78079 - Methodology of Musical Analysis (1) (LM)

Course contents

A “Second Practice” for Linear analysis

Despite of its influence (prevalent, to tell tne true, in english-speaking countries), the system developed by Heinrich Schenker (1868-1935) has given impulse to other methods of linear analysis - sometimes less rigorous but usually less proclive to mechanical, dogmatic application. Not for the sake of an inquiry into a matter even today so controversial, but of the right basis for linear analysis, the course explores its capacity of being a historically oriented knowledge of the various melodic styles.

By taking into account the work of theorists as E. Kurth and L.B. Meyer, the course aims to establish hypothetical analytical tools which include the consideration of implied melodic archetypes, the relationship between these linear schemata and the musical syntax, the harmonic prolongation in non-tonal contexts, and their graphic representation.

Readings/Bibliography

(1) Lecture Notes of the course, avaiable after its beginning.

M. Mastropasqua, Rappresentazione sonota e “immagine energetica” in Ernst Kurth, in P. Gozza (ed.), L’immagine musicale, Mimesis, Milano 2014

Assessment methods

d

1. Discussion on the essays of the Bibliography
2. Discussion of the linear analysis (implying details of any other parameter, like harmony and syntax) of a piece chosen among thoselisted below. The analysis must be presented in the form of a linear graph, previously realized by the student with the aid of the criteria learned at lesson (and partially by reading the Lecture Notes).

List of the pieces for analysis

[Available after the beginning of the course]

The students who don’t regularly attend to the lessons, will probably find more fruitful to substitute this program with that of the academic year 2013-1

1. Discussion on the essays of the Bibliography
2. Discussion of the linear analysis (implying details of any other parameter, like harmony and syntax) of a piece chosen among thoselisted below. The analysis must be presented in the form of a linear graph, previously realized by the student with the aid of the criteria learned at lesson (and partially by reading the Lecture Notes).

List of the pieces for analysis

[Available after the beginning of the course]

The students who don’t regularly attend to the lessons, will probably find more fruitful to substitute this program with that of the academic year 2013-14  (Analisi dei linguaggi musicali).

Office hours

See the website of Mauro Mastropasqua