Music - Spring 1998

This course studies the evolution of electronic music thoughout the century, discussing both technology and art, and the profound synergy between them. During the first half of the semester, emphasis is on historic developments and repertoire, with lots of listening and analysis (both in class and assigned). The second half regards the many tech developments and musical directions currently active in electronic music, and in the production of live and recorded music in general. Classes are full of sounds, instruments, guest speakers and demonstrations.

Opera addresses our strongest passions. Love, lust, hatred, and grief figure prominently in operatic story lines, which composers have further intensified with music. This spring you will have a chance to examine how the consummate art form of opera has dealt with our most basic emotions through the years, and at the same time you can earn a "T" credit for your general education arts requirement.

The course will be organized chronologically, providing an overview of opera from its inception around the year 1600 to the present. As operatic style and conventions have changed, the drama inherent in them has necessarily been affected. One must view Monteverdi's *Orfeo* of 1607 and Strauss' *Salome* of 1905 from quite different dramatic perspectives.

The course carries no prerequisites. A reading knowledge of music is not necessary.

The course will require one textbook, a paperback of 382 pages: *The Oxford History of Opera,* edited by Roger Parker. This book contains chapters on the staging of opera and opera as a social occasion, which we will discuss in class. While you will be asked to read the historical chapters, they will serve primarily as reference material. You will not be asked to memorize long lists of operas and composers. Most of the factual information for which you will be responsible will be distributed on hand-outs, which will include terms to learn and information about the operas that we will be studying in some detail.

Class meetings in Room 131 Music Center (the Performance Studio), Tues.-Thurs., 10:00-11:45, will be supplemented by screenings of entire operas each Wednesday evening, 7-10, also in Music Center 131. (Videodisks of these operas will be available for personal viewing in the Media Center on the first floor of McHenry Library.)

Here is a schedule of the main topics of each week and the operas to be screened. They will be sung in their original languages with subtitles in English. The excerpts given below are only a partial list.

Week I: Baroque and reform opera

Evening screening, Wed., April 8: Monteverdi, *La favola d'Orfeo*

Excerpts in class: Handel, *Julius Caesar*; Gluck, *Orfeo ed Euridice*

Week II: Mozart's operas

Evening screening, Wed., April 15: Mozart, *The Marriage of Figaro*

Excerpts in class: Mozart, *Don Giovanni* and *The Magic Flute*

Week III: Early nineteenth-century Italian opera

Evening screening, Wed., April 22: Rossini, *The Barber of Seville*

Excerpts in class: Donizetti, *Lucia di Lammermoor*; Bellini, *Norma*

Week IV: Verdi's operas

Evening screening, Wed., April 29: Verdi, *La traviata*

Excerpts in class: Verdi, *Otello* and *Aida*

Week V: Wagner's philosophies and music dramas

Evening screening, Wed., May 6: Wagner, *Die Walkuere* (4 hours)

Excerpts in class: Wagner, the other *Ring of the Nibelung* operas

Week VI: Nineteenth-century French opera

Evening screening, Wed., May 13: Bizet, *Carmen*

Excerpts in class: Meyerbeer, *Les Huguenots*

Week VII: Late Nineteenth-Century Italian opera

Evening screening, Wed., May 20: Puccini, *La boheme*

Excerpts in class: Puccini, *Tosca*; Leoncavallo, *I Pagliacci*

Week VIII: Post-Wagnerian German opera

Evening screening, Wed., May 27: Richard Strauss, *Salome*

Excerpts in class: Strauss, *Der Rosenkavalier*

Week IX: Russian opera

Evening screening, Wed., June 3: Prokofiev, *The Fiery Angel*

Excerpts in class: Musorgsky, *Boris Godunov*

Week X: Twentieth-century American opera

Evening screening, Wed., June 10: Gershwin, *Porgy and Bess*

Excerpts in class: Floyd, *Susannah*; Corigliano, *The Ghosts of Versailles*

The Mozart week will include a discussion of ways in which opera on film changes the dramatic impact of a staged production, as well as consideration of the effects of changing the locale and time period of the setting of an operatic production. Our Verdi week will include a comparison of the last act of Shakespeare's *Othello* with the fourth act of Verdi's *Otello*. The Carmen week will include a general discussion of opera with spoken dialogue. Later on, several famous Toscas (including the legendary Maria Callas) will sing the famous second-act aria for your consideration of the dramatic effect of the operatic diva (superstar) on an audience. Small snippets of many other operas will be shown in class as illustrations of various points.

The basis for students' grades and evaluations will be a midterm exam, final exam, and short entries in a "journal" which you will keep, giving your thoughts about the dramatic impact of each opera viewed on Wednesday evenings.

I very much look forward to taking this passionate operatic journey with you!

Sherwood Dudley

Professor of Music

In-depth exploration of the music of the Grateful Dead. Contextual study of the sociology and history of the late 1960s psychedelic movement will supply background for study of the music as the band evolved through time.

The course will proceed as follows:

• Introductory material:
  • the musical roots of the Grateful Dead;
  • history and sociology of the 1960s in San Francisco, California.
• The early music, from the Acid Tests through the first recordings: Grateful Dead, Anthem of the Sun, Aoxomoxoa.
• Acoustic period and consolidation: Live/Dead, Workingmen's Dead, American Beauty.
• First world tours: Skull and Roses, Europe '72.
• Retreat from commercial arena and establishment of their own record company: Wake of the Flood (1973), From the Mars Hotel (1974), Blues for Allah (1975), Steal your Face (1976).
• Re-entry into commercial records with Arista contract: Terrapin Station (1977), Shakedown Street (1978), Go to Heaven (1980), Reckoning and Dead Set (1981).
• The "Mega-Dead" and commercial success: In the Dark (1987), Dylan and the Dead (1989), Built to Last (1989), Without a Net (1990).
• The last shows; Hornsby, then Wellnick, replace Brent Mydland after his death.
• The Grateful Dead's musical legacy&endash;improvisational bands such as Phish, Moe, the Zen Tricksters, and others. Continued projects by band members after Garcia's death; the Further Festival (Weir's Ratdog, Mickey Hart's Planet Drum, and Mystery Box).

No appropriate text is currently in print; a reader will be provided. Weekly listening assignments will be required.Student evaluation will be based upon the midterm and final examinations, with possible extra-credit paper.

Revised 7/13/04.