MUHL M406-051 (2 credits) Topics in Music History: 1850-the Present: Brahms and His World MUHL M815-051 (3 credits) Topics in Music History: 1850-the Present: Brahms and His World General Syllabus Fall, 2019 Instructor: Dr. William Horne Office: Monroe Hall 302 Phone: 985-630-1223 Office Hours: Wednesday, 4:00-5:00, or by appointment Class Meeting Times: Wednesday, 5:00 to 6:50 pm Graduate students will be required to meet for one additional hour each week to discuss their more extensive reading assignments. Additional meeting times for graduate students TBA. Bulletin Description: A seminar-style study of a single topic concerning music from Wagner to the present, usually focusing on some aspect of Western art music but including consideration of influences from nonwestern and popular music. Course may be repeated for credit, so long as the topic is different. Topic Description: In this course we will study a sample of works by Johannes Brahms representing the different chronological periods and range of genres in which he wrote: piano music, solo song, instrumental chamber music, choral music, concertos, and symphonic music. We will also strive to gain a fuller understanding of the world in which Brahms lived, including the economic, social, and political contexts in which he worked, the musical politics of his era, and the significance of his work in the development of musical styles and ideas. Expected Student Learning Outcomes: • Students will demonstrate knowledge of major issues relating to musical style and musical life in Europe during Brahms’s lifetime. • Students will be able to describe Brahms’s aesthetic values and compositional style. • Students will be able to demonstrate a detailed knowledge, including aural recognition, of about 12 representative works by Brahms. • Students will be able to demonstrate improved research skills, both in the preparation of weekly discussion topics and in writing a research paper having to do with Brahms’s life and/or music. • Students will be able to demonstrate improved ability to understand and evaluate scholarly writing. • Students will be able to demonstrate improved oral communication skills in discussing issues that come before the class. • Students will complete an independent research project and present their work orally and in writing. Required Text: There is no required text. Books and scores will be on reserve in the library. Recordings of works to be studied are readily available online. The following resources will not be on reserve, but may be found in the reference section of Loyola’s library (Reference materials always remain in the reference section of the library.): Johannes Brahms. Neue Ausgabe sämtlicher Werke. Edited by the Johannes Brahms Gesamtausgabe e. V.: Editionsleitung Kiel in Verbindung mit der Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Wien. Munich: G. Henle Verlag, 1996-the present. Platt, Heather. Johannes Brahms. A Research and Information Guide. Second Edition. New York and London: Routledge, 2003. Quigley, Thomas. Johannes Brahms: An Annotated Bibliography of the Literature Through 1982. Metuchen and London: Scarecrow Press, 1990. Quigley, Thomas. Johannes Brahms: An Annotated Bibliography of the Literature from 1892 to 1996. Lanham and London: Scarecrow Press, 1998. The following resources may be found in the Howard-Tilton Memorial Library at Tulane, on the sixth floor. Please leave books or periodicals you consult in Tulane’s library on the 6th-floor reading tables to be reshelved. Johannes Brahms. Sämtliche Werke. Ausgabe der Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Wien. Vols. 1-10 ed. Hans Gál; vols. 11-26 ed. Eusebius Mandyczewski. Leipzig: Breitkopf und Härtel, [1926-27]. M3 .B8 Clive, Peter. Brahms and His World. A Biographical Dictionary. Lanham: Scarecrow Press, 2006. ML410 .B8 C54 2006 Loges, Natasha. Brahms and His Poets. A Handbook. Woodbridge and Rochester: Boydell Press, 2017. ML410 .B8 L64 2017 McCorkle, Margit L. Johannes Brahms. Thematisch-bibliographisches Werkverzeichnis. Munich: G. Henle Verlag, 1984. ML134 .B8 M3 1984 The following online resource may be of interest: http://www.brahms-institut.de The website of the Brahms Institute at the Musikhochschule Lübeck. Under “Forschung” (Research) you can access a number of digitized autograph manuscripts by Brahms, many digitized “Stichvorlagen” (engravers’ models—the hand-written copies that publishers used to create published versions of Brahms’s works), as well as digitzed first editions of Brahms’s complete works and many other interesting materials. You can right-click on this site to read pages in English. Types of Assignments: Reading assignments, listening assignments, short writing assignments, and a term paper. NB—all assignments are provisional; they may change during the course of the semester. Graduate students will be required to do