History of Music Theory II

MUSI 37200 History of Music Theory II

This course explores topics in the history of music theory from the seventeenth through twentieth centuries (with excursions into the sixteenth and twenty-first centuries as necessary). We will focus on a range of topics, including: scientific empiricism and music theory, musical rhetoric, the transition from modal to tonal thinking, the partimento tradition, harmonic theory in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, theories of modulation and tonality, theories of form, theories of musical rhythm, hermeneutic and semiotic approaches to musical analysis. Although secondary literature on these topics will be an important part of the assigned readings, our focus will be on primary sources. Not all of these have been translated, and so a reading knowledge of French and German will be useful. (Of course, secondary sources may be in either of these languages as well.) In additional to doing the readings and participating in class discussion, students will make a short presentation on conceptual material relevant to the course and complete two brief analysis assignments. There will be a final exam similar in design to the theory essay exams given during comprehensives.