Not offered 2007-2008
MUS 245T Music Analysis: Music with Text (W)
The course explores the ways in which musical structure interacts with, can comment upon, and can influence one's reading of a text set to music, and similarly, how texts set to music
can exert influence upon and guide one's understanding of the musical structure. Using
scenes from Mozart operas and selected songs of the 19th and 20th centuries (by Schubert,
Schumann, Brahms and Schoenberg), the course will examine the bearing specific aspects
of a text (voice, person, time, alliteration, meter, and so forth) have upon the musical domain, and conversely, how musical structures have the ability to project or allegorize actions
in the text. We will observe the often amazing ways composers of texted music use the tonal system to create musical desires-desires that may be fulfilled, withheld, delayed, redirected, and so forth, in ways that enhance, or enact the desires of characters in a drama or
poem. In addition to the specific issues involving texted and dramatic works, the course will
introduce certain techniques and insights of linear analysis-one of the most profound developments in tonal analysis during the last century. Analysis assignments, based on the
student's close study of texted musical works, will offer the opportunity to apply these techniques. The course will also confront the difficult issue of writing about music and will help
students define and clearly express ideas about music.
Format: tutorial. Students will attend one weekly group lecture and one weekly tutorial
meeting. Grades will be based on five analysis essays/presentations and five critiques of
another student's analyses.
Prerequisites: Music 104. Enrollment limit: 10 (expected: 10). Preference will be based on
advanced progress in the theory courses.
E. GOLLIN