Mozart: Life and Works
This course will examine Mozart’s precociousness, his impressive assimilation of Italianate and Germanic styles, and his relationship to the turbulent social transitions of his time.
Divided between biographic study and music analysis, the course will discuss seminal masterworks including the operas Don Giovanni and The Marriage of Figaro, the piano concertos, and the Jupiter Symphony. Music literacy is not required.
Aesthetics & Ideology in MusicSome musical masterpieces are relevant not only because of their intrinsic musical elements but also because of their iconic cultural significance. Such works illuminate key moments in history—moments when music played an especially important role—from the Reformation through the Soviet Revolution to Nazi Germany.
Bach and HandelThe exact contemporaries Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frederick Handel (both born in 1685) represent the pinnacle of Baroque art in its most exalted and characteristic phases.
Beethoven's Late PeriodBeethoven’s oeuvre is conventionally divided into three periods. This course examines the unique characteristics of Beethoven’s final period with its increasingly personal yet loftily philosophical character.
Choral and Spiritual MasterworksRequiems, masses, and cantatas comprise some of the most powerful musical experiences in the Western canon. Through CDs and DVDs, this course will examine such iconic masterworks as the Bach passions, the requiems of Mozart, Berlioz, and Verdi, and cantatas ranging from Bach to Stravinsky.
Dvorak and the Rise of Musical NationalismDvořák is an archetypal nationalistic composer. Czech language and culture became a point of ethnic pride during centuries under the German-speaking Hapsburg empire...