San Francisco Conservatory of Music/ Fall 2008

MHL602 Topics in Music History: Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries

Dr. Susan Harvey
Email: susanharvey1@gmail.com
Tel: 415-824-3920
Class meeting: Friday 9.30- 11.50, Room 507
Office hours: by appointment, Room 508

Course description: This course reviews 18th and 19th century music by focusing on five
topics involving characteristic issues, repertoire, and cultural contexts of musical life. The
topics for this semester are fugue, sonata, music and the inner life, Beethoven, and scene
structure in opera.

Course requirements: Students are expected to attend and take notes on lectures, and to
keep up with weekly listening and score study assignments. There will be a reading
review and an analysis assignment for the sonata and for the fugue unit, and essays based
on reading assignments for the inner life, Beethoven and opera units. All course materials
(readings, scores and listening excepts) are on reserve in the library in course binders for
each topic unit. The cumulative final exam will include listening/score recognition and
essay questions.

Grading:
Unit assignments (reading reviews, essays, analysis) 60%
Final exam written portion 20%
Final exam score/listening recognition 20%

Course policies: It is assumed that students enrolled in the course will not have conflicts
with other regular obligations; absences due to extraordinary circumstances should be
officially filed as a short term leave of absence. Assignments for each unit are due on the
first day of the next unit, except for the final assignment which is due the last class
meeting. Late assignments will be accepted only through the final class meeting of the
following unit, and will receive an automatic one half reduction in grade. No outstanding
assignments will be accepted after the end of the final class meeting. The final exam will
be given only one time at the final class meeting, and there will be no opportunity for
make ups. No talking during listening excerpts. Cell phones and other personal electronic
devices must be turned off during class.

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Course Schedule 2009

Topic One: Fugue in the 18th and 19th centuries

At the beginning of the 18th century, fugue was considered the highest accomplishment in
the organization of musical material. We will observe the changing meaning of fugue to
composers through our period, and how it was adapted to changing stylistic and
expressive needs.

January 23
Standard terminology and procedures; stile antico and fugue in baroque ritornello form

January 30
Fugue integrated into classical genres; use of fugue in romantic period

Topic Two: Sonata form and process

Is there such a thing as sonata form? If so, what are its distinguishing features? Why
did it become so important in the 18th and 19th centuries?

February 6
Precursors in the early 18th century: tonality, periodicity, motive

February 13
classical sonata principle; the invention of “sonata form”; integration of fugue and sonata

February 20
Sonata in the 19th century

Unit Three: Music and the Inner Life

Music serves as a reflection of the inner life of men and women, and musical styles and
genres answer to the vast range of emotional and spiritual experiences of people in every
period. In this unit we will examine such phenomena as the spirituality of Lutheran
Pietism, self-discovery in the Enlightenment, dream images, madness and the advent of
psychoanalysis in the 19th century.

February 27
Philosophy of affect; J.S. Bach and Pietism

March 6
The cult of sentiment; C.P.E. Bach and Empfindsamkeit; Haydn and Sturm und Drang

March 13
Romantic philosophies of the self and the sublime; Schumann, Lizst

Topic Four: Beethoven

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The figure that straddled the classic and the romantic age was surely one of the most
important forces on composers that came after him. Through a study of several
significant compositions we will observe how Beethoven received, reacted to and
transformed the musical language of the 18th century, and how his legacy was received by
the 19th century.

March 20
Early works

March 27 Spring Break

April 3
Middle period

April 10
Late works
Topic Five: Scene structure in opera
Claims and counterclaims about the nature and function of opera, often expressed as
efforts at “reform”, inspired, entertained and irritated the 18th and 19th centuries. This unit
focuses on changing approaches to the projection of drama through scene structure in
opera.

April 17
Handel, Rameau

April 24
Gluck, Mozart

May 1
Wagner, Verdi

May 8
Final Exam