Music 421: Materials of Contemporary Music (Fall 2007)
Wednesdays 4:30 - 7:10 pm, Music 180
Christopher Burns (cburns at uwm dot edu)
office hours: Wednesday, 2-4 pm, Music 367 or by appointment
Course description: Study of the techniques and styles in twentieth-century and contemporary music, with an emphasis on the critical analysis of pioneering works.
Prerequisites: Open to Music and Music Education majors with
junior status who have completed Music 230 (Form Analysis), and to
graduate students in the Music Department. Qualities that will be
essential for the course include curiosity, diligence, creativity, and
aesthetic open-mindedness. Please let the instructor know as soon as
possible if you need any special accommodations.
Learning goals and measurement:
Upon successful completion of this course, students should:
1. be able to identify important works of Western concert music from the last hundred years;
2. understand the historical context for and development of compositional techniques in those works;
3. be able to recognize, describe, and analyze the application of these techniques;
4. be able to use analysis to explain and articulate aspects of a contemporary work including its high-level organization, the composer's intentions, perceptual features, and the implications of all these aspects for performance practice;
5. improve their ability to express their understanding of a piece of music in prose.
Student attainment of these objectives will be measured through participation in classroom discussion, written assignments, quizzes, and a final examination.
Course requirements:
1. Please attend all classes and arrive on time. If you need to miss a
class for any reason, please let the instructor know in advance. Students
who miss two or more classes will receive reduced grades (one reduction
for each absence, beginning with the second). Special events listed on the
syllabus are also included in this attendance requirement (though other
instructor-approved contemporary music concerts can be subsituted if
absolutely necessary). Please be sure to find the instructor at each event
and make sure your presence is counted.
2. Please prepare for class by completing all reading and
listening/score reading assignments. Remember that listening is an active
process; if you are multitasking you are unlikely to get much out of the
experience. The best way to complete a listening assignment is to listen
in the Music Library while simultaneously reading the score. With short
works, you are strongly encouraged to listen to the work multiple times.
You may also wish to take notes on your listening - what are you hearing?
How do you make sense of it? How does it change over time (what is the
form of the work?) Please arrive for class ready to participate in the
discussion; this will count for 10% of your final grade.
3. Please complete the five written assignments in a timely fashion.
These assignments constitute 40% of the final grade. Assignments are due
on time; late submissions will receive reduced grades (10% reduction per
day). If you are having difficulty completing an assignment please contact
the instructor as soon as possible, and before the due date.
4. There will be three short quizzes (scheduled for October 3, October
24, and November 28). These quizzes will test your ability to identify and
contextualize repertoire studied in the course from short listening or
score excerpts, as well as your ability to perform short analytical tasks.
Together these quizzes represent 30% of the semester grade.
5. There will be a final exam on Wednesday, December 19, 2007, at 4:30
pm, covering all the material from the course. This exam constitutes 20%
of your semester grade.
Course materials:
Listening and reading assignments for the course are available online
from the UWM Library electronic reserves;scores are on reserve in the Music Library.
UWM Uniform Syllabus Policies: http://www.uwm.edu/Dept/SecU/SyllabusLinks.pdf
- Course schedule:
- September 5: course introduction
- topics & activities:
- syllabus, materials, format, goals
- Haydn Piano Sonata no. 47 example
- Ruth Crawford Seeger String Quartet 1931 example
- class notes
- September 12: extended tonality
- topics & activities:
- a brief history of tonal practice
- listening/score reading:
- Charles Ives General William Booth Enters Into Heaven
- Claude Debussy La Soiree Dans Grenade
- Igor Stravinsky Le Sacre du Printemps
- reading:
- Elliott Schwartz and Daniel Godfrey, "New Concepts and Tools," in Music Since 1945: Issues, Materials, and Literature (New York: Schirmer Books), 1993: 31-42.
- Stefan Kostka, "The Twilight of the Tonal System," in Materials and Techniques of Twentieth-Century Music, Second Edition (Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall), 1990: 1-15.