additional reading assignments. All written assignments in this class must be submitted in hard copy. Calendar: Dates Subjects 8/21 Introduction and orientation: Brahms and genre. Starting a timeline: exploring the biographical portion of the article about Brahms in the New Grove Dictionary. Schumann’s “Neue Bahnen” article. Assignment for 8/28: Listen to Brahms’s Sonata, Op. 1; read commentaries about this work by Adolf Schubring (Frisch and Karnes, Brahms and His World, pp. 195-202), and Malcolm MacDonald, (Brahms, pp. 64-66), Johannes Behr, Chapter 31,“Germany,” in Loges and Hamilton, Brahms in Context, pp. 307- 313. Contantin Floros, Chapter 13, “Schumann’s Essay ‘Neue Bahnen’: A New Interpretation,” in Constantin Floros, Brahms and Bruckner as Artistic Antipodes, pp. 107-121. 8/28 Brahms’s Sonata, Op. 1 Motivic work; cyclicity; musical referentiality; styles and varieties of criticism Assignment for 9/4: Listen to Clara Schumann’s Variations on a Theme by Robert Schumann, Op. 20, and Brahms’s Variations on a Theme by Robert Schumann, Op. 9. Read: Siegfried Kross, “Brahms and E. T. A. Hoffmann,” 19th-Century Music 5 (1982): 193‒200, and E.T.A Hoffmann, “Johannes Kreisler’s Certificate of Apprenticeship,” from the same volume, pp. 182-192. Read Avins, pp. 36-41, 46-8, 67-8, 104-5, 134-6, and the article on Clara Schumann in Clive (pp. 398-404.) 9/4 Brahms’s Variations on a Theme by Robert Schumann, Op. 9. Brahms as reader; his identification with E. T. A. Hoffmann’s literary figure, Johannes Kreisler; his relationship with Clara Schumann; Clara Schumann’s and Brahms’s variations compared; organization in Kross’s article. Assignment for 9/11: Listen to Brahms’s First Piano Concerto, Op. 15; read MacDonald, (Brahms, pp. 99-104), Avins, pp. 49-50, 147, 149-52, 164-5, 168, 188-90, and the article on Joseph Joachim in Clive (pp. 244-8). 9/11 Brahms’s First Piano Concerto, Op. 15. Problems of genre. Early relationship with Joseph Joachim. Brahms as pianist— Mozart’s D Minor Concerto and Beethoven’s C Minor Concerto. The issue of virtuosity. Assignment for 9/18: Listen to Brahms’s Four Songs for Women’s Chorus, Op. 17, and Motet, Op. 29, No. 2. Read Sophie Drinker, Brahms and his Women’s Choruses, Chapter 5, “Franziska Meier’s Diary 1859,” pp. 24-41, and Avins, 128-131, and 161-2. 9/18 Brahms’s Four Songs for Women ‘s Chorus, Op. 17, and Motet, Op. 29, No. 2. Brahms’s counterpoint studies with Joachim, his work as a choral conductor in Detmold, canonic and fugal procedures in the Motet. Assignment for 9/25: Issues in Brahms Research: What was Brahms’s childhood like? Read Jan Swafford, “Did the Young Brahms Play Piano in Waterfront Bars?,” 19th Century Music 24 (Spring, 2001), 268-75, and Styra Avins, “The Young Brahms: Biographical Data Reexamined,” 19th Century Music 24 (Spring, 2001), 276-89. 9/25 Discussion of the articles by Swafford and Avins, especially the use of evidence, argumentation, and organization. Assignment for 10/2: Listen to Brahms’s songs, “Der Kuss,” “Scheiden und Meiden,” and “In der Ferne,” Op. 19, Nos. 1-3, and “Von ewiger Liebe, Op. 43, No. 1,” and his String Sextet No. 2 in G Major, Op. 36. Read the article on Agathe von Siebold in Clive, pp. 416-20, and Avins, pp. 181-4. 10/2 Brahms’s Lieder, Op. 19, No. 1-3, Op. 43, No. 1, and his String Sextet No. 2, Op. 36. Music as veiled autobiography: dangers and opportunities. Schubertian influence on the chamber music of Brahms’s “first maturity.” A harvest of contrapuntal studies in chamber music. Assignment for 10/9: In preparation for your midterm exam, listen to and read about Brahms’s Horn Trio, Op. 40. When you come in for your exam, you will be given the opportunity to respond to questions about this work, and about the other works we have studied so far, by writing short paragraphs. Ten questions will be provided to you in the 10/2 class. I will choose five of these for you to respond to in the exam. 10/9 Midterm exam Assignment for 10/16: Listen to Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem, Op. 45. Read Daniel Beller-McKenna, “Religion, Language, and Luther’s Bible” Chapter 2 in Daniel Beller-McKenna, Brahms and the German Spirit, pp. 31-52. Choose a paper topic from the list of suggested ones provided by me or be ready to propose a paper topic to me in the next class. I must approve all paper topics. Please submit paper topics in writing. 10/16 Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem. Movement II as a “scherzo in the tempo of a sarabande.” The Requiem and Schumann’s “Neue Bahnen.” Was Brahms religious? Organization in McKenna’s chapter. Assignment for 10/23: Listen to Brahms’s Hungarian Dances for piano four- hands, books I and II, and Piano Quartet in G Minor, Op. 25, movement IV. Read Jonathan Bellman, “Performing Brahms in the style hongrois,” Chapter 12 in Performing Brahms: Early Evidence of Performance Style, ed.