Introduction to

Western Art Music

MUSI 101
Winter 2017

University of Chicago
Monday-Wednesday 3:00-4:20PM
Goodspeed 402
INSTRUCTOR Seth Brodsky
Music Department, Goodspeed Hall, Rm. 405
Email: seths@uchicago.edu
Office Hours: Tuesday 3-5PM and by appointment

COURSE Ted Gordon

ASSISTANT Email: tedgordon@uchicago.edu
Office Hours: TBA

COURSE Appearances can be deceiving. This course, generally chronological and chock-a-block full of
DESCRIPTION Western art music, is nonetheless not a chronological survey of Western art music (or, as it is
& GOALS cheekily put on occasion, WAM).* It is not primarily even a history course. It is, rather, a “thick
introduction” to the art of listening to, thinking, speaking, and writing about music, and it uses as
its material a rather Borgesian encyclopedia (see Appendix 1) of eight—I will argue for nine!—
musical works which, despite their considerable differences, could be said to belong to the Western
“classical” tradition.

Though some of you may be musicians, no prior knowledge of music—either practical or

theoretical—is required. Over the quarter, you will encounter various practices of musical notation
and to certain standard terminology; in the course of engaging the works on the syllabus, you will
learn about “style”, “genre”, “melody”, “harmony”, “rhythm”, “form”, and so on. But the central work
of this course—and arguably its most exciting, challenging, and occasionally nerve-wracking)
aspect—will be the sustained experience of listening, carefully, closely, analytically, and repeatedly,
to individual musical works. In the process, you will come to hear in (and through and with)
sounds many things which are not otherwise inherently sonic: ideas, histories, attitudes, fantasies,
anxieties, persuasions, politics. You’ll also develop certain strategies (often self-formulated) for
speaking and writing about what you hear—both concretely, as capacities to articulate the
immediate and reflective experience of music, and also more generally, as a readiness to grasp,
express, and testify to the specificity of what you hear. Keep this paraphrase of Immanuel Kant’s
Enlightenment motto—Sapere aude!, “Dare to know!”—at the ready: Audire aude! Dare to listen!
* If you are looking for a survey course you should investigate Music 12100-12200.
 COURSE This course is operates according to a specific structural conceit. Following an initial
STRUCTURE introductory class, each subsequent week will comprise a two-session exploration of a
single musical work and a number of its many potential contexts.

“DAY 1” For “Day 1”, you will show up to class having listened closely to the work under
discussion—having emerged, as it were, from a conversation with it begun just after the
LISTENING IN end of the previous Monday’s class. In some, perhaps most cases, it will be a work you
have never encountered before, and about which you will have relatively little
information beyond a brief accompanying text (a program or liner note, a short essay, a
Wikipedia entry). Questions will abound: what am I hearing? Am I hearing it
correctly? What am I hearing it as? What is happening here? Why does it sound this
way? What is making that sound? Why and how and for whom on earth was this
written? Why does it start so, and end thus? This will be hopefully be an exciting
experience, but perhaps also uncomfortable, even antagonizing: what I am supposed to
do while these sounds unfold around me? What am I to supposed to do with them?
"Sonata, what do you want from me?", Fontanelle allegedly asked, not without a certain
petulance, in the early 18th century. Your answer will take two forms: a short written
response (see “Discussion Boards”), and a readiness to engage your class peers in an
extended conversation (see “In-Class Discussion”). “Day 1” will constitute what some
have called “reduced listening”: a kind of formal, relatively context-free encounter with
the work. But "formal" shouldn’t mean "dry" or "abstract". Ideally, "Day 1" will
constitute a kind of listeners' playground, the musical work a kind of alien toy: we will
play with it, in the process figuring out how to play it.

An important note: it is essential that you arrive at “Day 1” classes with specific
musical passages, features, details, or moments in mind and ready to discuss with the
class. You needn’t be an expert on such moments, and are encouraged to come with
questions rather than assertions, anything from a well-honed riddle to a desperate and
perplexed “?!?”