- class notes
- September 19: atonality
- topics & activities:
- historical contexts for atonality, expressionism, and neoclassicism
- listening/score reading:
- Arnold Schoenberg Sechs Kleine Klavierstücke op. 19
- Arnold Schoenberg Pierrot Lunaire selections: Mondestrunken, Der kranke Mond, Der Mondfleck
- reading:
- Allen Forte, from "Pitch-Class Sets and Relations," in The Structure of Atonal Music (New Haven: Yale University Press), 1973: 1-15.
- class notes
- September 20: Unruly Music - Chris Froh, guest artist (Recital Hall, 7:30 pm)
- September 26: neoclassic practices
- topics & activities:
- neoclassicism and its relationship to the classical style
- listening/score reading:
- Erik Satie Parade
- Igor Stravinsky Octet
- Igor Stravinsky Symphony of Psalms
- reading:
- Louis Andriessen and Elmer Schoenberger, "A Motto," "The Utopian
Unison," "Monsieur, le pauve Satie," and "Octotony," in The Apollonian
Clockwork, translated by Jeff Hamburg (Oxford: Oxford University
Press), 1989: 36-38, 75-80, 139-141, and 22 8-235.
- assignment 1 due:
- analysis of Schoenberg's Sechs Kleine Klavierstücke op. 19 no. 4
- class notes
- October 3: scale and mode
- topics & activities:
- nonwestern influences on twentieth-century music
- modality as an organizing principle
- quiz I: identification and analysis
- listening/score reading:
- Bela Bartok Mikrokosmos vol. 5 selections: Fourths and Major Seconds Broken and Together
- Benjamin Britten Curlew River
- Claude Vivier Zipangu
- reading:
- Kostka, "Scale Formations in Twentieth-Century Music," in Materials and Techniques: 23-39.
- Schwartz and Godfrey, "Non-Western Musical Influences," in Music Since 1945: 194-216.
- class notes
- October 10: twelve-tone technique
- topics & activities:
- the serial matrix
- cells and partitions
- listening/score reading:
- Anton Webern Variations op. 27
- Anton Webern String Quartet op. 28
- Igor Stravinsky Variations (Aldous Huxley in Memoriam)
- reading:
- Arnold Schoenberg, "Composition With Twelve Tones (I)," in Style and Idea: Selected Writings of Arnold Schoenberg, rev. ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press), 1984: 214-245.
- Charles Wuorinen, "On The 12-Tone System" and "The 12-Tone Pitch System: Elements and Operations," in Simple Composition (New York: Longman), 1979: 3-14 and 81-97.
- class notes
- October 17: integral serialism and after
- topics & activities:
- European reactions to World War Two
- listening/score reading:
- Karlheinz Stockhausen Kreuzspiel
- Pierre Boulez Le marteau sans maitre
- Iannis Xenakis ST/4
- reading:
- György Ligeti, "Decision and Automatism in Structures 1a," Die Reihe 4, trans. by Leo Black (Pennsylvania: Theodore Pressesr), 1960: 36-62.
- Paul Griffiths, "Europe 2: Total Organization, 1949-1954," in Modern Music and After (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995): 29-49.
- assignment 2 due:
- analysis of "March Royale" from Igor Stravinsky's L'Histoire du Soldat
- class notes
- October 24: indeterminacy
- topics & activities:
- quiz II: identification & analysis
- Frank Scheffer/Andrew Culver film of Fourteen
- listening/score reading:
- John Cage Sonatas & Interludes for Prepared Piano I and XI
- John Cage Music of Changes Book III
- John Cage Fourteen
- Witold Lutoslawski String Quartet
- reading:
- James Pritchett, "Throwing Sound Into Silence (1951-56)" and "Indeterminacy (1957-1961)," in The Music of John Cage (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993): 74-137.
