart (Frymoyer)
M410 Stravinsky (Frymoyer)
M410 Schubert (Muxfeldt)
M410 Women in Music (Smith)
M410 Jazz and the Civil Rights Movement (White)
M410 Masses of Josquin Des Prez (Zanovello)
M410 American Popular Song on Film (Ford)
M410 Charles Ives (Burkholder)
Graduate:
M502 Chopin Rediscovered (Goldberg)
M502 Mozart Operas (Melamed)
M502 Heinrich Isaac (Zanovello)
M502 Bach: Major Vocal Works (Melamed)
M502 Handel’s World (Smith)
M502 The Masses of Josquin Desprez (Zanovello)
M502 Schoenberg and Modernism (Bane)
M502 Ives (Burkholder)
M502 Bernstein (Cohen)
M502 JS Bach Major Vocal Works (Melamed)
M502 Cantatas of JS Bach (Melamed)
M502 Telemann (Melamed)
M502 Wagner (Ford)
M502 Mahler (Freeze)
M502 Masses of Josquin Des Prez (Zanovello)
M502 Lully and the French Baroque (Smith)
M502 Bartok (Hooker)
M502 Robert and Clara Schumann (Altstatt)
M510 Women in Music (Smith)
M510 Film Music (Haugland)
M510 Music and Identity in Latin America (León)
M510 Music & Drink (Nelson)
M510 Latin American Colonial Music (Borg)
M510 Genderless Music (Smith)
M510 Music & Drink (Nelson)
M510 Music and Mourning (Rogers)
M510 Historicism in English Music (Nelson)
M510 African American Music (Smith)
M510 Music in the Mediterranean (Ossi)
M510 Music and Nationalism in Latin America (Borg)
M510 Opera after 1900 (Dwinell)
M510 Music and Trauma (Rogers)
M510 Benjamin Britten (Dwinell)
M510 Film Music (Bishop)
M510 Monteverdi’s Secular Music (Ossi)
M510 Music at Italian Cities and Courts (Ossi)
M510 Writing About Music (Melamed)
M510 The Leonore Operas (Muxfeldt)
M510 Early Opera to 1650 (Ossi)
M510 Women & Music (Smith)
M510 Cultures of Improvisation (Ford)
M510 Sacred Works 15th-21st Century (Ables)
M510 Baroque Song (Bane)
M510 The Italian Madrigal (Ossi)
M510 Music & Book History to 1500 (Di Bacco)
M510 Chorale Settings 1500-1750 (Melamed)
M510 Film Music History (Long)
M510 Operas & Plays (Muxfeldt)
M510 Music & Nationalism in Latin America (Borg)
M510 Music in Venice 1500-1750 (Ossi)
M510 Performers and Performances (Smith)
M510 The Concerto (Bane)
M510 Vincenzo Galilei & the Florentine Camerata (Ossi)
M510 Examining Operetta (Hooker)
M510 Russian Opera (Goldberg)
M510 Jazz and the Civil Rights Movement (White)
M510 20th-Century Polish Music (Goldberg)
M510 Writing about Music (Melamed)
Masters Seminars in Musicology:
M601 Beethoven (Muxfeldt)
M601 Attribution and Authenticity (Melamed)
M601 Style, Meaning, Form (Burkholder)
M601 Music and Place (Zanovello)
Doctoral Seminars in Musicology:
M602 Music in Early-Modern Cities (Zanovello)
M602 Weird Studies (Ford)
M602 Die Zauberflöte (Melamed)
M602 Shadow Histories: Race and Gender (Smith)
M602 Who Was Beethoven? (Muxfeldt)
M602 Mediterranean Musical Encounters (Ossi)
M602 Approaches to Musical Theater (Cohen)
M602 The Season of Figaro (Melamed)
M602: Instrumental Mimesis 1580-1720 (Ossi)
M602 Music in Esoteric Studies (Ford)
M602 Music & Politics in the Other Europe (Goldberg)
M602 Musical Borrowing & Reworking (Burkholder)
M602 J.S. Bach, Mass in B Minor (Melamed)
M602 Music Collectorship (Zanovello)
M602 Technologies of Experience (Ford)
M602 Music in 19th-Century Albums (Goldberg)
M602 J.S. Bach, Christmas Oratorio (Melamed)
M602 Schubert Songs (Muxfeldt)
M602 Music and Space (Zanovello)
M602 Sound, Music, & Counterculture (Ford)
M602 Operatic Typologies (Smith)
M602 Humanism in Music (Ossi)
Doctoral Methods of Musical Scholarship:
M603 Inclusive Music Histories (Cohen)
M603 Selling Your Scholarship (Rogers)
M603 Digital humanities (Di Bacco)
M603 Collectorship (Zanovello)
M603 Baroque Opera: Text, Image, Stage, Music (Smith)
M603 Intensive Writing (Ford)
M603 Codicology and MS Description (Zanovello)
M603 German Translation (Muxfeldt)
M603 Pedagogy of Music History (Goldberg)
M603 Film Musicology (Long)
M603 Historiography of Music (Ossi)
M603 Opera and Criticism (Smith)
M603 Italian Translation (Zanovello)
Bulletin Course Descriptions
For more detailed information see here.
