Music 343

Encounters with Music History

Introduction

• As a result of ongoing encounters with musicologists studying German Renaissance and Baroque music, Romantic composer Johannes Brahms wrote several landmark works using techniques, forms, and melodies that had little to do with the prevailing style of his era.
• As a result of his encounter with medieval polyphony from Notre Dame Cathedral, minimalist composer Steve Reich found inspiration and affirmation for his techniques of pattern repetition, counterpoint, continuous variation
• As a result of his encounter with ancient Greek writings on music and theater, avant garde composer Harry Partch abandoned equal temperament and created musical systems based solely on the overtones of a single fundamental pitch
• As a result of their encounter with early blues recordings by Robert Johnson, “Blind Lemon” Jefferson, and others, a whole generation of 1960s musicians began to take rock music in new directions

• to acquire basic research skills as you gather, evaluate, and interpret primary sources
• to communicate your research in varied styles and media
• to study important western musical styles and composers (up to 1750) through reading, score study, and aural analysis
• to develop listening skills needed for stylistic analysis
• to look at events and cultures that influenced musical styles and composers
• to discover how the past touches and influences the present
• to achieve these goals with enough rigor to prepare you for graduate school entrance exams or music education certification exams

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Readings & Research Tools

Primary & Secondary Sources—A primary source is any resource that puts you in direct contact with the thing you are studying, without anyone else’s interpretation, editorial decisions, or other judgments getting in the way. Primary sources can include musical scores (in the original version), letters and other writings by composers and other musicians, criticism, programs, advertisements, instruments, works of art, buildings, and so on. By contrast, in a secondary source a later scholar interprets the facts and organizes them in a coherent narrative. Of course, depending on the subject of your study, the same source could be either primary or secondary. If you are studying performance practices during Beethoven’s lifetime, then a Gramophone review of a CD recording of Beethoven’s music on pianoforte is a secondary source. That same review becomes a primary source, however, if you are studying changing reactions to Beethoven’s music. As you look at the sources in each category below, bear in mind that any source could be primary or secondary—depending on the subject of your research.

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Primary Sources

• Musical scores—Any scores, in a format as close as possible to the composer’s original, are considered primary sources, perhaps the most important primary sources in music research. The composer’s own autograph score is the true primary source for any work, but a printed edition supervised by a conscientious editor is an acceptable substitute. Be careful, though—some scores include expression markings and fingerings added by the editor; such interpretations can turn these scores into secondary sources.
• Score anthologies—As the name suggests, these are collections of musical compositions. Your music history book comes with a score anthology; so do many period histories. Other anthologies are organized by repertory. The Liber usualis is the most comprehensive collection of Gregorian chant melodies, and 20th century “fake books” provide valuable compilations of jazz and pop song classics. To the extent that anthologies give you scores in a format as close as possible to the composer’s original, they are primary sources.
• Scholarly Editions of Early Manuscripts and Printed Sources—A surprising number of music anthologies from the Middle Ages and Renaissance still exist, though in many cases there is only one copy. Many of these anthologies have been microfilmed, and large music libraries possess a large collection on microfilm or microfiche. For the rest of us, however, scholarly editions serve a valuable purpose. In a typical scholarly edition, the editor provides as much information as possible about physical features and condition of the book or manuscript; a historical sketch describing how it came into existence and the various editions it went through; a comparison of each piece with other versions of the same piece in other sources; and commentary on each piece in the book. And, of course, the scholarly edition transcribes every score into modern notation. If you can’t get to the original, this is the next best thing, and it counts as a primary source. In our Renaissance unit, we’ll look at Hewitt’s scholarly edition of Canti B.
• Source Readings—Any book with the phrase “source readings” in the title provides a collection of primary sources—usually writings by composers and other musicians. These are especially valuable because they include in a single volume writings that would otherwise be very difficult to find and collect. Women in Music and Strunk’s Source Readings in Music History are good examples of the genre.
• Criticism—Music critics have been around for a long time, writing for journals, magazines, and newspapers. Some of them have even been composers—Schumann, Berlioz, and Cage to name a few! Regardless of authorship, criticism is a valuable primary source that allows us to understand how a composer’s contemporaries regarded their works. However, criticism is not a primary source when it is not written during the composer’s lifetime. For example, in Beethoven research a review of a modern pianist playing Beethoven is considered a secondary source.
• Documentary Biography—A primary source goldmine! For several important composers, scholars have assembled all of the primary documents related to a composer’s life—birth certificate, letters, payment receipts, contracts, newspaper articles, concert programs, and so on—into a single collection. If you are studying Josquin, Bach, Handel, Mozart, Schubert, and several others, you must consult these significant sources.