“DAY 2” By the following “Day 2”, the week’s musical work will have been resonating in your
head for quite a few days; now it will be time to reframe it in multiple contexts. For
REFRAMING Mondays you will explore a number of extended readings related to the work and
composer in question. The aims, style, and method of these readings will vary widely;
some will be short, others long; some easy, others quite a bit of work to get through.
More importantly, these readings will attempt to suggest only a few of the often
remarkably disparate contexts in which their respective works can be considered; as
texts, they are also documents of the history of their work’s reception, the mark their
work has made on history, often right up to the pressing present. Individual members
of the class will be asked to help lead the discussion on specific readings, but everyone
is strongly encouraged to engages these texts critically—not as gospel, but as
challenging, occasionally contentious arguments in search of equally challenging
recipients.

An important note: as with “Day 1”, it is essential that you arrive at “Day 2” classes
with specific textual passages, examples, details, or arguments in mind and ready to
discuss with the class. Again, the same range of attitudes is welcome!
WORDPRESS Apart from the labor of listening and speaking, the third constant effort this course
BLOG: comprises two weekly online conversations on the course “Wordpress” blog: one in
WHAT response to the “Day 1” experience of listening to the music; the other in response to
the “Day 2” arguments and ideas presented in the readings. Responses should
• try to respond to the post’s specific query, but also bring in other topics
• generate and sustain an ongoing conversation with your classmates
Obviously, the nature of your responses will vary between the “Day 1” (listening) and
“Day 2” (reading) classes. Here are some distinctions to consider:

“Day 1” (Wednesday) Postings—on Listening

In preparation for Day 1 (Wed.) sessions, you ought aim to post at least twice on the
Wordpress blog, resulting in a total of around 500 words. Your initial response—in
relative ignorance of any historical information besides Wikipedia, a liner note, or a
textbook excerpt—ought involve questions and hypotheses about what you hear in this
music, and why, and how.
These questions and assertions about “the music alone” won’t be easy to pose. They will
require a lot of creativity and focused reflection. Please do not be intimidated by an
assumed lack of technical listening you may bring to the table. If you have some
training in music theory, feel free to weigh in with some technical know-how; but
remember that technical vocabulary only addresses certain kinds of listening. This is not
a class in music theory or ear training; here, you have a lot of opportunities to hear
music creatively.
By way of inspiration, students in past years have taken such diverse approaches as:
philosophical dialogues; theatrical scenes; Augustinian or Rousseauian confessions;
polemics (for and against); diaries both actual and fictional; and verse. *Appendix 2*
presents a series of orienting questions which may help guide your listening; these are
not offered prescriptively, but suggestively.

“Day 2” (Monday) Postings—on Readings

On Day 2 (Mon.), we will refract and develop this listening experience through a
contextual approach by way of primary and secondary readings. This will relieve you
from the task of abstract or “reduced” listening, and will put you on the familiar (or
perhaps de-familiarizing) terrain of language, facts, history, society, culture, religion
and politics. In contrast to the “Day 1” thread, you may choose to either engage in
conversation, or to craft small, free-standing essays. but it is essential that you arrive at
“Day 2” classes with specific textual passages, examples, details, or arguments in mind
and ready to discuss with the class. Again, the same range of attitudes is encouraged!

WORDPRESS The posts are all to be made here, after I invite you by email on the first day of the
BLOG: course:
HOW https://wordpress.com/stats/insights/music10100.wordpress.com
Consider this the course’s “homepage”; in addition to featuring guidance on each
assignment and the query for each ensuing thread, it will also feature information on
upcoming concerts and events.
Regarding posts, I’d like you all to post the bulk of your responses to the discussion
board by midnight the night before the following class. Plan on allowing 30-40
minutes the morning the day of class (or late the night before) to look over the
discussion threads in order to prepare for the day’s discussion.
 COURSE Ted Gordon, our marvelous course assistant, can be your first line of recourse for any
ASSISTANT questions. He will monitor the posting with me, occasionally lead class sessions, help
me with administrative tasks, and know when we’ve been bad or good.

