MusB Music

This unit explores the diverse approaches composers took to renewing symphonic music as the nineteenth century came to a close, and the twentieth began. It places an analytical focus on symphonic form, tonality, harmony, and timbre, and examines the historical, social, and political contexts that defined this period. Indicative repertoire includes symphonies, overtures, and programmatic music (tone poems and symphonic poems) written in the late nineteenth century and in first half of the twentieth century. This was a period of significant transformation in large-scale form characterised by the works of Mahler, Strauss, Schoenberg, Sibelius, Nielsen, Shostakovich, Stravinsky, Vaughan Williams, Price, Ives, and many others.

Free Choice - Yes, but note pre-requisites below

Pre-Req: MUSC 10011 or equivalent

• To acquaint students with symphonic repertoire and trends from the late nineteenth century and first half of the twentieth century, and with various analytical approaches thereto
• To show how historical, analytical and aesthetic issues may be mutually illuminating, especially in the most challenging musical repertoire
• To foster initiatives in project design, with a view to third-year dissertation writing

Demonstrate detailed knowledge of a selection of significant symphonic works from the late nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries, and some of their key technical features.

• Understand and evaluate musical analyses encountered in modern scholarly studies.
• Identify and discuss broad trends in fin de siecle concert hall music and think critically about the discourse surrounding them.

• Use a range of established techniques for analysing and interpreting musical materials
• Demonstrate improved score-reading skills

• Demonstrate enhanced interpersonal and presentational skills

• Written feedback on assignments 1 & 2 via Turnitin
• Additional verbal feedback on Assignment 1 during a poster presentation exhibition (from the lecturer and peers)
• Additional one-to-one feedback (during consultation hour or by making an appointment)

Indicative texts:

Brown, A. Peter., and Hart, Brian (eds.), The Symphonic Repertoire, Vol. 3, Parts A and B: The European symphony from ca. 1800 to ca. 1930 (Indiana University Press, 2007, 2008).

Horton, Julian (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Symphony (Cambridge University Press, 2013).

Hepokoski, James, Sibelius, Symphony no. 5 (Cambridge University Press, 1993).  

McGregor, Emily, Interwar Symphonies and the Imagination: Politics, Identity, and the Sound of 1933 (Cambridge University Press, 2023).

Tarrant, Christopher, and Wild, Natalie, The symphony: from Mannheim to Mahler : a guide to the development of the symphony through the 18th and 19th centuries (London: Faber, 2022).

Whittall, Arnold, Exploring Twentieth-Century Music: Tradition and Innovation Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).