Seminar in 17th Century Music (452-0-1)
Topic
Affect and Passion in the long 17th Century
Instructors
Linda P Austern
847/491-5705
l-austern@northwestern.edu
Office Hours: E-mail instructor to arrange a meeting.
Specialist in Renaissance and baroque musical-cultural relations, gender and feminist theory, European iconography, music as related to visual art and the early history of science. Recipient of major fellowships and research grants, including American Council of Learned Societies, British Academy, Mary Ingraham Bunting Institute (Radcliffe College/Harvard University), and National Endowment for the Humanities. Author, Music in English Children's Drama of the Later Renaissance (Gordon and Breach, 1992), Music in English Life and Thought 1550-1650 (forthcoming); editor, Music, Sensation and Sensuality (Routledge, 2002), editor, Music and the Sirens (Indiana University Press, 2006). Author of numerous articles and reviews in books and such journals as Journal of the American Musicological Society, Modern Philology, Music and Letters, and Renaissance Quarterly.
Meeting Info
RCMA Lower Level 121: Tues, Thurs 12:30PM - 1:50PM
Overview of class
This course serves as a focused introduction to music and musical practices in Europe between about 1600 and 1730. This examination of select works from what's conventionally considered the Baroque era will emphasize what was later considered the psychology of music-- the intense emotionality and expressivity that occupied thinkers in such fields of endeavor as philosophy, theology, medicine, rhetoric, and the visual arts, from which ideas were borrowed into music and musical practice. With an eye toward the Spring 2023 Bienen production of Handel's Alcina, we will especially consider the use and development of music to express the most powerful, extreme passions through dramatic vocal and instrumental idioms.
Class Materials (Required)
It's recommended that students purchase Stephen Voss's translation of Rene Descartes' Passions of the Soul and or Wendy Heller's Music in the Baroque (Norton), but all material for the course will either be available online through Canvas Course Reserves or physically in the Library.