OVERVIEW

The course can be taken 

- complete (9 CFU) 

- only part 1 (6 CFU)

Part 1: European Art Music from Bach to Brahms: a Journey ​from Baroque to Romantic Age

Part 1 will be held online on Microsoft Teams and Aulaweb

The code for the Storia della musica 2020/21 team  is z6j2voy

Part 2: Giuseppe Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera

Provided that the general health scenario does not worsen, Part 2 will be held in presence

AIMS AND CONTENT

LEARNING OUTCOMES

The course aims at offering a guide to main styles and forms of musical theatre and instrumental music, considered in the

chronological development of history of music.

AIMS AND LEARNING OUTCOMES

9 CFU

The course aims at providing the student with the capabilities to acknowledge and understand symbols and meanings of musical language, increasing the awareness of the numerous relationships between music, literature, arts and sciences. The studente will learn to understand the strategies composers employs to transmit specific ideological, poetical, religious, political or personal messages through the prescriptions, on the paper or other, which will enact the score, so that their message reaches the listeners through the performers. 

The main assumption of the course is that the knowledge and competence about genres, forms and authors from the history of western music completes significantly the cultural preparation of any student of humanities. This will enable to correct a guilty failure of Italian school system, contributing to the assumption that music, differently than other disciplines in the humanities, must settle for an extemporaneos and acritical approach, as if it were an ephemeral experience to be consumed with eyes wide shut.

By the end of the course students will be able to understand a significant time span of the history of western music, having developed tools to understand musical language which could be applied, also in creative terms, to other contexts. They will be able to recognize and remember the main genres of art music in Europe between Bach and Debussy, understand the aesthetic and style options of the composers taken into account, judge proximity or distance between movements and single composers. 

6 CFU

The course aims at providing the student with the capabilities to understand symbols and meanings of musical language, increasing the awareness of the numerous relationships between music, literature, arts and sciences. The main assumption of the course is that the knowledge and competence about genres, forms and authors from the history of western music completes significantly the cultural preparation of any student of humanities.

By the end of the course students will be able to understand a significant time span of the history of western music, having developed tools to understand musical language which could be applied also to other contexts. 

PREREQUISITES

General interest in music and its use as an art form.

TEACHING METHODS

Class lessons with CD and DVD examples.

The class will attend a performance of Un ballo in maschera at Teatro Carlo Felice.

The class will be invited to attend concerts and operas on stage in Genoa and at Teatro dell’Opera Giocosa in Savona, if related to the course programme.

Attending class is strongly recommended.

The course will be held

- part 1 (first Semester) online through Teams and Aulaweb platforms;

- part 2 (second Semester), provided the health situations does not worsen, in presence.

SYLLABUS/CONTENT

The course might be chosen in a 6 (just Part 1) or 9 (6+3: Part 1 + Part 2) credit format.

No specific background in music is required.

Part 1: European Art Music from Bach to Brahms: a Journey from Baroque to Romantic Age

Part 1 (6 credits) will enquire the development of Western Music 1680 to 1890, from late Baroque to the Romantic age. The general outline of that historical period will be regularly exemplified in class through CDs and DVDs, leading students to a solid knowledge of styles, genres and main composers of Western Music from Bach to Brahms. The course will explore four seasons of European Music: Baroque, Galant, Classic and Romantic styles. 

Part 2: Giuseppe Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera

The mask, the garment which has sadly become the symbol of global social life in these months of pandemic is the main piece of stage prop in Un ballo in maschera, one of Giuseppe Verdi’s most popular masterpieces. Un ballo in maschera is for several reasons a crucial opera: it’s the last work Verdi staged in Italy before its Unity, concluding the first twenty years of his career; it divides the two main seasons of the composer’s life and creativity; it stands for the biggest achievement in Verdi’s research on the topic of tragicomic, one of the composer’s most advanced achievements in his appropriation of European romantic aesthetical debate. The opera stages high-running passions and four of Verdi’s most memorable characters. The controversial genesis of the opera, harshly fought by censorship, is extraordinarily telling about the difficulties artistic will would encounter in 19th-century Italian society. The course will deal with the genesis of the opera, its historical and cultural context; it will analyze both the libretto and Verdi’s musical setting, considering some of the most significant contemporary stage directions. It will be possible to attend a performance of the opera at Teatro Carlo Felice.

RECOMMENDED READING/BIBLIOGRAPHY

Readings in English (see page in Italian for Readings in Italian)

Part 1 only (6 CFU)

2 books to be chosen among: 

Heller W. (2014), Music in the Baroque, Norton, New York.

Rice J. (2014), Music in the Eighteenth Century, Norton, New York.

Frisch W. (2013), Music in the Nineteenth Century, Norton, New York.

Part 1+ 2 (9 CFU)

2 books to be chosen among: 

Heller W. (2014), Music in the Baroque, Norton, New York.

Rice J. (2014), Music in the Eighteenth Century, Norton, New York.

Frisch W. (2013), Music in the Nineteenth Century, Norton, New York.

+

Libretto and CD or DVD recording of Verdi, Un ballo in maschera + (optional) score (if the student is able to read).

Budden J. (1978-81), The Operas of Verdi. Vol. 2. From “Il trovatore” to “La forza del destino”, Oxford University Press, New York. (the chapter on Un ballo in maschera).

Books are normally available at the University Library, Umanistica Balbidue.

Listening experience during the preparation to the exam is strongly recommended. CDs and DVDs are also available at the same library.

TEACHERS AND EXAM BOARD

Exam Board

RAFFAELE MELLACE (President)

DAVIDE MINGOZZI

LUCA BELTRAMI (Substitute)

LESSONS

LESSONS START

7 October 2020

Class schedule

HISTORY OF MUSIC

EXAMS

EXAM DESCRIPTION

Oral Exam.

ASSESSMENT METHODS

The exam will consist in an oral interview on the course program and its bibliography. Students will be tested on (instrumental and vocal) genres and forms, styles and main authors of the portion of history of music considered in the course program, paying specific attention to the evolution of each style.

Students will be tested on the knoledge of the course programme (topics discussed in class, readings taken from the bibliography or uploaded in the course "aulaweb"), on their capabilities in discussing the course topics and in the accuracy in employing the specific language.

The knowledge of notes taken at class will by no means considered enough.

Exam schedule