IN-CLASS As you may tell, I value in-class discussion highly. It is not only a vital part of the
DISCUSSION class experience, it is also particularly important to the goals of this course, where you
are trying to find ways to articulate and communicate your thoughts about music to
others in the form of words.
Ideally, each class meeting should bring with it a participation which is spontaneous,
immanent, constellative, agile, exploratory, randomized yet without a randomizer.
This is a lofty ideal, and certainly we ought not feel bereft if we reach it but rarely. 
And yet: we should aim for it every time. To have so many intelligent and talented
people in one room for 75 minutes (twice a week!) is a precious opportunity, really.
Steel yourselves for a special kind of time engined, not principally by knowledge—
especially not the fear of unknowledge—but by speech, curiosity, and what one
philosopher has called “loquacious fidelity” to the music. Come ready to attend. The
air should bristle and spark.

CONCERT I’d like you to attend to at least three concerts of “classical music” during the quarter,
one of which will be the Ear Taxi Festival concert on the evening of Saturday, October
ESSAYS
8. In each case, you are to write a short response essay (ca. 500-700 words), emailing
them to Brad and myself no later than two weeks after you attend, and in any case no
later than the last class of the quarter. The Music Department website regularly
features a calendar of campus events, though I encourage you to attend non-campus
concerts as well. If you are unsure as to whether or not a concert is “classical” enough,
please ask me first. The content of the essays ought address both the concert’s content
and its form: what does it put on stage, but also: how does it put this onstage. Discuss
the “content” of the music—by all means consult the notes, ideally after you’ve let
yourself react to the music “on its own.” But also discuss the “form”: the myriad ways
the experience has been framed for you and others.

MIDTERM At the end of Week 4 (following Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni), you will be given a
prompt for an essay of around 1500-2000 words, due two weeks later (after
PAPER
“Beethoven Week”) and counting for 15% of your grade. During the intervening
weeks, either Ted or I will be very happy to met with you to discuss the topic. You are
expected to place priority on music discussed already in the course, though you may
then also bring in other music from later in the course, or outside it.

QUIZZES & (Pop) Quizzes: On two (unannounced) classes during the course of the quarter, you
FINAL EXAM will be given a pop listening quiz at the beginning of the class. The quiz, not meant to
last more than 10 minutes, will test your knowledge of 1) the syllabus, and 2) music
we’ve already heard and discussed in previous classes, via two to three short excerpts.

Final Exam: There will only be one exam in this course, two hours in duration and
composed of three parts. The first part tests knowledge of key terms discussed in
previous classes; the second tests your listening skills; the third part is a long critical-
synthetic essay. All parts take stock of the entire quarter’s material.
 FILM There will be two mandatory film screenings this quarter, dates both tentative:
SCREENINGS 1) Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni on Sunday, February 4, from 1–4pm, in the Logan
Screening Room (2nd floor)
2) Beyoncé’s video album Lemonade on Sunday, March 4, from 1–4pm, in the Logan
Screening Room (2nd floor)

COURSE Canvas: With very few exceptions, all course materials will be found on the course Cavnas
MATERIALS site, in the “Assignments” folder. Do make sure to check the Canvas site on a regular basis
for announcements and updates. There you will also find the most current syllabus, all
listening assignments, readings, additional recordings, and related materials. *Please let me
know immediately if a reading or recording is causing you a problem (it can’t be accessed, it
appears to be missing, etc.).

Music: All musical works listed in the syllabus, listened to in class, or with which you will be
expected to be familiar for the weekly assignments, quizzes, and final exam will be available
in both streaming and downloadable format on Canvas. Recordings as needed will also be
available 1) at the sound recordings archive at Regenstein Library (3rd floor); 2) through
online streaming sites such as Naxos and Classical Music Online (available through the
library catalogue); and 3) on external sites such as YouTube, blogs, etc.

Readings: Over the course of the quarter, you will be asked to read articles, chapters, and
excerpts taken from primary sources or scholarly articles pertaining to the week’s topics. All
readings will be accessible via Canvas, in the “Assignments” folder organized by Week #
(NOT through e-reserve).

