DQ for Watkins, 45-61

DQ for Watkins, 45-61

[audio files of selected pieces to be added to WebCT this weekend]

Please be prepared to respond in either seminar meeting or in "Comments" on the course blog. In all venues, you must be prepared to cite specific passages (by page, paragraph, line, and quotation) in support of your responses—and specific works.

The goal of this section in part parallels that previously provided for pre-Expressionist/pre-serial Schoenberg and Webern: to demonstrate that that Berg’s early music is both more directly tied to that of his immediate predecessors (in Berg’s case, Mahler above all, but also the Impressionists) and contains the seeds of his later mature style (especially in Wozzeck and the unfinished Lulu). However, this section also seeks to accomplish rather different from those paralleling the early careers of Schoenberg and Webern: it is a corrective, seeking to “correct” the simplistic presumption that Berg’s music resulted from a mere synthesis of Mahler and Schoenberg. In fact, Watkins suggests that Berg’s influences were much wider than this (as we have seen was the case with Schoenberg and Webern) and that his music “sounds different” from that of his colleagues’ as a result of conscious choices. Berg is typically described as the most “Romantic” of the Viennese serialists; Watkins complicates this effectively. The following questions build upon and exploit this basic, fruitful complication.

(1) In the opening of the discussion on Berg Op. 2, Watkins identifies influences from not only prior composers but also to contemporaneous ideas in aesthetics and philosophy. What are these ideas; from what artists, musicians, authors, and philosophers does Berg derive them; how do these ideas play out in the Op.2? Suggestion: consider linking this to the discussion of Goethe’s influence(s) upon Webern in the pdf article by Perloff, under “Materials –Week 03 – Links”

(2) In the discussion of Op.2’s “Warm die Lufte,” how would you summarize the harmonic language which Watkins identifies? What are the technical specifics of this opus’s harmonic approach? What are Berg’s goals in employing such a harmonic language? What is the impact of these harmonic choices upon formal structure? How does text play a role in formal structure here?

(3) Further to (2) above: on p47ff, Watkins identifies predecessors to “Warm die Lufte’s” harmonic language in a range of outside influences: composers, genres, and specific works. Be prepared to discuss these outside influences, and to articulate a thesis that distinguishes Berg from Schoenberg in his use of, and relationship to, these influences. Also, Watkins uses the phrase “nationalist legacies” (p47) in regards to these harmonic approaches; what is the significance of this phrase? And, do these “nationalist harmonic legacies” link Berg to any other composers, outside those Watkins mentions, who might have been making similar harmonic innovations in the same period? Who are they?

(4) pp48-50, note the parallels between Berg’s style in “Warm die Lufte” and contemporaneous works by Schoenberg. Does Berg’s music in this period, like that of Webern, continue to display such parallelism, or does Berg’s style diverge? If so, in what specific technical ways, and on the basis of what contrasting priorities and/or influences?

(5) Note the text and musical idioms Watkins cites from Ravel’s settings of Symbolist poetry in Gaspard de la nuit. Does this influence from Ravel “point toward” expressive modes and moods in Berg’s later work? Can we draw specific connections between the Symbolist French (e.g., “Impressionist”) and Symbolist German (e.g., “Expressionist”) composers of the period? Does this complicate the traditional musicological boundary drawn between these two allegedly “national styles”?

(5) Note the very felicitous phrase, used in reference to Berg, Mahler, Loos, Webern, and Schoenberg, “precision and reduction” (p51). Does this phrase speak to issues we discussed in most recent seminar meeting? What terminology did we use in that meeting? What is the relationship of that terminology to “precision and reduction”? What is the motivation behind these goals?

(6) pp51-52: Be prepared to describe all the different ways in which Berg drew upon Mahler: technical and philosophical, topical and allusive, and so forth. Suggestion: one very fruitful way to think about the relationship between these two composers is to articulate the role that techniques of quotation, allusion, and parody played in various works. Seek to discover parallels in Mahler’s and Berg’s use of such techniques.

(7) Note the detailed discussion (pp52-55) of the Altenberglieder, both for its content and as a model for a way to do detailed, score-based analysis and interpretation in a musicological context. In other words: read this for what it tells us about the Altenberg songs—but also read it as an approach you might emulate in your own research paper. Note the level of detail, the range of parameters that Watkins discusses, the way he related technical musical details to larger/prior issues (of influence, style, philosophy) in the argument. This is a good model.

(8) At the bottom of p53, Watkins references Der Blaue Reiter. Grad students, please read the linked article. All: please find all other references to this journal in the Index; how can this journal, its contributors, and its perspectives, help us understand artistic context and goals in fin-de-siecle Germany (especially Munich and Vienna)? Further to our 1.27 discussion, how does this help us see certain priorities manifesting across art forms? How do these priorities play out in the future?

