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Academic Year 2003/2004
Music in the Culture of German-Speaking Europe
GERM 288 SP
The course will focus on moments in the Western art music (i.e., "classical music") of primarily Austria and Germany over a period of 200 years (approximately Gluck to Berg) and their relation to the cultural, social,
and
political history of their times. This is a listening and a reading course, but not a survey course in the strictest sense, although we will explore in chronological fashion the relationships between many types of music
and composers. We will try to answer these questions: Are Germans/Austrians musical? What political, ideological, and social roles has music played within these cultures? What are the causes of the crisis of European
art
music in the 20th century? What, if anything, does music communicate?
MAJOR READINGS
Selected listenings include (but are not limited to) Gluck, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, the Schumanns, Brahms, Wagner, Strauss, Schoenberg, and Berg. Readings will include selections from the lyric poetry of Goethe,
stories of E.T.A. Hoffmann,
Moerike, and Mann, excerpts from Schopenhauer, reviews by Hanslick and Hoffmann, libretti of von Hofmannsthal and others, and theoretical writings of Wagner and Schoenberg.
EXAMINATIONS AND ASSIGNMENTS
Several short papers as well as midterm and final exams.
ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS and/or COMMENTS
There are no prerequisites, but it would be well if students had some knowledge of European intellectual currents in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The ability to read musical notation is not required,
although some awareness of the various
kinds of Western art music since the time of Mozart would be helpful. Unless preregistered students attend the first class meeting or communicate directly with the instructor prior to the first class, they will be
dropped from the class list. NOTE:
Students must still submit a completed Drop/Add form to the Registrar's Office.
COURSE FORMAT:
Lecture/Discussion
REGISTRATION INFORMATION
Level:
UGRD
Credit:
1
Gen Ed Area Dept:
HA GERM
Grading Mode:
Student Option
Prerequisites:
NONE
Links to Web Resources For This Course.
Last Updated on MAR-19-2004
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Copyright Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, 06459