MUS M400 – Undergraduate Readings in Musicology
MUS M401 – History and Literature of Music I
History of music from beginnings of Western civilization to 1800. Style analysis, visual and aural, of representative compositions, and relationship of music to sociocultural background of each epoch.
MUS M402 – History and Literature of Music II
History of music from 1800 to the present. Style analysis, visual and aural, of representative compositions, and relationship of music to sociocultural background of each epoch.
MUS M410 – Composer or Genre
Life and works of representative composers in historical context or survey of a major musical genre and its historical evolution. Emphasis on stylistic development in the music literature studied.
MUS M501 – Proseminar in Music History and Literature
An introduction to the graduate study of music history and literature. Meets the proficiency requirement with a grade of C or higher.
MUS M502 – Composers: Variable Topics
Life and works of representative composers in the cultural and historical context of their eras; emphasis on the development of individual style through analysis of characteristic works. May be repeated for different composers.
MUS M510 – Topics in Music Literature
Inquiry into selected aspects of music literature and history related to specific repertories, genres, styles, performance practices/traditions, historiography, or criticism. Research project required. May be repeated for different topics.
MUS M525 – Survey of Operatic Literature
Emphasis on the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
MUS M527 – Symphonic Literature
Orchestral music of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
MUS M528 – Chamber Music Literature
Emphasis on eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
MUS M539 – Introduction to Music Bibliography
Music reference and research tools in all areas of music, use of library resources and networks, and bibliographic style and technique. Formal paper required.
MUS M551 – Introduction to Historical Musicology
Survey of bibliography and problems and methods of historical research.
MUS M556 – Research in the History and Literature of Music
For advanced students in music literature or musicology desiring to do research in non-course areas of music literature.
MUS M601 – Masters Seminar in Musicology: Variable Topics
For MA Musicology students. Formal research paper required. Taken ordinarily in the spring semester of the first year. May be taken more than once for credit toward MA.
MUS M602 – Seminar in Musicology: Variable Topics
For advanced students in musicology and music theory. Formal research paper required. May be taken more than once for credit toward PhD.
MUS M603 – Methods of Musical Scholarship: Variable Topics
For advanced students in musicology and music theory. May be taken more than once for credit toward the PhD.
MUS M604 – Qualifying Exam Tutorial
Establishing of qualifying examination areas, the compiling of reading and repertory lists, and the first stages of examination study under faculty supervision. Ordinarily taken in the fall of the third year (for students admitted with an MA) or in the spring of the third year (for students admitted from a bachelor’s degree).
MUS M605 – Qualifying Exam and Dissertation Area Tutorial
Intensive study under faculty supervision, and written and oral qualifying examinations. Ordinarily taken in the spring of the third year (for students admitted with an MA) or in the fall of the fourth year (for students admitted from a bachelor’s degree).
MUS M650 – Music in the United States
A musical and cultural history emphasizing the coexistence and intersections of a variety of imported and indigenous written and oral traditions, including concert music, opera, Native American music, popular song, jazz, blues, musical theater and film, Tin Pan Alley, rock, and spirituals and other religious idioms.
MUS M651 – Medieval Music
MUS M652 – Renaissance Music
MUS M501 – Proseminar in Music History and Literature
MUS M653 – Baroque Music
MUS M654 – Classic Music
MUS M655 – Romantic Music
MUS M656 – Modern Music
MUS M657 – Music Since 1960
MUS M698 – Individual Seminar in Musicology
For advanced students in musicology and music theory. Formal research paper required. May be taken more than once for credit toward the PhD.
MUS M700 – Dissertation in Musicology
This course is eligible for deferred (R) grading.