(9) p54, item 6 is extremely important. What is the content of this paragraph? How can we expand upon its insights to address similar trends among other composers, in other places, and at later periods in the early 20^th century? (See also p57 top, same issues)

(10) pp57-58 discussion of “symmetries” is likewise extremely important. Why are these composers concerned with formal “symmetries” (on large or small scales)? What priorities does this concern implicate? How does this symmetrical focus play out in specific atonal works? In specific serial works? In later works by other composers?

Distinguishing requirements for undergrad vs grad students in MUHL5336

Folks:

I will shortly be posting the Discussion Questions for Watkins 45-61 (pre-Expressionist, pre-serial Berg); feel free to make a start on that material.

In the meanwhile, I'll offer a clarification about contrasting expectations of undergraduate versus graduate students in MUHL5336. As I said, the principal distinction will be in grading and scope of assignments: that is, I would expect graduate papers, exam essays, and so forth to display their additional effort and expertise. However, I can offer an additional distinction that may be useful in thinking about my expectations for each of you.

Within the general formula of "3 for 1" (that is, 3 hours of outside-class work expected for each 1 hour of in-class work), here things I would expect grad students to accomplish:

(1) I would expect grad students to complete, and display knowledge of, all readings in their entirety (e.g., not only Watkins, but also pdf readings already discussed, and more of the same to come). This would include those readings I describe as "optional": perhaps a better way to describe these would be to say "optional for undergrads, mandatory for grad students."

(2) Contributions and comments: I would expect all grad students to display a regular presence via in-class contributions and/or blog comments. If you prefer not to speak in class but rather to comment on the blog, that is fine--but as a graduate student you must have a regular and visible presence in one or both venues. Undergrads: this doesn't mean you are not expected to do this, of course--but it does mean that grad students must contribute--regularly.

Hope that is a useful clarification. DQ's for Watkins 45-61 follow later today.

Followup to 1.23 class, and, additional pieces to listen to for 1.25

Folks:

A few followup elements:

(1) The "How to read for musicological content" handout is now up under "Resources." Please assimilate this method and use it; it will help you keep up.

(2) On the blog, please read, and be prepared to respond to DQ's for, Watkins 38-44.

(3) On WebCT under "Materials - Week 03 - Audio", please listen to (at least excerpts from) Schoenberg's "Book of the Hanging Gardens," the Second String Quartet, and Five Orchestral Pieces Op. 16 (in addition to the Webern works also located there and discussed in Watkins 38-44. For these 3 Schoenberg pieces, think about these issues:

* "Hanging Gardens": how is dissonance handled? What is the impact of this handling on (a) functional harmony; (b) phrase structure; (c) texture? What other SHMRG elemetns gain in importance?

* Second String Quartet: what is the formal structure? Does tonality play an organizing role? See Watkins's discussion, particularly of the programmatic significance of quotation and allusion in this piece.

* Five Orchestral Pieces op. 16: listen for and be prepared to discuss the formal significance of contrast in this piece. What role does motivic and/or thematic development play in this work? WHY does it play such a role?

See you Thursday.

DQ for Watkins, 38-44

DQ for Watkins, 38-44

Please be prepared to respond in either seminar meeting or in "Comments" on the course blog. In all venues, you must be prepared to cite specific passages (by page, paragraph, line, and quotation) in support of your responses—and specific works.

The goal of this section, parallel to the preceding section dealing with Schoenberg’s “pre-atonal” development, is to demonstrate links between Webern and the music of the past and his contemporaries, and to develop a more nuanced understanding of the early roots of Webern’s “mature” style in earlier works which might sound quite different than the late ones. In other words, as he has already done with Mahler and Schoenberg and as he will seek to do with a number of “radical” composers throughout this book, Watkins is seeking to locate Webern in the artistic, compositional, psychological, and philosophical context of his time; to see in Webern’s music a set of logical and understandable responses to (quoting our syllabus now) “the special problems and cultural issues that … confronted Euro-American composers” at this point in the early 20^th-century.

(1) Note that Webern and Berg were both private composition students working with Schoenberg by 1904; this means, as Watkins points out, that they would have been witness to, and hence intimately aware of, the artistic and contextual factors that drove Schoenberg’s harmonic and formal experiments. How was this witness reflected in Webern’s contemporaneous works? Can we find parallels between Schoenberg’s and Webern’s works in this period? Listen, find out, be prepared to describe.

(2) What is the interaction between “color” (defined in both visual and sonic terms), form, and “nature aesthetics” in Webern’s works to 1915? Reflecting what other, parallel sources does he derive and exploit this interaction? Cite Watkins, describe in your own words, be prepared to link elements in Webern compositions and both musical and visual compositions of contemporaneous artists (hint: look at Perloff’s article on Webern and the visual arts, on WebCT under “Materials – Week 03 – Links”).