- class notes
- October 25: Unruly Music - Roger Admiral, guest artist (Recital Hall, 7:30 pm)
- October 31: texture composition
- listening/score reading:
- György Ligeti Lontano
- Giacinto Scelsi String Quartet no. 4
- Helmut Lachenmann Mouvement (vor der Erstarrung)
- Olivia Block Make The Land [no score]
- reading:
- Schwartz and Godfrey, "Texture, Mass, and Density," in Music Since 1945: 164-193.
- assignment 3 due:
- analysis of Sonata IX from John Cage's Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano
- class notes
- November 7: semiotics
- topics:
- music, language, drama, and metamusic
- listening/score reading:
- Luciano Berio Sequenza III
- George Crumb Black Angels
- Sofia Gubaidulina Offertorium
- reading:
- Griffiths, "Of Elsewhen and Elsewhere" and "Music Theatre," in Modern Music and After: 151-184.
- class notes
- November 8: Unruly Music - Electro-Acoustic Music Center 25th Anniversary Celebration
- November 14: complexity
- topics & activities:
- understanding and performing complex rhythmic passages
- listening/score reading:
- Conlon Nancarrow Studies for Player Piano selections: #5, 21, and 37
- Brian Ferneyhough Terrain
- James Dillon East 11th Street NY 10003
- reading:
- Brian Ferneyhough, "Responses to a Questionnaire on 'Complexity'
(1990)" and "Shattering the Vessels of Received Wisdom: In Conversation
with James Boros (1990)," in Collected Writings (Amsterdam: Harwood
Academic Publishers), 1995: 66-71 and 369-405.
- assignment 4 due:
- analysis of an excerpt from Witold Lutoslawski's L'Espace du Sommeil (reh. 97, pp. 39-43)
- class notes
- November 21: minimalism and post-minimalism
- topics & activities:
- minimalism as a reaction, minimalism as an influence
- Clapping Music performance
- listening/score reading:
- Steve Reich Clapping Music
- Laurie Anderson O Superman [no score]
- Georges Aperghis Recitations nos. 1, 12, 13, and 14
- Louis Andriessen De Staat
- reading:
- Steve Reich, "Music as a Gradual Process", in Writings About Music (Halifax: Nova Scotia College of Art and Design), 1974: 9-11.
- Susan McClary, "'This is not a story my people tell': Musical Time and Space According to Laurie Anderson," in Feminine Endings (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press), 1991, 132-147.
- class notes
- November 28: electroacoustic music (incl. spectral music)
- topics & activities:
- quiz III: identification & analysis
- listening/score reading:
- Kaija Saariaho Pres
- John Oswald Dab [no score]
- Brigitte Robindore L'Autel de la Perte et de la Transformation [no score]
- reading:
- John Oswald, "Plunderstanding Ecophonomics," in Arcana, John Zorn, ed. (New York: Hips Road and Granary Books), 2000: 9-17.
- Tristan Murail, "After-thoughts," Contemporary Music Review 19/3 (2000): 5-9.
- Joshua Fineberg, "Guide to the Basic Concepts and Techniques of Spectral Music," Contemporary Music Review 19/2 (2000): 81-113.
- class notes
- December 5: improvisation
- topics & activities:
- improvisation/composition hybrids
- graphical and nontraditional notation
- listening:
- Pauline Oliveros The Roots of the Moment selection: Traces [no score]
- Anthony Braxton Composition #118A [intervallic] [no score]
- George Lewis/Muhal Richard Abrams/Roscoe Mitchell Bound [no score]
- reading:
- Pauline Oliveros "Acoustic and Virtual Space as a Dynamic Element of Music" & etc., in The Roots of the Moment (New York: Drogue Press), 1998: 3-21.
- Schwartz and Godfrey, "Notation, Improvisation, and Composition," in Music Since 1945: 394-416.
- assignment 5 due:
- analysis of Giacinto Scelsi String Quartet no. 5
- class notes
- December 12: sui generis
- listening:
- Morton Feldman The Viola In My Life 1
- Maja Ratjke Voice selections: Octo, Voice, Chipmunk Party [no score]
- Luigi Nono Con Luigi Dallapiccola
- December 19: final examination