SYLLABUS
MUSIC for THOUGHT
(timings are tentative)
Spring 1997
Prelude
January 27
Get acquainted, organizational. Main themes and how are we going
to proceed. Artistic trends in the 19th. and 20th. centuries.
Presentation:
Franz Liszt - personality; his world, his beliefs;
technique; audience.
Analysis:
Les Annees de Pelerinage:
- Petrarca Sonet 104 and
- Jeux d'eau a villa d'Este.
Handout:
Leitmotif chart - Tristan und Isolde
Assignment:
Listen to Tristan und Isolde and be
able to recognize all the Leitmotifs
Schopenhauer and Wagner
February 10
Romanticism and Eastern philosophy. Wagner - personality;
influence on other artists/thinkers; the "music of the future";
technique: Leitmotifs, chromatic harmony, endless melody; fusion
of all arts; symbolism and myth.
Presentation:
Die Welt als Wille und
Vorstellung. Schopenhauer's influence and opinions
on music.
February 17
Wagner's music. Buddhism and Catholicism in Parsifal.
Analysis:
Prelude to Tristan's first act.
From the second act.
February 24
Emotions in music; music's power of expression and suggestion.
Wagner and Hanslick. Berlioz on Wagner and the "music of the
future".
Analysis:
Second act of Tristan.
Finale of the musical drama.
Assignment:
listen to Beethoven String Quartets Op. 130
and Op. 133
listen to Beethoven Piano Sonatas Op. 106,
and Op. 111.
Imitating Nature in its mode of operation...
March 3
Structure and complexity in Beethoven's last quartets and piano
sonatas. Works "on the edge" of the classical system. Conflict
between strict counterpoint and chromatic harmony; heterophony. Traces
of indeterminacy. Entropy and the second law of Thermodynamics.
Complexity.
Presentation:
Beethoven's last years; personality; his illness;
"contemplation of Nature"; audience.
Analysis:
Die Grosse Fugue, Op. 133
Sonata, Op. 111 - fragments
Assignment:
listen to Debussy - Jeux
listen to Boulez - Le marteau sans maitre
read Mr. Croche antidilettante
March 10
The arrow of time; dissipative structures. Bergson. Non-linear
associations - Baudelaire: Sonet des correspondances;
Debussy and Proust: "le temps retrouve". Music is not
(always) a language. Gentle exit from tonality. Debussy's tools;
audience.
Presentations:
Impressionism in the arts; symbolism.
French poetry and painting at the turn of the century.
World politics between 1870 - 1920 and its impact on the arts.
Analysis:
Debussy - Jeux (formal design)
Assignment:
listen to Bach
- Kunst der Fugue
- Musical Offering
- Von Himmel's Hoch variations
listen to Stockhausen - Gruppen
Rationalism, Structure, Science
March 17
Coherence between Science, Arts and Philosophy: Newton, Bach, Kant.
The Enlightment. Classical mechanics and relativity. Art for art's
sake. Is neoclassicism justified ? Structuralism and sound parameters;
audience.
Presentations:
Integral serialism; the domains technique of Boulez
Stockhausen's article "...how time passes..."
Assignment:
listen to Xenakis:
- Pithoprakta
- Nomos Alpha
- Atrees
- Mists
- Jalons
read Ligeti's article on Boulez in Die Reihe.
(Spring break)
March 31
The three "architectures" of Xenakis. Stochastic
distributions, algebra, and controlled indeterminacy. System music
and process music.
Presentations:
Mathematical tools in the music of Xenakis.
Assignment:
listen to works by Leonin and Perotin
listen to Cage - Music for Changes
Ideology/Religion and the individual
April 7
Musical metaphors; medieval thinking; New York Zen. Authorship; the
role of art/music. Chance operations; "form is no form".
Presentations:
Medieval life in Western Europe; audiences.
Zen Buddhism.
Analysis:
Leonin & Perotin
John Cage - Music of Changes
Assignment:
read Huelsenbeck - The Agony of the Artist
(in Memoirs...)
April 14
Anti-art; Concept art. Dada: ethics and aesthetics. Irrationality,
chance, and the absurd; the liberation of the individual. Existentialism.
Pitfalls of structuralist thinking.
Presentations:
Dada and surrealism
Existentialism and Sartre
The poignant lives and work of Nerval, Artaud, Sade, Rimbaud,
Leverkuhn, Mishima, Genet, Pound, Burroughs, Bataille, and others.
Examples:
Marcel Duchamp - The Bride Stripped Bare...
Assignment:
read Eco - The Role of the Reader, chapter 1
April 21
Open works. Aleatory music and multiple time sequences. Obsolete art
objects and craftsmanship. Quantum Theory, uncertainty and possible
historygrams.
Presentations:
Quantum Mechanics: present understanding of the structure
of the matter and the history of the universe.
Analysis:
Assignment:
listen to Xenakis - Jalons
April 23, 8:00 pm - extra session
Alain Robbe-Grillet - L'annee derniere a Marienbad.
An emerging paradigm
April 28
Present views on structure, indeterminacy, complexity. Computers as
tools and as assistants. Thought experiments and computational science.
Manifold compositions. Do-it-yourself music kit.
Presentations:
Prigogine's dissipative structures, Being and Becoming,
Complex Dynamic Systems.
Directions in computer-assisted composition and computer sound
synthesis.
Examples:
Herbert Brun - i toLD YOU So
Michael Hamman - FreeFall
Hiller - Algorithms IV
Tipei - ANL-folds
Xenakis - Jalons
Assignment:
start work on the term paper
May 5
The composer as a team leader. Where is the audience ? Elitism.
Sonification: sounds for science, a practical aspect. VR replaces
the psychedelic culture. Multiple internet personalities. New
means of disseminating music. A return to the musical "salon" ?
More Examples:
Koenig - Segmente
Tipei - Many Worlds
Xenakis - Mycene Alpha
Assignment:
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