Secondary Sources & Research Tools

• Music Encyclopedias & Dictionaries—While these are secondary sources, they provide excellent starting points for quick answers to questions or for serious research projects. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians is without question the place to start any research project, especially since every article contains a bibliography that lists other important primary and secondary sources. Old encyclopedias and dictionaries can be primary sources, however—in a study of Renaissance music, the Dictionary of Musical Terms written by 15th century composer Tinctoris is a primary source.
• Scholarly Journals—Periodical publications like the Musical Quarterly or the Journal of the American Musicological Society demonstrate the scholarly interests, research methods, and writing style of contemporary musicologists. While these are secondary sources, they take you to the cutting edge of modern musicology.
• Online Databases—How do you find out if there are scholarly journal articles on your topic? Databases allow you to search for articles and reviews published in scholarly journals, magazines, and other periodical publications. The most important database for music research is The Music Index.
• Biography—Biographies can be primary sources if they are written by a composer (autobiography) or by friends and acquaintances of a composer (Robert Craft’s writings on Stravinsky, for instance). Most biographies are secondary sources, however, though the really good ones will quote primary sources at length (Thayer’s Life of Beethoven, e.g). Biographies tend to cover both the events of a composer’s life and the development of their musical style, with careful attention paid to the most important compositions.
• Period Histories—These extremely useful secondary sources provide excellent background material for the study of any composer or style. A period history looks carefully at the important composers and musical styles from a specific period of music history, either Middle Ages, Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic, or 20th century. Typical titles are Music in the Baroque Era or Music of the Renaissance. Especially good are the period histories published by W.W. Norton and Prentice Hall.
• Social Histories & Cultural Studies—Reflecting a recent trend in musicology, these books look not only at composers and their music but also at the social institutions that support music and at the cultures in which music exists. Some, including Fenlon’s The Renaissance, focus on a specific period, while others, notably Raynor’s Social History of Music & Music and Society Since 1815 are broader in scope. These secondary sources are especially helpful for the Music 343 paper.
• Stylistic analysis—This specialized genre offers research tools that deal with helpful considerations and techniques for the description and analysis of musical styles. Representative works include histories of musical styles and LaRue’s Guidelines for Style Analysis.
• Performance Studies—What did early music performances sound like? What makes Ella sound different than Lady Day? These questions fall in the realm of performance studies. Due to the 20th century early music revival, many books are now available that describe how music was performed in past eras of music history. For the Music 343 paper it is extremely important to know about past performance practices. Despite their age, Dart’s Interpretation of Music and Donington’s Interpretation of Early Music provide good overviews, but there are many current books that go into much more detail. These are generally secondary sources, though there are primary source treatises written in the Renaissance and Baroque that deal precisely with these issues.