IN-CLASS The following protocols are required in this class:

PROTOCOLS • Please take notes only on paper or in your book, not on computer.
• Cell phones must be turned off in class. If your phone rings in class or you are texting in
class or using your phone in class, you will be counted as absent (!).
• Please eat before or after class (drinks only, please).
• Do not be late. DO NOT BE LATE. DO NOT BE LATE. I will penalize creatively.

ATTENDANCE Attendance is mandatory at all class meetings. Students absent for more than 1 class risk
lowering their participation grade; students who miss more than 3 classes will be given a final
grade of incomplete. In case of illnesses and other emergencies, I need to see some
documentation for the absences to not affect your grade. Most importantly, notify me and
Tommaso before your absence that will be not be in class.

LATE WORK Unless you have made an agreement with me 48 hours ahead of time, all late work will be
marked down a 1/2 letter grade for each day it is late. In the case of late wordpress posts, a
failure to post anything before the class meeting for which it is intended will result in zero
credit for that discussion.
REGISTRATION Registered students must attend one of the first two classes in order to retain their claim on a
spot in the course. Unregistered students will receive priority on the waiting list if they
attend both of the first two classes. Graduating seniors receive priority over others. We will
attempt to have a fixed list of registered students by the beginning of week 2.

GRADING Your final course grade will be determined by the following formula:
• Weekly responses: 25% (15% for Listening thread, 10% for reading thread)
• In-Class Discussion: 20%
• Midterm Paper: 15%
• Concert Essays: 10% (5% per essay)
• Quizzes: 5% (2.5% per quiz)
• Final Exam: 25%

DISABILITIES Students with physical or cognitive disabilities are responsible for informing the instructor
about anything that may affect negatively their performance as early as possible. Without
timely prior notification, it may be difficult or impossible to adjust the due dates of
assignments, to reschedule examinations or to make other reasonable accommodations. For
further information on University policies regarding disabilities, contact the office of the
Dean of Students or consult the Disabilities Services web page: http://
disabilities.uchicago.edu

WRITING Anyone with concerns about writing is strongly advised to make use of the following
ISSUES website and the Little Red Schoolhouse program. http://writing-program.uchicago.edu/
resources/collegewriting/index.htm



N.B. Plagiarism is a serious offense. Please read the following page if you are not sure what
it is: http://writing-program.uchicago.edu/resources/collegewriting/
but_what_if_you_get_stuck.htm
 Course Overview

Week 1 Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179)

Ordo Virtutum (“Oder of the Virtues”) (1152?)
Composed—and premiered?—at the the Abbey of Disibodenberg

Week 2 Anon. et alia

Viderunt omnes (c800–1000–1180–1220–1280–1300 …)
Likely “composed” in France, active as a chant throughout continental Europe 

Week 3 Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643)

Quinto Libro de Madrigali (1605)
Composed and premiered in Mantua (northern Italy)

Week 4 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Don Giovanni, ossia Il dissoluto punito, K.527 (1787)
Composed in Vienna, Austria; premiered in Prague (now in Czech Republic)
Midterm Paper Prompt (end of Week 4)

Week 5 Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

Brandenburg Concertos, BWV 1046-51 (c1708–21)
(Mostly) composed and (likely) premiered in Köthen (Coethen), Germany

Week 6 Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67 (1804–08)
Composed and premiered in Vienna, Austria

Midterm Paper DUE (end of Week 6)

Week 7 Franz Liszt (1811-1886)

Réminiscences de Don Juan, S. 418 (1841)
 (Perhaps) composed in Weimar, Germany; premiered in Frankfurt, Germany

Week 8 Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)

Le Sacre du printemps (“The Rite of Spring”) (1913)
Composed in Clarens, Switzerland; premiered in Paris, France

Week 9 Beyoncé Knowles (b. 1981) et al.

