MUS 133(S) (formerly 210) Men, Women, and Pianos

This course takes the piano, its repertory, and its performers as focal points for a social history of Western music in the Classical, Romantic, and Modern periods. In addition to exploring "serious" composers and works by such figures as Mozart and Beethoven, we will consider piano music destined both for dedicated amateurs and crowd-pleasing virtuosi, such as Liszt and Gottschalk. Leading performers in the classical, jazz, and popular traditions, such as Clara Schumann, Vladimir Horowitz, Glenn Gould, Art Tatum, Thelonius Monk and Yanni will receive attention. Other topics to be addressed will include the cult of the virtuoso, the rise of the "piano girl," and the piano as a locus around which issues of class, sex and race are played out in nineteenth- and twentieth-century musical life. Because the course treats the topic of leadership in music, it can serve as an elective for the Leadership Studies Cluster. Evaluation will be based on class participation, several short papers and quizzes, and a final project and presentation. No prerequisites. Two lecture/discussions per week.

Hour: BLOXAM