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Early Music >> Content Detail



Syllabus



Syllabus

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The calendar below lists topics by session.



Course Requirements




Listening


Listening as much and as well as you can is an essential part of success in this subject. Plan to spend a minimum of six hours outside of class per week reading, listening, and studying. If you cannot find six hours in your schedule you probably do not have time to take this class. The average class meeting will have about 20 minutes of listening assigned, usually in the form of several short works, many of which are too dense to get at in a first hearing. Some of the listening may be passive or familiarity listening - putting on the CDs while finishing a Chem. problem set or organizing your desk - but the majority will need to be active and without distraction. Make sure you have a place where you can do this listening undisturbed. I have tried as much as possible to get good recordings of great pieces; I hope they are enjoyable.



Writing Assignments


This subject is CI-M, requiring at least twenty pages of writing (exclusive of revisions). There will be at least two short response papers (either one page or 2-3 pages) and two major papers, first 8-15 pages, which will be revised and resubmitted, and a final paper of 10-20 pages. The papers serve three main purposes: to stimulate research interests in music before 1680, to improve your academic writing in general, and to improve your writing about music in particular.

A reminder that the MIT writing center does great work in helping improve writing (including making amazing writers even better). And, scheduling an appointment to have someone look over your work a couple of days before it's due is a wonderful incentive to actually writing before the night before.

The first paper is due on Lec #10 (with revisions due on Lec #16). The final paper is due on Lec #24.



Presentations


At least one presentation in class will be required. The length and format will depend on how many of us are in the class (i.e., it may be a shorter individual presentation or longer group presentation)



Exams


There will be two hour examinations in class (exam 1 will be held 5 days after Lec #11 and exam 2 will held 2 days after Lec #22). No assignments will be due during exam period.



Participation


Your participation (including but not limited to attendance) is important. In addition to classroom time, attendance is required at two concerts in which you are not a performer which include at least one piece (longer than 8 minutes) of a repertory is similar to that of this course (i.e., pre-1680). Only one may be a student concert. Turn in the concert program (or a stub if no program existed) and jot a paragraph about something you liked or didn't (5% total). I will announce some concerts of particular interest; Boston is an amazing town for Early Music so we should be able to find a number of great recitals.



Office of Sext


At the start of most sessions, the class will chant the Office of Sext for Tuesday (Feria Secunda ad Sextam), using appropriate chants for Lent, Passiontide, and the post-Easter season.

Office of Sext for Tuesday (Feria Secunda ad Sextam) (PDF)



One Final Requirement


It's great music, so let's enjoy it. Please let me know if you ever have concerns about the course or if you have suggestions for changes or improvements.



Grading


Grading will be calculated (approximately) as follows:


ACTIVITIESPERCENTAGES
Two papers (20% each)40%
Two exams (20% each)40%
Participation20%

Other smaller assignments will be figured into either the paper grade or the exam grade. Presentations and concerts will come from the participation grade. A failing grade may be assigned for failure of any of the five components of the class.



Required Texts


Amazon logo Wright, Craig, and Bryan R. Simms. "Antiquity through the Baroque." In Music in Western Civilization. Vol. 1. Belmont, CA: Thomson/Schirmer, 2006. ISBN: 9780495008651.

Amazon logo Roden, Timothy J., Craig Wright, and Bryan R. Simms. "Antiquity through the Renaissance." In Anthology for Music in Western Civilization. Vol. A. Belmont, CA: Thomson/Schirmer, 2006. ISBN: 9780495008798. [Book and CD]



Recordings


Many listening assignments are on the CD accompanying the required text Roden, et al. Anthology for Music in Western Civilization. Vol. A.

Other selections will be from various sources placed on library reserve, including individual CDs and the Recordings to Accompany the Norton Anthology of Western Music (NAWM).



Calendar



SES #TOPICSKEY DATES
Unit 1: Introduction, chant, and medieval music
1

Introduction

Music in the medieval western church

Cycles of the day and of the year

Form of the mass and of the office

2

Preamble: Music in the Greek and Roman world

Mode and chant

Types of chants

Reading modern chant notation

Practice singing the office of sext

3

Types of chants (cont.)

