Course Meeting Times
Lectures: 2 sessions / week, 1.5 hours / session
Prerequisites
21M.301 Harmony and Counterpoint I or permission of instructor.
Course Objectives
- to become familiar with the musical languages developed since 1900
- to listen to music precisely and describe it using appropriate terminology
- to identify and analyze important features in notated scores
- to react independently and critically to unfamiliar works
- to understand how music is shaped by aesthetic, historical, and political motivations
Textbooks
These books are required:
-
Auner, Joseph. Music in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries . W. W. Norton & Company, 2013. ISBN: 9780393929201. (Also available in eBook format, ISBN: 9780393904604) -
———. Anthology for Music in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries. W. W. Norton & Company, 2013. ISBN: 9780393920215.
A supplemental materials website for this book contains many links to online resources, additional references, and downloadable study guides.
Additionally, the class uses Grove® Music Online [a subscription-based service not provided for OCW users] as an additional biographical reference about composers.
Communication-Intensive Assignments
This course satisfies the Music degree Communication Intensive in the Minor (CI-M) 
requirement. It requires 5000 words of formal writing, incorporating oral presentation, revision, abstract-writing, and citation practice. Short informal presentations will also be assigned throughout the term.
Details are provided on the Papers page.
Course Policies
Collaboration
Students are encouraged to listen to assigned music together, and to attend performances together, but must write their own independent answers to worksheet questions and reports.
Citing Sources
Essays must cite any sources (including websites) that were used in researching a topic. I am happy to help you find appropriate scholarly resources. Please note that the Grove music encyclopedia is much more reliable than Wikipedia.
Attendance and Lateness
Attendance is counted every class and is part of your grade. Arriving more than five minutes late will cause you to miss your warm-up points for the day.
Late Work
Only under exceptional circumstances will daily homework assignments be accepted late. Late essays will incur a penalty of 5% per day. In assessing lateness, the "end of the day" is defined as 5pm.
Technology and Materials
The use of computers and tablets is allowed for classwork only; smartphones are forbidden. You should bring your textbook and score anthology to every class meeting.
Grading
| COURSEWORK | PERCENTAGES |
|---|---|
| Attendance | 10% |
| Warm-ups | 10% |
| Daily assignments | 15% |
| Five short listening quizzes | 10% |
| Two live event reviews | 10% |
| Paper 1 | 10% |
| Paper 1 revised version | 10% |
| Paper 2 | 25% |
Note that there are no formal exams. The five short listening identification quizzes on works in the Anthology will take less than 15 minutes and will happen at the beginning of class. Lateness or absence on these days is not advisable.
Summary Calendar
| CLASS # | TOPICS | COMPOSERS | KEY DATES |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Late-Romanticism and the Dawn of Modernism |
Gustav Mahler Richard Strauss | |
| 2 | Impressionism, Mystic Synesthesia, and Orchestral Exuberance |
Claude Debussy Alexander Scriabin | |
| 3 | Expressionism and Atonality |
Arnold Schoenberg Alban Berg | |
| 4 | Symphonic Innovations |
Charles Ives Jean Sibelius | |
| 5 | Stravinsky's Russian Ballets | Igor Stravinsky | Quiz 1: Anthology works from Lecture 1 to Lecture 4. |
| 6 | Weimar Modernism |
Kurt Weill Paul Hindemith | |
| 7 | Neo-Classicism |
Igor Stravinsky Erik Satie Sergei Prokofiev | |
| 8 | The Influence of Jazz |
Maurice Ravel George Gershwin Darius Milhaud | |
| 9 | The Twelve-Tone System |
Arnold Schoenberg Anton Webern Alban Berg | Quiz 2: Anthology works from Lecture 5 to Lecture 8 |
| 10 | Bartók: The Formal and the Folk | Béla Bartók | |
| 11 | American and British Landscapes |
Aaron Copland Ralph Vaughan Williams | |
| 12 | Nationalism as Style; Style as Nationalism |
William Grant Still Heitor Villa-Lobos Colin McPhee Leoš Janáček | Paper 1 due |
| 13 | Reactions to Destruction |
Benjamin Britten Richard Strauss | Quiz 3: Anthology works from Lecture 9 to Lecture 12 |
| 14 | In the Soviet Union |
Dmitri Shostakovich Sergei Prokofiev | |
| 15 | Systematic Strategies |
Pierre Boulez Olivier Messiaen Milton Babbitt | |
| 16 | Music and Avant-Garde Performance / Art |
Pauline Oliveros John Cage Karlheinz Stockhausen Yoko Ono | Paper 1 revision due |
| 17 | Machines and Technologies |
Mario Davidovsky Kaija Saariaho Luigi Russolo George Antheil Edgard Varèse Karlheinz Stockhausen | |
| 18 | New Textures and Spectral Music |
György Ligeti Conlon Nancarrow Gérard Grisey Tristan Murail | Quiz 4: Anthology works from Lecture 13 to Lecture 17 |
| 19 | Complication, Again |
Elliott Carter Helmut Lachenmann Brian Ferneyhough | |
| 20 | Post-Modernism |
George Crumb Luciano Berio | |
| 21 | Music from "The East" |
Chen Yi Toru Takemitsu | In class: Paper 2 peer review of abstracts and outlines |
| 22 |
Minimalism and its Aftermath Guest speaker: Evan Ziporyn |
Steve Reich Terry Riley | |
| 23 | Great(?) American Opera |
John Adams Philip Glass | Quiz 5: Anthology works from Lecture 18 to Lecture 22 |
| 24 | Guest speaker: Joseph Auner (Tufts University, textbook author) | ||
| 25 | Short presentations on Paper 2 | Paper 2 due |