Music 547 (Spring 2017): The Baroque Listener (original) (raw)

Abstract

Wednesdays, 2:30-5:30pm, Music Library Seminar Room Who listened to music in the seventeenth century? Why did they listen and what did they hear? What can exploring these questions tell us in terms of analysis, performance practice, and listening today? When Baroque composers composed, singers sang, and listeners listened, they did so with certain basic assumptions in mind about how hearing worked: how sonic phenomena entered the ear, were perceived, and how sound (musical or otherwise) influenced body and soul. In this course, we will familiarize ourselves with these assumptions using a combination of primary sources and scholarly literature (e.g. G. Tomlinson, A. Fisher, R. Grant). Part of our focus will be analytical, as we investigate how pitch structures worked in the repertory we cover, using both more deliberately historicist methods (B. Meier, G. Barnett, R. Freedman) and modern analytic systems (H. Powers, E. Chafe). At the same time, we will seek to understand listeners in history. Together, we will ask how what listeners heard was shaped by who they were (and vice versa). In studying music as it was heard, we can better understand the emergence of musical styles and of listening subjects in the age of the Baroque. There will be weekly reading and listening assignments, as well as assignments in “historically informed analysis." Participants will write a research paper, a “conference” version (20 minutes long) of which will be presented in the final class session. Twice in the semester (between Weeks 5 and 14), participants will lead discussion. This seminar is primarily intended for MA/PhD students. Though it counts as a “history” course for performers, any MM/DMA students considering enrolling must confer first with Prof. Honisch. 3 credits

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