Lemonade (2015–16)
Composed and produced in Los Angeles, etc; released everywhere

Final Exam (date & location TBA)

 COURSE BY THEME

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 Appendix 1 Jorge Luis Borges, from “The Analytical Language of John Wilkins” (1942)

The Borgesian Having defined Wilkins' procedure, we must examine a problem that is impossible or
at least difficult to postpone: the value of the forty genera which are the basis of the
Encyclopedia
language. Consider the eighth category, stones. Wilkins divides them into vulgar (flint,
gravel, slate), middle-prized (marble, amber, coral), precious (pearl, opal), more
transparent (amethyst, sapphire) and earthly concretions not dissolvable (pit-coal, oker
and arsenic). Almost as surprising as the eighth, is the ninth category. This one reveals
to us that metals can be imperfect (vermillion, mercury), factitious (bronze, brass),
recrementitious (scoria, rust) and natural (gold, tin, copper). The whale belongs to the
sixteenth category; it is a viviparous oblong fish.

These ambiguities, redundancies and deficiencies remind us of those which doctor

Franz Kuhn attributes to a certain Chinese encyclopedia entitled The Celestial
Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge. In its remote pages it is written that the animals
are divided into

1. belonging to the Emperor

2. embalmed
3. trained
4. pigs
5. sirens
6. fabulous
7. stray dogs
8. included in this classification
9. trembling like crazy
10. innumerable
11. drawn with a very fine camelhair brush
12. et cetera
13. just broke the vase
14. from a distance look like flies

The Bibliographic Institute of Brussels exerts chaos too: it has divided the universe into
1000 subdivisions, from which number 262 is the Pope; number 282, the Roman
Catholic Church; 263, the Day of the Lord; 268 Sunday schools; 298, Mormonism;
and number 294, Brahmanism, Buddhism, Shintoism and Taoism. It doesn't reject
heterogeneous subdivisions as, for example, 179: “Cruelty towards animals. Protection
of Animals. Moral implications of dueling and suicide. Vices and various defects.
Virtues and various qualities.”
 Appendix 2: Questions to Guide Listening
MUSIC AND ...
• What is the shape of a particular piece, as a "whole"?
• How might you describe this form? Or is it resistant to description? How?
• Does this form seem "complete", or "incomplete"?
• (Is it solid, stable, integral? Is it a broken off fragment? A splinter? A palimpsest?)
• Is it part of a larger whole - i.e., a song which is part of a cycle, a movement which is part of a
... FORM symphony, a scene that is part of an act of an opera? And if so, how does it relate?
• Does it appear to have a distinct formal trajectory - i.e., a direction, a teleological vector?
• Is it more "sculptural"? More "narrative"?
• Is this form "synechdochal", i.e. symbolic of a larger “whole”? Of what?
• Does its form echo, mirror, or resonate with other forms? Say, the forms of other artworks?
Architecture? Economic or political structures?

• What is the work’s “aura”?

• What free associations does the this music seem to surround itself with?
• Exude, express, release, admit, confess, etc.?
... AURA
• Is there a way to categorize these associations?
• Does this aura have something to do with the music’s history? Does it have something to do with
your own history? Do they intersect?

• What constitutes a gesture in this music?

• Does this gesture shape operate constitutively, i.e., does it act as an organizing force?
• Is it part of a larger constellation of gestures, i.e., does one gesture always follow another?
... GESTURE • How do this music's gestures change from beginning to end? Or do they not?
• Can this changing be called a process?
• If so, is it a fluid process or a strict one? Pliant or stiff? Analogue or digital, continuous or discrete?
• Finally, is this music "gestural"? And if not, what is it instead?

• Is this music making a political claim? Avoiding or repressing one?

• Actively? Passively? How?
... POLITICS • Does the this music imply a larger politics? Does it emerge from one?
• If so, do these two politics appear to contradict one another?
• Of what polis—political totality—is this music a part, and to which does it presume to address itself?

• What are this music’s influences? And how does it situate itself in relation to them?
• Does this music within a tradition? A school? A “family”, “legacy”, or “dynasty”?
• Does the this music circumvent - elude, evade, repress, deny - a tradition?
... INFLUENCE
• How? (Openly? Covertly? Innocently? Guiltily? Longingly? Antagonistically? Anxiously?)
• Why? (Is it a declaration of affiliation? Of critique? Of polemic? Of "self-interest"? Of reverence?)
• What influence does this music have on music you already know well? Or does it not?

• In what social situation is does this music find itself and find you?
... SOCIETY • In what social situation did it arise, and was a different one?
• Do these appear to contradict each other?