Office review

Chant manuscripts and notation

Syllabic, neumatic, and melismatic chants

Hexachords and the Guidonian hand

4

Non-Gregorian chant

Modern chant books

Innovation in the chant repertoire (sequences, tropes)

Liturgical drama and the compositions of Hildegard of Bingham

Other chant traditions in the west and elsewhere

The unending tradition of chant

Assignment 1 due 5 days after Ses #4: Three versions of Viderunt Omnes in chant
Bridge 1: From chant to 1315
5

Secular monophony in the middle ages

Troubadours and trouvères

Court life in the later middle ages

Discussion of previous assignment

Polyphony before the Magnus Liber

Theoretical sources and prehistory

Musica Enchiriadis

Earliest practical sources

Conductus

6

Polyphony in Paris (Notre Dame) and in the early 13th century

Anonymous IV

Leonin and Perotin

Organum and Discant

Modal rhythm

Ars antiqua motet: Introduction

7

Music in the 13th and early 14th century

Motets become secular

Ars antiqua manuscripts

Instrumental music: Danses reals

Roman de Fauvel

Philippe de Vitry

Isorhythm and hocket



Listening quiz 1


Assignment 2 due: Composition of Perotin style organum
Unit 2: Music in the (mainly Italian) fourteenth century
8

Guillaume de Machaut and music in France before 1370

Machaut, poet and musician

Formes fixes

Motets and mass

Reims vs. court life

Machaut and the Gesamtausgabe

9

Trecento music 1

Discussion and performance of Se per dureça

Principles of Italian notation

Jacopo da Bologna and the madrigal

Francesco and the ballata

Assignment 3 due: Transcription of Se per dureça
10

Trecento music 2: New trends in our knowledge of Italian music

Squarcialupi codex

Other sources

Zachara da Teramo and the Parody mass

Johannes Ciconia and the Motet

First paper due
11

Simplicity and complexity

Keyboard music

Cantus Planus Binatim

Ars Subtilior

Assignment 4 due: Transcribe Missus ab arce
Exam 1
Bridge 2: The continental renaissance
12

The Renaissance and music 1420-1460

Guillaume Du Fay and his contemporaries

The English sound

Fauxbourdon

Motets and cyclic masses

Ockeghem and the canon

13

Vocal music: Josquin, his contemporaries, and his followers

Patronage

Documents and manuscripts

Josquin and his (or someone else's?) innovations; "Ave Maria"

"The pervasive myth of pervasive imitation"

14

Other innovations in continental music, 1460-1550

Palestrina and Lasso

Dance and keyboard music

Instrumental forms

French song

Protestantism and music

Unit 3: Elizabethan London
15

From Dunstaple to Elizabeth: Tudor England

The Elizabethan Madrigal (Weelkes, Gibbons, etc.) and its Italian predecessors

Music printing

16

Chapel Royal

Catholicism and Anglicanism in England (William Byrd)

Music education, instruction, and theory (Thomas Morley)

Revised paper due

Assignment 5 due: Answer a few questions about Morley's Plaine and Easie Introduction

17

Instrumental music and lute song (Doug Freundlich, guest performer/lecturer)

Dowland and lute song

Consort music

Jane Pickering lute book ("Toys;" "Maids in Constrite")

"Can she excuse?"

"Woods so Wild?" (William Byrd setting no. 30)

"Fitzwilliam virginal book"

Assignment 6 due: Maids in Constrite worksheet
18

Music in society: The cries of London

More secular music in England

More keyboard music

In Nomine music



Listening quiz 2


Bridge 3: Missed traditions in the late renaissance
19

Chromaticism in the late 16th-century Italian mad-rigal

The dances and writings of Michael Praetorius

Second paper assignment out
Topic 4: Music in Venice 1570-1660
20

Maestri di cappella Venice: (Rore), Williaert

(Andrea and) Giovanni Gabrieli and music in the Basilica of S. Marco

Cori spezzati. Gabrieli's music for brass

Preamble to the Baroque and the rise of a new style: Florentine Camerata; Peri, Cavalieri, etc. (early monody)

Basso Continuo

21Monteverdi (1567-1642) before and in Venice
22

Opera in Venice after Monteverdi

Barbara Strozzi

Venice's influence: Heinrich Schütz

Instrumental music in Venice

Exam 2
Conclusion: Other baroque music / music towards the end of the seventeenth century
23

Non-Venetian developments: Oratorio: Carissimi, Jephte

Jewish music published in Venice

Church music towards the end of the century

24Music in the 1680sSecond paper due

 








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