37087 - History of Music Iv: 1900S (1)

Academic Year 2018/2019

  • Docente: Paolo Cecchi
  • Credits: 6
  • SSD: L-ART/07
  • Language: Italian
  • Teaching Mode: Traditional lectures
  • Campus: Bologna
  • Corso: First cycle degree programme (L) in Drama, Art and Music Studies (cod. 0956)

Learning outcomes

By the end of this course, students will:

- understand the phenomena and compositional-aesthetic choices that, between the end of 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, determined the crisis of the tonal system and the related stylistic and syntactic forms;

- learn the stylistic and poetic tendencies falling within the category "neoclassicism", in relation to or opposed to trends that persisted in radical linguistic research begun before the First World War;

- know and understand the experimentation and avant-garde innovations in the second half of the 20th century.

Course contents

Course Title:

The Music in Europe from 1880 to 1913. [30 hours, 6 credits]

The course will deal with forty years (1880-1918) of crucial importance for the development of european music, in the pasage from the late romanticism to the Modern. Facts and problems of that period will be presented using the historical and stilistic categories of “Late romanticim”, “Esoticim”, “Impressionism/Simbolism”, “Expressionism”, “Neoclassicism”, and the technical categories of “Enlarged tonality”, “Aphoristic form”, “Modalism”, “Polytonality”, “Atonality”. Moreover i twill be also treated the personalities and the productions of eight great composer of that time - - Mahler, Strauss, Debussy, Schönberg, Stravinskij, Bartók, Webern e Berg – who played a fundamental role in the making of the “New music” at the beginning of XX century.

Readings/Bibliography

Bibliography

A

- Guido Salvetti, La nascita del Novecento, Torino, EDT, 1991, (“Storia della musica, a cura della Società Italiana di Musicologia”, nuova edizione, volume 10), chapters 1-20; 24-33.

- the student should demonstrate to know the biographies and the works (those composed until 1918) by Richard Strauss, Gustav Mahler, Claude Debussy, Arnold Schönberg, Igor Stravinskij, Maurice Ravel, Alban Berg and Anton Webern, on the basis of the entries of one of these musical dictionaries: Dizionario enciclopedico universale della musica e dei musicisti. Le biografie, edited by Alberto Basso, 8 voll., Torino, Utet, 1985-1990; or The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Second Edition, ed. by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell, 29 voll., London, Macmillan, 2001.

B – Saggi

The student should demonstrate to know the content of one  of these following essays: 

1. R. Taruskin, Le sacre du printemps. Le tradizioni russe, la sintesi di Stravinsky [sic!], Roma-Milano, Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia-Ricordi, 2002,the chapters “I precedenti di un sogno”, “L'ideazione”, “Lo scenario e gli abbozzi iniziali”, pp. 3-46.

2. R. Stephan, Il pensiero musicale in Schönberg, in Schönberg, a cura di G. Borio, Bologna, Il Mulino, 1999, pp.113-127.

C – Partiture

The student shoud demonstrate to know one of the following scores , which are published in the Norton Anthology of Western Music¸ II: Classic to Modern, Fourth Edition, ed. by Claude Palisca, New York, Norton, 2001; and in : Norton Anthology of Western Music¸ II: Classic to Twentieth Century, Fifth Edition, ed. by Claude Palisca and J. Peter Burkholder, New York, Norton, 2006. 

The student, while reading and studing the score, should listen sever times to the discographic recording of the composition to remember the most important aspects of the score.

1. Gustav Mahler, Lied per voce e orchestra Nun will die Sonn'so hell aufgeh'n, dal ciclo dei Kindertotenlieder, in Norton Anthology, IV edizione, n.123; V edizione, n.137.

2. Claude Debussy, Trois nocturnes per orchestra, I movimento: Nuages, in Norton Anthology, IV edizione, n. 128; V edizione, n. 138.

3. Arnold Schönberg, Pierrot Lunaire per voce (“Sprechgesang”) e cinque strumenti op. 21, i seguenti due brani: n. 8, Nacht; n. 13, Enthauptung, in Norton Anthology, IV edizione, n. 135, A e B; V edizione, n. 141, A e B.

Assessment methods

Students will be assessed by oral examination based on the syllabus above.

Students who wants to take the examination shall demonstrate:

1) a knowledge of the examination bibliography.

2) a knowledge gained through the listening to a recorded performance and reading of the score one of the three compositions proposed by the examination bibliography. 

It will be assessed as adequate the performance of those students achieving an organic vision of the course contents, the use of a proper specific language, the originality of the reflection as well as the familiarity with the tolls for analysing the History of The Music of the 20th Century.

It will be assessed as discrete the performance of those students showing mostly mechanical or mnemonic knowledge of the subject, not articulated synthesis and analysis capabilities, a correct but not always appropriate language, as well as a scholastic study of the History of The Music of the 20th Century. It will be assessed as barely sufficient the performance of those students showing learning gaps, inappropriate language, lack of knowledge of the History of The Music of the 20th Century. It will be assessed as insufficient the performance of those students showing learning gaps, inappropriate language, no orientation within the recommended bibliography and inability to analyse the History of The Music of the 20th Century.

For office hours please consult the webpage of the teacher, professor Paolo Cecchi

Office hours

See the website of Paolo Cecchi