Topics in 19th Century Music (354-0-1)
Topic
Orchestral Music
Instructors
Jesse Rosenberg
847/467-2033
j-rosenberg1@northwestern.edu
Specialist in 19th- and 20th-century Italian opera, with articles published on Rossini, Donizetti, Bellini, and Verdi; papers read at national and international conferences on opera and film music history. Research interests in musical aesthetics and the convergence of music with fields such as literature, poetry, and theology. Contributor, New Grove Dictionary of Opera (Macmillan, 1992), Pipers Enzyclopädie des Musiktheaters (Pipers, 1996), New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (Macmillan, 2000). Outstanding Dissertation Award and Excellence in Teaching Award, New York University. Faculty Honor Roll, Northwestern University.
Meeting Info
RCMA Lower Level 111: Mon, Wed 12:30PM - 1:50PM
Overview of class
This course will provide a survey of European orchestral music from Beethoven through the end of the "long" 19th century, a period from which most of the standard orchestral repertoire is drawn.
Topics include:
• the nature of the "canon" of 19th-century orchestral music (who's in, who's out, who decides)
• the "meaning" of music and the formal implications of this meaning for the musical work
• the debate between proponents vs. opponents of program music.
• the rising importance of 1-movement forms (overture, symphonic poem, tone poem)
• cyclic approaches to multi-movement works
• the rapid growth of orchestras
• the rise of musical scholarship and the concommitant awareness of the "history of music"
• the increasing influence of nationalism
• Western musical depictions of "the Other": when European composers evoke a non-European society or cultural environment
• questions of sexuality:
• the growing split between "serious" and "light" music amid the burgeoning middle class of musical consumers
• orchestration as a distinct discipline
• performance practice issues (the role of the conductor, the arrangement of the orchestra, etc.)
• innovations in the design of musical instruments such as harp, clarinet, and trumpet as well as the addition of new instruments (saxophone, "Wagner" tubas, celeste, etc.).
• Orchestral music during the pandemic and beyond
Evaluation Method
Evaluation is based on
• three written assignments (15 pts. each, for a total of 45 points)
• a midterm to be submitted by May 7 (15 pts.).
• a final exam to be submitted by noon on Friday June 11 (10 pts.). The midterm and final will be cumulative for the first and second half of the quarter respectively.
• Two "concert reports" (10 pts. each., see the details in red in the syllabus below)
• The level of participation in class discussion (both spoken during class or submitted via the Discussion feature on our Canvas page) (10 pts.).
Class Materials (Required)
Course materials will be made available through your Canvas course website. Once you have accessed our Canvas page, you can click on "Modules" on the left side of the screen; this will enable you to locate materials such as scores, readings, sound recordings, and videorecordings. The pandemic-era shutdown of campus will make it difficult (but not impossible!) to make use of the Northwestern Music Library, but students are expected to avail themselves of the extensive library of sound recordings available online via Naxos Music Library and the Naxos Video Library, as well as the vast resources of IMSLP, youtube, Spotify, Amazon Prime, and so on.