Music 241: Music History I From the Middle Ages to the Early Baroque Fall 2020: M-W (2:30-3:45) Steve Saunders Office: 235 Bixler Phone: x5677; e-mail: sesaunde Office Hours: Just about any time via Zoom! Overview Music 241 concentrates on what is sometimes called “early music,” music in the Western tradition from the Medieval, Renaissance, and early Baroque periods (to ca. 1700). The course deals with composers, their works, and the cultures in which the musical compositions arose, treating its subjects from several viewpoints: historical, cultural, and analytical. Music 241 will introduce you to: 1) a variety of musical compositions, representing the range of styles and genres cultivated in the Medieval, Renaissance, and early Baroque; 2) the historical and analytical questions posed by those works, and most fundamentally; 3) questions about the nature of historical understanding--the ways in which historians think about and study such music. Textbook Purchases • Richard Taruskin and Christopher H. Gibbs. The Oxford History of Western Music: College Edition. Second Edition. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019. (OHWM) [Required] • Robert Holzer and David Rothenberg, eds., The Oxford Anthology of Western Music [Required] Note: It’s fine to buy either the first or second edition of the anthology. Class Web Pages www.colby.edu/music/saunders/MU241 The main class web pages contain assignments, public domain scores, streaming audio files, video resources, and supplementary links. https://moodle.colby.edu/mod/folder/view.php?id=296197 The Moodle page has pdf files of all reserve readings. There is a link to this page from the class web page, above. Requirements and Evaluation Grading Your grade in Music 241 will be based on: 1. The score on a midterm exam (25%), and final exam (25%). Both the midterm and final will have two sections: a listening/score study portion, and a written portion. The midterm covers first portion of the course; the final covers the second half of the semester and is not cumulative. 2. Grade on quizzes (10%). There will be 6-8 short quizzes. You may drop your two lowest quiz grades. Some will be announced quizzes others will be short, take-home projects. There are no make-ups of quizzes; a missed quiz counts as one of the dropped grades. 3. Class Participation (5%) 4. Grade on an oral presentation on a scholarly article (10%) 5. Grade on a longer research paper (25%) This semester each student will write a research paper as part of an exhibition catalogue about a chant manuscript owned by Colby. More details TBA. Attendance Policy Success in MU 241 requires attending classes, keeping up with reading and listening assignments, and completing projects as required. You may miss two class meetings for illness, emergencies, athletic conflicts, etc. without penalty—provided that you notify me before class of your absence. Each unexcused absence beyond two lowers the semester grade by 3 percentage points. Academic Integrity Honesty, integrity, and personal responsibility are cornerstones of a Colby education and provide the foundation for scholarly inquiry, intellectual discourse, and an open and welcoming campus community. Academic dishonesty includes, but is not limited to: violating clearly stated rules for taking an exam or completing homework; plagiarism (including material from sources without a citation and quotation marks around any borrowed words); claiming another’s work or a modification of another’s work as one’s 2 own; buying or attempting to buy papers or projects for a course; fabricating information or citations; misrepresentations to faculty within the context of a course; and submitting the same work, including an essay that you wrote, in more than one course without the permission of the instructors. For more on recognizing and avoiding plagiarism, see: libguides.colby.edu/avoidingplagiarism 3 Music 241: Tentative Course Schedule DATE TOPICS ASSIGNMENT (To be completed before each class) W Aug. 26 Music and History (Meet in Miller Library Special Collections) _________________________________________ M Aug. 31 Chant I: Music/Text/Style Read Syllabus Explore Class Web Page and Moodle Page Read: OHWM, 3-4; 8-11; 21-23 http://ege.denison.edu Listen: 1-2: Justus ut palma (Antiphon and Psalm) 1-3: Justus ut palma (Introit) 1-4: Jusus ut palma (Alleluia) W Sept. 2 Chant II: Catholic Liturgy in the Read: OHWM, 11-14; 23-25 Medieval Era Fassler, Neumes and Square Notation Listen: 1-2: Justus ut palma (Antiphon and Psalm) 1-7a Hymn: Ave maris stella 1-8: Kyrie IV M Sept. 7 Chant III: Liturgical Books and an Read: OHWM, 15-21 Introduction to Mode Listening: 1-4f: Agnus Dei II W Sept. 9 Chant IV: Notation, Transmission and Read: OHWM, 14; 30-31 Orality Hiley, Gregorian Chant, 100-108 Kelly, Capturing Music, 1-16; 41-48; 51-54 Listen: Justus ut palma (Gradual) M Sept. 14 Chant V: Performing Chant Read: Hiley, Gregorian Chant, 215-18 Bergeron, Finding God