Overview

This module introduces students to musicological study through a survey of music history between 1850 and the present day, combined with a series of workshops on study skills.
The module surveys selected works in a range of art music and popular genres. Changes and developments in musical style will be set in their historical, cultural, social, geographical and aesthetic contexts. In addition, students undertake a deeper study of two works, exploring them analytically as musical texts, and probing the circumstances in which they were composed.

Indicative lecture topics include: - Wagner and the 'total artwork' - Miniature forms: Grieg and Satie - Viardot and the role of the salon - Brahms: tradition and progressiveness - Music in late 19th-century France: Bizet, Fauré and Debussy - Stravinsky and the Ballets Russes - Music and technology: The Futurists and Varèse - Breaking away from tonality: Schoenberg and Webern - Neoclassicism: Ravel, Falla and Stravinsky - The early years of jazz - Symphonic traditions: Sibelius and Shostakovich - The birth of rock music - Musique concrète and Elektronische Musik - Cage and experimental music - Popular music in the 1960s - Integral serialism: Boulez and Stockhausen - Music from Soviet Russia: Gubaidulina and Schnittke - Progressive rock and beyond - Minimalism and post-minimalism - Pluralism, postmodernism and the culture industry

Indicative set texts for deeper study in seminars include: - Debussy: Préludes, Book 1 - The Beatles: Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

Assessment Strategy

-threshold -D– to D+: Work which demonstrates an adequate knowledge of the subject, with limited ability at conceptual and critical thinking, expressed intelligibly.

-good -B– to B: Work which demonstrates a good grasp of the subject, with strong conceptual and critical thinking, expressed engagingly.

-excellent -A– to A**: Work which demonstrates a thorough grasp of the subject, with evidence of originality in conceptual and critical thinking, expressed convincingly.

-another level-Work which demonstrates a competent grasp of the subject, with adequate conceptual and critical thinking, expressed understandably.

Learning Outcomes

• On completion of the module, the student should be able to analyse music from performances and scores.

• On completion of the module, the student should be able to communicate ideas effectively.

• On completion of the module, the student should be able to demonstrate a knowledge of specific works, styles, genres and musical features in repertoire composed between 1850 and the present day.

• On completion of the module, the student should be able to demonstrate a knowledge of the historical and cultural circumstances in which music was composed and performed between 1850 and the present day.

• On completion of the module, the student should be able to identify specified repertoire aurally.

• On completion of the module, the student should be able to research topics in music history independently.