MUSI1301: History and Analysis of Western Music

• A-Level Music or equivalent.

• None.

• None.

• This course introduces students to formative practices, discourses, and repertoires of Western music in the period 16501820. The module will teach both historical and analytical approaches, in two halves, but in dialogue with each other. Students will gain an understanding of the socio-political and institutional contexts of music in this period and the possibilities of the cultural history of music. They will also develop a sense of the utility of analysis for understanding tonal music of the common practice. The module will furthermore communicate both the distinctiveness of these two approaches and their productive interaction: students will be familiarized with the disciplinary histories that have formed these two fields. Consequently, students will learn to be reflexive about scholarship and public discourse in music history and analysis, and begin to explore the reasons for the inclusion and exclusion of works and figures in a musical or musicological canon.

• The module divides into two parts: Michaelmas Term surveys important issues in the cultural history of music in the period 16501820, organized around core thematic areas; Epiphany Term focuses on analytical skills, centred on the close reading of representative works drawn from the historical survey undertaken in Michaelmas Term. Students will thereby deepen their knowledge of both works and the contexts of their production and reception, whilst also acquiring skills that are foundational to the practice of historical musicology and music analysis.
• In Michaelmas Term, lectures introduce musical discourses, institutions, genres, styles, figures, historical narratives, and historiographical issues, building on independent reading: seminars provide the opportunity to discuss both the music and associated writings critically. Important themes addressed will include discourses of cultural value and inclusion and exclusion; practices of listening to and interpreting music; sacred and secular, public and private contexts; notation and performance practice; print culture and publishing; the music industry and patronage; gender and race.
• In Epiphany Term, lectures will investigate formal, thematic, stylistic, harmonic and tonal features of ten representative works, ranging across instrumental, vocal, sacred, secular, high and low genres, chosen specifically to develop an informed perspective on the key analytical issues arising in this context. Students are expected to become familiar with the music through repeated listening and working with scores, in lectures, seminars and independent study, complementing the approach taken in MUSI1211 Historical Composition Techniques.

Subject-specific Knowledge:

• Students will acquire knowledge of mainstream genres, practices, and discourses and be aware of key narratives of music history in this period.
• Students will acquire knowledge of disciplinary debates in music history and music analysis.
• Students will acquire familiarity with musical conventions, forms, styles and practices of a wide range of music composed in this period.
• Students will develop an understanding of analytical approaches germane to the music of this period.

Subject-specific Skills:

• Students will learn to engage with historical and musical issues from a variety of intellectual standpoints, including the philosophical, political, cultural and analytical.
• Students will developing critical text-reading from engagement with primary and secondary literature.
• Students will develop the ability to analyse harmonic, thematic and formal processes using appropriate analytical methods.
• The module will develop students' capacity to connect historically informed score-based analytical study with some of the larger historical claims surrounding the period in question.

Key Skills:

• The ability to identify and conceptualize issues; the ability to situate ideas and practices in their historical context and to engage in critically informed argument; the ability to use appropriate analytical skills; the ability to read texts critically; the ability to articulate ideas in written and spoken forms.

• Lectures.
• Seminars, with scope for student formative presentations.
• Directed reading of set texts and scores for discussion in lectures and seminars
• Independent study of set texts and scores.
• Assessment and issue-based tutorials which address creative and critical modes of engagement, leading students to develop original research questions, and honing their capacity for critique, logical argument and written eloquence.
• Summative assessment on set topics/works.

Formative exercises will embed key competencies and develop students' skills in communicating their ideas in oral and written presentations. Students will prepare short oral presentations on set works and/or relevant historical topics for delivery in seminars; students will submit short formative written exercises, and receive either peer feedback, written feedback or feedback in tutorials.

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