(3) Be prepared to articulate an overarching theory (or at least a thesis) that explains the influence of and relationship with texts in modernist compositions of this period. Your thesis should cite Mahler, Strauss, Schoenberg, and Webern among composers, and Goethe, Trakl, and the Symbolist poets at the very least. Citing specific works, specific characteristics, and specific (literary or musical) passages would be important.

(4) Further to (3) above: please feel free to prepare a detailed analysis (not formal, but verbal and interpretive) of the specific relationships between text and music in the two Webern songs presented on pp40-41. I would be glad to have a class discussion about motivic relations and text-setting in “Der Tag ist Vergangen.”

(5) In regards to Watkins’s discussion of Webern’s orchestral works in this period (pp41-43), please read and listen closely. For additional insight and for purposes of better-informed discussion, please read at least the highlighted sections of the Perloff article, cited above, and available on WebCT under “Materials – Week 03 – Links.” It’s my opinion that Perloff’s articulation vastly deepens and enriches our understanding of Webern’s orchestral-compositional procedures even in this early period: how would you summarize Perloff’s insights vis-à-vis Webern and Klee (among other artists).

(6) More interpretive and open-ended “jog discussion” question: how can we relate Klimt and Mahler, Klee and Webern, Kandinsky and Schoenberg—and what useful insights might these analyses across contrasting arts media (especially, again, the visual and sounding arts) help us understand the problems that composers understood themselves to be facing?

DQ for Watkins, 24-37

Please be prepared to respond in either seminar meeting or in "Comments" on the course blog. In all venues, you must be prepared to cite specific passages (by page, paragraph, line, and quotation) in support of your responses—and specific works.

The over-arching goal of this section is to create a deeper, more sophisticated, and more nuanced picture of Schoenberg in a crucially under-examined period: in the pre-serial, indeed pre-atonal period, and to find links in these works (approx 1899-1916) both to works and approaches of his immediate predecessors, and to Schoenberg characteristics which would become more central and visible in the atonal and serial works.

(1) As we have said in seminar, Schoenberg himself was at pains to argue his own rootedness in the Austro-German tradition, linking his music to Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, and Brahms. What is his stance on Debussy? What does he argue are the motives of the “Latin/Slav” types (essentially he is speaking of French and Russian composers); what sort of alternative does he believe his own music to represent? Do we agree with his historical analysis of the “Latin and Slav hopes of hegemony”? If not, to what might we attribute his stance?

(2) Pay particular attention to Watkins’s discussion of Verklaerte Nacht and Pelleas. While Watkins draws apt comparisons to approaches and programmaticism in Mahler and Strauss, it should also be borne in mind that Debussy himself wrote a setting of the same French myth. Is there a Debussy connection with Schoenberg’s version that goes beyond text and topic? Listen to the music for answers; consider this in terms of Question (1).

(3) In light of Watkins’s discussion of the Gurre-Lieder, what connections can be drawn, to what other composers? What other composers—German or otherwise—were working in similar areas of “antiquity,” “the folk,” and more broadly in late Romanticism? If there are such connections, what SHMRG characteristics would we expect these vocal pieces to reveal, shared with what composers?

(4) In the discussion “Two String Quartets and a Symphony,” what concerns (particularly formal concerns) does Watkins attribute to Schoenberg in the Opp. 7, 9, & 10? To what extent were these formal concerns shared by other composers of the period? What solutions to these formal concerns have we seen employed by Wagner, Strauss, and Mahler? Does Schoenberg employ any related solutions? Is this one of the links between Schoenberg and these others? Finally (very important) what drove these formal concerns; why was form such a concern, in this particular period?

(5) To open outward the above question: were these formal concerns impacting composers outside the Austro-German orbit? Were French, Eastern European, Russian, or other national composers grappling with similar issues? Were their solutions similar, or different?

(6) In the questions above, we have been addressing perhaps-underexamined aspects of Schoenberg’s music which link him to his Austro-German predecessors and contemporaries. In contrast, in pp28-31, Watkins finds Schoenberg employing organizational (especially thematic) strategies that point toward his later, atonal and serial works. What are these strategies? A challenge for you: can you link these thematic strategies both to Schoenberg’s predecessors and to his own post-tonal music? (Hint: look at issues of counterpoint.)

(7) In pp32-36, Watkins explicates Schoenberg’s theories about harmony and about timbre, and about the links between them. What does Schoenberg himself say about these relationships? How and through what techniques do these links play out in his music of the period? How do they impact the sound of his music? Suggestion: think about other modernist composers, working outside the Austro-German tradition, who in the years just before WWI were also exploring issues of sound. Despite the strong contrasts in the “surface” of, say, Stravinsky or Bartok’s music versus Schoenberg’s in this period, in what way do their analogous strategies (even if realized in very different-sounding music) reveal a shared sense of the problems that confronted composers in these years?