at Tower Records Brunner, The Performance of Plainchant Listen: O solis ortus cardine (3 recordings) Iste confessor (1 recording) Laetentur caeli (2 recordings) W Sept. 16 Working Session with Chant Assignment TBA Manuscripts (Meet in Miller Library Special Collections or Virtual Meetings with Me) M Sept. 21 Elaborating the Liturgy Read: OHWM, 25-30 Listen: Victimae paschali laudes (Sequence) Dies Irae (Sequence) Ave maris stella (hymn) Quem quaertis (Trope) Regina caeli laetare (Marian antiphon) W Sept. 23 Fauvel, Vitry, Machaut and Music of the Read: OHWM, 72-86 Ars nova Listen: Anon., L’autre jour Vitry, Tribum/Quoniam/Merito Machaut, Felix virgo/Inviolata Machaut, En mon cuer Machaut, Rose, liz M Sept. 28 Politics and the Motet: Read: OHWM, 64-68; 93-97 Dufay’s “Nuper rosarum flores” Wright, Nuper Rosarum Zazula, Out of Proportion Listen: Ciconia, Doctorum principem Dufay, Nuper rosarum flores 4 W Sept. 30 Island and Mainland: Read: OHWM: 101-115 Listen: 34, Anon., Sumer is icumen in Music in the Early 15th Century 36, Dunstable, Quam pulchra es 37, Du Fay, Ave maris stella 38, Binchois, Anguished grief M Oct. 5 Emulation and Imitation: Read: OHWM: 113-25; 130-32 Atlas, A Fictive Composition Manual Sacred Music in the 15th and Early 16th Eisenberg, Arms and the Mass Centuries Listen: 40, Anon, Caput Mass, Kyrie 40, Ockeghem, Caput Mass, Kyrie 41, L’home armé tune 41, Busnoys, L’homme armé, Agnus Dei W Oct. 7 Musica ficta and Editions of Early Music Read: Atlas, “Editing a Chanson” Atlas, “Musica ficta” Listen: TBA M Oct. 12 Fall Break: No Classes _________________________________________ W Oct. 14 Art Perfected: From Josquin to Read: OHWM: 133-42; 146-61 Palestrina Listen: 46, Josquin, Ave Maria 48, Josquin, Benedicta es 50, Palestrina, Missae PM, Kyrie 52, Byrd, Two Settings of Agnus Dei M Oct. 19 Exam #1 _______________________________________ W Oct. 21 No Class _______________________________________ M Oct. 26 Vernacular Song in the 16th Century: Read: OHWM: 163-65; 174-82 Frottola, Villanella, and Chanson Listen: 55 Cara, Mal un muta per effecto 56 Sermisy, Tant que vivray --, Janequin, La guerre 57b, Lasso, “Matona mia cara” 59, Rore, De le belle contrade d’oriente W Oct. 28 Speaking of Sex: The Late Italian Read: OHWM: 182-89; 208-210 Madrigal McClary, Modal Subjectivities, Chapter 3 Macy, Speaking of Sex Listen: 58, Arcadelt, Il bianco e dolce cigno 60, Marenzio, Solo e pensoso __, Wert, “Tirsi morir volea” M Nov. 2 The Monodic Revolution Read: OHWM: 191-202 Sanford, “National Singing Styles” Caccini, Le nuove musiche (excerpt) Listen: 65 Caccini, “Amarilli, mia bellast __ Caccini, “Udite, udite amanti” __ Grandi, “O quam tu pulchra es” Chapter Drafts Due 5 W Nov. 4 Monteverdi and the Birth of Opera Read: OHWM, 202-216 Listen: __, Monteverdi, Lament of the Nymph 67, Monteverdi, Orfeo, Act II 68, Monteverdi, Pur ti miro M Nov. 9 Approaches to the Analysis of Early Read: Chafe. Monteverdi’s Tonal Language Listen: Monteverdi, “Zefiro torna” 17th-Century Music: Cantus, Hexachord, Monteverdi, “Cruda Amarilli” and Mode W Nov. 11 Seventeenth-Century Instrumental Music Read: OHWM, 218-221; 247-53 Listen: Frescobaldi, Cento partite Corelli, Trio Sonata in g minor, Op. 3, #11 Vivaldi, “Spring Concerto” M Nov. 16 How to be HIP: The Historically Read: Hoyt and Gallant, Online Articles Informed Performance Movement Taruskin, Letting the Music Speak Kelly, Early Music: A Very Short Intro Listen: Bach, Mass in b minor Bach, Brandenburg Cto. 5 (excerpts) W Nov. 18 Opera After Monteverdi Read: OHWM, 240-47 McClary Gender Ambiguity/Erotic Excess Inglis-Arkell, What Did it Mean to be a Castrato M Nov. 23 Presentation of Research Projects _______________________________________ TBA Final Exam _______________________________________ 6 Scholarly Articles/Chapters for Oral Reports • Thomas Forest Kelly, Capturing Music: The Story of Notation (New York: W. W. Norton, 2015), pp. 1-16; 41-48; 51-54. [Sept. 9 The book from which these excerpts come is a fascinating read—written for nonspecialist readers, it is less an introduction to the history of musical notation than an exploration of the history of ideas around notation, for example, memory, the impermanence of sound, the intimate ties between word and music. • Lance W. Brunner, “The Performance of Plainchant: Some Preliminary Observations of the New Era,” Early Music 10/3 (1982): 316-28.[Sept. 14 How to perform Gregorian Chant has been a highly controversial issue. This article provides a survey of some (relatively) recent research on the performance of Gregorian Chant, particularly matters of rhythm, ornamentation, and vocal production. A good choice for someone interested in performance: the presenter will lead us through the article and how it applies to several recorded performances of chant. • Craig Wright, “Dufay's ‘Nuper rosarum flores.’ King Solomon's Temple, and the Veneration of the Virgin,” Journal of the American Musicological Society, Vol.