San José State University School of Music and Dance Department MUSC 201, Studies in Music History—Monteverdi, Section 2, Spring, 2012 Instructor: Gordon Haramaki Office Location: MUS 107 Telephone: (408) 924-4634 Email:
[email protected] Please include “201” in the subject line of your email. Office Hours: Monday/Wednesday/Thursday, 10:00-12:00 Class Days/Time: Thursday 4:00-6:30 PM Classroom: MUS 272 Prerequisites: Graduate Classified standing, or consent of instructor http://www.sjsu.edu/people/gordon.haramaki/courses/monteverdi/ Copies of the course materials such as the syllabus, major assignment handouts, etc. may be found on my faculty web page accessible through the Quick Links>Faculty Web Page links on the SJSU home page. You are responsible for regularly checking with the messaging system through MySJSU (or other communication system as indicated by the instructor). Course Description Course Description Often called the “Father of Modern Music,” composer Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643) lived from the last stages of the Renaissance Humanism in the late sixteenth-century princely courts of Northern Italy to the beginnings of both absolutist monarchies and of the Baroque aesthetic in the seventeenth century that mark the beginning of the modern era. Over the course of his long life, Monteverdi explored the Renaissance musical constructions of selfhood in the madrigal, and well as championing the free treatment of dissonance for the musical expression (affect) of a text, and helped contribute to the newly formed genre of opera and the development of the Baroque style. Seminar discussions and presentations by course members will be held weekly, and will cover a selection of various aspects of Monteverdi’s work, from his Mantuan madrigals to his Venetian operas.