Mythology and Music

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M&M: Mythology and Music We all learn differently. Some of us listen to lectures, some of us read the books, some of us need visuals, and some of us learn best by music. This assignment is going to combine a number of these elements. Many famous pieces of music have been written based on mythology. Your goal is to select a piece of music based on the Greek/Roman mythology and/or a celestial object that is named after a Greek/Roman mythological entity. Once you have decided on your myth/entity, you will need to do the following. 1. Listen to the piece of music. 2. Familiarize yourself with the myth, mythological entity, and celestial object (if relevant). 3. Write a myth inspired by your piece of music and the mythological components. In the title, you must include the name of the piece, the composer, and the orchestra that performed the piece. Then write the myth using the characters and events that the piece is based on. 4. Locate and link/print a visual of the mythological element. Just in case you don’t know anything about classical music, I’m including a list of pieces that spring from Greek or Roman mythology (shamelessly copied from the internet). Some of these pieces can be fairly long, but you only need to listen to and write about single movements. Personally, I’m not familiar with all of these pieces, so if you read anything about the piece and it is totally unrelated to this assignment, you’ll have to punt and select another piece. Once you decide on your piece, enter it next to your name in the shared google.doc: there can be no repeats. This assignment is worth 30 points: 20 for the story and 10 for the image and the essential information you need to include. 1. Gustov Holtz: The Planets 2. Offenbach's "Orpheus in the Underworld" 3. Birtwistle • The Minotaur • The Kerees • Tragoedia • The Mask of Orpheus 4. Liszt: Orpheus, Prometheus 5. Sebelius: Pan and Echo 6. Lekeu: Andromede 7. Beethoven: The Creatures of Prometheus 8. Dittersdorf: The Transformation of the Lycian Peasants into Frogs 9. Igor Stravinsky • Oedipus Rex • Appolon • Persephone 10. Alexander Scriabin: Prometheus, the poem of fire, op. 60 11. Richard Strauss: • Elektra • Ariadne Auf Naxos 12. Camille Saint-Saëns: • Phaéton • Le rouet d'Omphale 13. Claudio Monteverdi: • Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria • L'Orfeo • Lamento d'Arianna 14. Karol Szymanowski: • La Fontaine d'Aréthuse • Demeter • Penthesilea • Metopes 15. Agawe 16. Benjimen Britten: Six Metamorphoses after Ovid and Phaedra 17. Debussy: Syrinx 18. Schubert: Der Atlas 19. Albert Roussel's Bacchus et Ariane Ballet 20. Ravel's Daphnis et Chloé Ballet 21. Albert Roussel: • Bacchus et Ariane • Aeneas • La naissance de la Lyre 22. Arthur Honegger: • Amphion • Antigone • Callisto • Les noces de l'Amour et de Psyché • Oedipe • Pasiphaé • Phèdre • Pygmalion 23. Godard: Magic Lantern Op.50 No.2 Pan 24. Schytte: Op.63 No.5 Caprice – Pentesilea 25. Chaminade: Op.37 No.4 Callirhoë 26. Chaminade: Op.81 Terpsichore 27. Darius Milhaud: • "l'Orestie": Agamemnon, Les choéphores, Les Eumenides • Les malheurs d'Orphée • l'Enlèvement d'Europe • l'Abandon d'Arianne • La délivrance de Thésée • Médée .

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UNIVERSITY of CALIFORNIA Los Angeles
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Transcending Imagination; Or, An Approach to Music and Symbolism during the Russian Silver Age A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Musicology by Ryan Isao Rowen 2015 © Copyright by Ryan Isao Rowen 2015 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Transcending Imagination; Or, An Approach to Music and Symbolism during the Russian Silver Age by Ryan Isao Rowen Doctor of Philosophy in Musicology University of California, Los Angeles, 2015 Professor Mitchell Bryan Morris, Chair The Silver Age has long been considered one of the most vibrant artistic movements in Russian history. Due to sweeping changes that were occurring across Russia, culminating in the 1917 Revolution, the apocalyptic sentiments of the general populace caused many intellectuals and artists to turn towards esotericism and occult thought. With this, there was an increased interest in transcendentalism, and art was becoming much more abstract. The tenets of the Russian Symbolist movement epitomized this trend. Poets and philosophers, such as Vladimir Solovyov, Andrei Bely, and Vyacheslav Ivanov, theorized about the spiritual aspects of words and music. It was music, however, that was singled out as possessing transcendental properties. In recent decades, there has been a surge in scholarly work devoted to the transcendent strain in Russian Symbolism. The end of the Cold War has brought renewed interest in trying to understand such an enigmatic period in Russian culture. While much scholarship has been ii devoted to Symbolist poetry, there has been surprisingly very little work devoted to understanding how the soundscape of music works within the sphere of Symbolism.
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