Aims

- To investigate the ideas of modernism and modernity mainly in the art music/classical music from the very end of the nineteenth century through the twentieth century.

- To investigate the significant cultural changes happening in music of the period - including but not limited to the shifting relations between popular and vernacular musical cultures, knowledge of and exposure to music from non-western cultures, and the so-called western art music/classical music tradition. The political, philosophical, and other socio-cultural issues, including relations to music of the past, relations with other art forms, and the various ideas associated with modernism as they pertain to music.

- To understand the diversity of modernist musical activity, and how different musical traditions influenced and informed one another as elements in a broader cultural perspective, as well as connections with the visual arts and literature of the period.

Outline Of Syllabus

"Modernism" is a term used to characterise a vast number of different musical, literary, and artistic activities that, in their different ways, were responses to the dramatic socio-political, technological, and cultural changes of the end of the 19th and into the first half of the 20th centuries. The period is characterised by radical changes in the very nature of what music and art could be, and the module investigates a number of different "themes" that characterise modernist music, that is to say music made between about 1900 and 1950. These will include, on the one hand, the gradually dissolving boundaries between popular/vernacular musics and the so-called "classical" music traditions, as exemplified in the work of composers such as Mahler, Erik Satie, Kurt Weill, and Stravinsky. Urban and technological lifestyles informed new ways of thinking and this in turn influenced new ways of listening, and new musical practices, many of them mediated by the emerging technologies of sound recording, cinema, and radio. Other musical artists reacted against industrialisation into quasi-mystical nature worship, while others celebrated the noisy, energetic modern city. As well as examining the work of selected musicians in their musical contexts, we shall also look in detail at literature, painting, and philosophy of the time that can illuminate our better understanding of the music of the period. This is also a period when socio-political issues that are still with us today, issues of gender equality, the unequal power relations of the European empires in relation to colonised peoples, and the emergence of more ostensibly democratic system of government and representation provide important contexts from which to better understand the musical activities which were proliferating. Lectures and seminar discussions introduce the themes of the module and create opportunities to work through ideas from lectures, readings and listening assignments. This part of the module is assessed through a portfolio of work done following the seminars.

Teaching Rationale And Relationship

- Lectures introduce knowledge and skill, demonstrate their application, and set the ground for reading and listening assignments set after each lecture

- Small group teaching in seminars offers closer supervision of assignments set after lectures

- Tutorials/surgery hours allow additional time for students to discuss their research projects with specialised members of the teaching staff

- Independent study follows exercises set in lectures

Assessment Rationale And Relationship

Throughout the module the students will have explored a variety of different musics from this era.

The summative essay (4000 words) at the end of the module will be an opportunity to complete a more research-oriented piece of work, directed by a choice of essay questions, in which students identify and research - with staff support - a specific case study connected to musical modernism. Short assignments set during the module serve as formative exercises, and will afford students the opportunity to articulate their ideas, and to receive feedback on their understanding of key issues.