Other Sources

• Recordings and Recorded Anthologies—You would think that audio and video recordings would be just as important as the written score, since they translate the score into the sounds we call music. But performance introduces an element of interpretation that may or may not take us closer to the composer’s intentions; therefore recorded performances of written scores are considered secondary sources. Important exceptions include performances that involve the composer as director, performer, or consultant, or where an improvising musician creates the music spontaneously, as in jazz recordings. In these cases, recordings become primary sources. Recorded anthologies can provide a valuable collection of works that would be difficult or expensive to find individually. Examples include the Norton Anthology of Western Music, The Best of DooWop, and the Smithsonian Collection of Classic Jazz.
• Web Pages—Web sites have become increasingly important sources of information in recent years. Especially useful are sites that make primary source materials available. However, these sources must be used with care. Not only are they secondary sources, the majority of music web pages merely summarize information you can find in more authoritative, comprehensive sources. Why take leftovers when you can go to the banquet?
• Music Magazines—These publications are rarely useful to the serious scholar. Whether the magazine is Opera News, BBC Magazine, High Fidelity, American Stereo Review, Downbeat, Electronic Musician, or something similar, these are secondary sources geared towards the interests of a particular niche market. If you are studying Bach, Handel, Mozart, or Beethoven, these magazines usually say nothing that you can’t find in more authoritative sources. On the other hand, if you are studying 20th century opera production techniques, the development of commercial MIDI keyboards, the early music revival from the 1960s to the present, or interviews with Miles Davis, then Opera News, Electronic Musician, High Fidelity, and Downbeat (respectively) become extremely valuable, and often primary, sources.
• Historical fiction—Based on historical figures, but often very loose with the facts, many of these works have found their way onto best-seller lists over the last several decades. Barbara Lachman’s Journal of Hildegard of Bingen is exceptional in its faithfulness to the historical record, while Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus, though a stunning, challenging piece of theater, stretches most of the facts to make Salieri’s guilt plausible. No matter how well done, historical fiction can make us think, but it is not a tool for serious musical research.
• CD-ROM “Companions”—The primary value of these multimedia packages lies in their ability to put side-by-side the recording, analysis of the music, and background information on the composer, the style, and the culture. In most cases these are secondary sources, as with the the Norton CD-ROM Masterworks or the ECS packages we will use this year. Nonetheless, when the composer helps to create the CD-ROM (Subotnick’s All My Hummingbirds Have Alibis), or when many significant historical documents are included (Dvorak’s New World Symphony), then the CD-ROM can be considered a primary source.

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Online Discussion

To keep alive that sense of the “community of scholars,” your encounters with music history will from time to time ask you to engage in online discussion of selected topics. These discussions will ask you to make your best judgments on a topic and to evaluate the judgments of other students in this course. This process of community interaction provides an important means of coming closer to the “truth” of the matter.

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Paper Preparation

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Listening

What is style?
Active listening can mean many things. In music theory it can mean identifying intervals, harmonic progressions, or phrase relationships. In this course it means attempting to place a work in its historical context by listening for all its features, especially those that contribute to our sense of its style. Style, simply put, is the characteristic way a musical work (or body of works) uses the elements of music—melody, texture, rhythm, color, harmony, dynamics, form, and so on—to create a unique, identifiable sound. We can talk about the style of a particular work, of a composer, of a school, of a nation, or of an entire era, but in each case we listen carefully for the characteristic elements of that style. A well-developed sense of style enables us to determine a work’s place in music history and to understand how music changes over time.

Listening for style features
Style listening requires that you give full attention to all elements of music. When you first begin to listen for style features, however, it’s natural to focus on one or two elements that are easy for you. To avoid falling into this trap, use the handy checklist below. The list also includes questions and terms to help steer you in the right direction. Don’t hesitate to look it up or ask if you’re uncertain what these words mean—it’s crucial that you understand.

• Melody—high or low? moves by step or leap? wide or narrow range? regular phrases?
• Texture—thick or thin? active or static? monophonic? polyphonic (with imitation?)? homophonic (homorhythmic or melody & accompaniment?)?
• Rhythm—beat or non-beat? meter? tempo? rhythmic patterns? how does time pass?
• Color—bright or dark? light or heavy? specific instrumental colors? register?
• Harmony—diatonic or chromatic? scale? stable or unstable? simple or complex chords?
• Dynamics—loud or soft? accents? sudden or gradual changes?
• Form—repetition? contrast? return? variation? overall shape? specific forms?

Listening Report Format?
For each piece you listen to:

a. identify the title and location (library and call number) of the recording
b. identify composer and title (for the entire piece and for each individual section)
c. describe style features—write 2-3 sentences on each movement or number
d. answer any questions in the Encounter
e. indicate number of times (1X, 2X, etc.) you listen to any piece required for quiz preparation

Where to listen?
You can use listening facilities in Buehler Library, or you can use your own listening equipment.

What to listen to?
For most reports, specific pieces are required, but after that you can choose any recordings (or live performances!) that fit the current Encounter. Start with music from NAWM so you can follow the score while you listen. A primary goal is to experience as much music as possible. Therefore, you can only count one playing of each piece in your total listening time. (Exception: You can count multiple listening for any piece that is scheduled for a listening recognition quiz.) Recordings can be found in Buehler Library. (NAWM recordings are on Reserve there.) You can also use appropriate recordings of your own.

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Score Study

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Page created 6/12/01 by Mark Harbold—last updated 8/25/02.