Graduate Course Offerings

MUS 7757 (American Music) is a survey course offering an overview of music making in North America from the seventeenth century to the present day, primarily as practiced within the boundaries of the contemporary United States. The course considers music as a facet of culture, examining its role in the lives of Americans from different social backgrounds while considering the ways that U.S. history can be understood through the country’s music. The repertories under examination are as dissimilar as the nation’s inhabitants; as a result, students taking this course should be willing to respectfully engage with unfamiliar styles, typically without the aid of notation.

Opera, invented around 1600, has probably had a greater impact on society than any other genre. It has provided an artistic outlet at court, glorified kings, promoted nationalism, addressed social issues, and, of course, entertained people of all classes. Due to its interdisciplinary nature, it has influ­enced and been influenced by the history of literature, staging, and acting and has contrib­uted to the history of musical style (most notably by the invention of recitative and Wagnerian har­mony). This survey course will address an accordingly wide spectrum of issues, including historical and cultural context, librettos and versification, musical style, staging, and the business of opera. We will begin with the Florentine Camerata in the late 1500s and conclude with some master­works of the first half of the twentieth century. 

This course is for musicology and music theory graduate students (major or minor) and serves as an introduction to the fields of American musicology, music theory, and ethnomusicology. It is neither a music history course nor a survey of analytical techniques; we offer specialized courses in these areas. But whereas this course (like all introductions to the field) will to some degree reflect the instructor’s own training and interests, we will branch into areas that are new to all of us. Some of the topics include: the history of our societies, descriptive research, textual scholarship, analytical methods, new musicology, engaged music theory, and ethics.

Course description coming soon!

Study and application of significant contemporary methods of music analysis for both tonal and post-tonal repertoire. Prepares students for additional graduate courses in music theory; as such, it should be taken in the student’s first year of study. Required of all DMA candidates. Instructor: All theory faculty in rotation

This course prepares graduate students to become teachers of music theory and aural skills at the post-secondary level. We will survey teaching techniques and current research in the field of music theory pedagogy. Students will demonstrate their learning through teaching demonstrations as well as written work and curriculum development exercises. Students will also create a portfolio of documents needed to apply for, interview for, and succeed in jobs that require the teaching of music theory. 

This course explores ways of understanding the temporality of musical experience. Areas of focus will include theories of rhythm and meter developed for Euroclassical music (both tonal and post-tonal), non-Western perspectives on musical temporality, and study of temporal issues that arise in the analysis of popular music. Students will not only become familiar with the theoretical models themselves but will also practice their application through analytical and performance activities.

Course Description Coming Soon!

MUS 7756 (Music of the Modern Era) surveys the history of Western classical music during the twentieth century from stylistic, aesthetic, philosophical, and historical perspectives. Students will be exposed to major stylistic trends by examining representative works by leading composers; as a result, listening-based exams determine a large component of the final grade in this course. Students will also study the cultural context surrounding the music’s composition, performance, and reception through readings and class discussion.

This course surveys the life, works, and times of Franz Schubert (1797–1828), one of the most important composers of the nineteenth century. We begin by attempting to understand Schubert’s character and temperament, his life in a politically turbulent city, the social and cultural institutions that sponsored his musical career, and the circles of friends who supported and inspired his artistic vision. We turn to his compositions: the influence of predecessors and contemporaries (idols and rivals) on his early works, his revolutionary approach to poetry and song, the cultivation of expression and subjectivity in his instrumental works, and his audacious harmonic and formal practices. And we conclude with a consideration of Schubert’s legacy: the ever-changing nature of his posthumous reception, his impact on subsequent composers, and the ways in which modern composers have sought to retool, revise, and refinish his music. 

If you love opera, it doesn’t get much better than Giacomo Puccini. But whereas audiences have loved (most of) his operas ever since their premieres, critics and scholars resisted until the late twentieth century. In this seminar, we will evaluate Puccini’s place in the history of turn-of-the-century Italian opera, understand his protracted trajectory toward critical acceptance, study the performance practice of the time, and, of course, study some of his masterpieces, focusing on one or two aspects per opera: form in Manon Lescaut, style in La bohème, verismo and performance practice in Tosca, reception in La fanciulla del West, and a synthesis of these elements in Turandot.

The symphony emerged in the early eighteenth century and soon became the genre in which composers attempted to realize their highest ambitions in instru­mental expression. Perhaps better than any other genre, the symphony reflects the interests and con­cerns of the respective periods, such as the rise of public concerts, the development of particular instruments, the issues surrounding program music, looming wars, and new harmonic systems. In this course, we will investigate a select set of symphonies from a variety of angles: on the one hand, we will explore the historical context in which the symphonies were written; on the other, we will strive to enjoy and appreciate them both as self-contained musical works of art and representatives of a composer’s style. We will focus on the established masterworks of the Classic and Romantic periods and on those of the early twentieth century. 

Study and application of significant contemporary methods of music analysis for both tonal and post-tonal repertoire. Prepares students for additional graduate courses in music theory; as such, it should be taken in the student’s first year of study. Required of all DMA candidates. 

Survey of post-tonal analytical techniques and repertoire. 

This course explores analytical methods that inform performance decisions. Special attention is given to theories of form and gesture, and repertoire will mostly be drawn from the 18th and 19th centuries. 

Course description coming soon.