Last revised: April 4, 2002.

Music 145/245
Tobias Plebuch

From Adorno to Zappa A Kaleidoscope of 20th-Century Music   Course description Meeting schedule Assignments and grading Contact Syllabus

 

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Course description

This seminar will introduce you to a variety of musical styles as well as analytical and philosophical approaches to music from the past century. The rationale of the course is to confront the modernist narrative of continuously progressing techniques and materials with styles, repertoires and musical thought that receive but little, if any, attention in the Procrustean bed of music history textbooks. The course does not aim at a comprehensive history of 20th-century music (not even a decent overview) but rather at a changeable picture in which each element could take up the center or the periphery of different, more or less meaningful, patterns. It remains to us to formulate and answer the question of aesthetic and historic significance anew. These considerations account for the lack of a textbook and the presence of film music, Frank Zappa, ambient music, The Beatles, and John Zorn next to Stravinsky, Webern, Ligeti and Ferneyhough on the syllabus.

This seminar counts toward fulfillment of the Writing in the Major requirement for music majors and minors. The assignments are writing intensive but not writing extensive. While limited in size, your major paper will undergo a rewriting process. Excellence and a thorough revision is expected. There will be a course reader available at the Stanford Bookstore. Further readings, CDs, LPs and scores are available on reserve in the music library.

Meeting Schedule

• Research paper (10-20 pp.) Choose a topic and submit a descriptive paragraph by 4/12 (second week). Submit a substantial draft by 5/24 (eighth week). Submit your final version by 6/7 (counts 50%).
• Close reading and participation in class discussion (counts 20%)
• Introduction to one meeting (counts 10%)
• Protocol (counts 10%)
• Presentation of research project (counts 5%)
• Response to peer research project presentation (counts 5%)

• Zorn: Forbidden Fruit (1987)
• Cage: Music of Changes (1951)
• Brian Eno: Discreet Music (1975), Music For Airports (1979)

• Pierrot lunaire [M1625 .S36 P6 1941 (score); MCD 3739 (Manning, Rattle); MUCD 47 (Schönberg Ensemble, Leeuw, Sukowa)]

• Jonathan Dunsby: Schoenberg, Pierrot lunaire, Cambridge etc.: Cambridge University Press, 1992, pp.1-11, 28-59, 73-75 [reader]

• Arnold Schoenberg: Orchestra Variations op.31 [M1003 .S365 V2 (score); MCD 3502]
• Arnold Schoenberg: Wind quintet op.26 (optional) (1923-24) [M557 .S36Q7 M (score); MCD 6922])
• Anton von Webern: “Mein Weg geht jetzt vorüber”, op. 15 no. 4 [M2103.3 .W37 G3 1956 (score); MCD 3189, vol.2]

• Arnold Schoenberg: "Composition with Twelve Tones" (1941), Style and idea: selected writings, New York, St.Martin's Press: 1975, 214-245 [reader]
• Carl Dahlhaus: "Schoenberg's Poetics of Music," Schoenberg and the New Music, Cambridge etc.: Cambridge University Press, 1987, pp.73-80 [reserves: ML60 .D1312 1987]
• Schoenberg’s sketch “Klein Zaches” [handout]
• Pierre Boulez, “Schoenberg is Dead,” Notes of an Apprenticeship, trans. Herbert Weinstock, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1968, 265-72 [reserves: ML60 .B763 R32]
• Milton Babbitt, "Who cares if you listen?" ("The Composer as Specialist"), Source readings in music history, ed. Oliver Strunk and Leo Treitler. New York: Norton, 1998, pp.1305-1311 [reserves: ML160 .S89 1998B]

• Petroushka (1910-11) [ZVC 10956; M1520 .S91 P4 P M; MCD 3417 (Stravinsky cond.); MCD 113 (Abbado)]

• Richard Taruskin: Stravinsky and the Russian traditions: A biography of the works through Mavra, vol. 1, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996, pp. 688-717, 735-759 [reader]

• Petroushka, based on the choreography and production of Michel Fokine, video "Paris dances Diaghilev" [ZVC 10956]

• Le sacre du printemps (1911-13) [M1520 .S91 V5 1967 (score); MCD 3417 (Stravinsky cond.); MCD 1822 (Karajan cond.)]

• Richard Taruskin: Stravinsky and the Russian traditions: A biography of the works through Mavra, vol. 1, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996, pp. 866-88, 891-91, 951-966 [reader]
• Millicent Hodson: Nijinsky's crime against grace: Reconstruction score of the original choreography for Le sacre du printemps, Stuyvesant, New York: Pendragon Press, 1996, vii-viii, x-xi, xix-xxi [reserves: GV1790.R57 H64 1996]

• Theodor W. Adorno: Philosophy of Modern Music, New York: Continuum, 1994, pp. 3-28, 32-37, 71-87, 138-145, 145-160 [reader]
• Stephen Hinton: "Adorno's Philosophy of Music," Encyclopedia of aesthetics, ed. Michael Kelly, New York: Oxford University Press, 1998, vol. 1, pp. 25-29 [reader]

• Past Masters, Volume 1 [MCD 6919]: Love Me Do (optional); She Loves You; I Feel Fine (optional)
• Past Masters, Volume 2 [MCD 6919]: Day Tripper; Paperback Writer (optional); Lady Madonna (optional); Hey Jude
• Please Please Me [ZCD 197]: Please Please Me (optional)
• With the Beatles [ZCD 196]
• A Hard Day's Night [ZCD 193]
• Beatles for Sale [ZCD 195]: I'm A Loser (optional); I'll Follow the Sun (optional)
• Help! [ZCD 238]: Help! (optional); Yesterday
• Rubber Soul [MCD 6908]: Norwegian Wood; I'm Looking Through You (optional)
• Revolver [ZCD 240]: Taxman (optional); Eleanor Rigby; I'm Only Sleeping (optional); Good Day Sunshine (optional); She Said She Said (optional);Tomorrow Never Knows
• Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band [ZCD 243]: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band; With a Little Help from My Friends; Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds; Getting Better (optional); Fixing a Hole (optional); She's Leaving Home; Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite! (optional); Within You Without You; When I'm Sixty-four; Lovely Rita (optional); Good Morning, Good Morning (optional); Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (reprise) (optional); A Day in the Life
• Magical Mystery Tour [MD 3140]: I Am the Walrus
• Yellow Submarine [ZCD 239]: Yellow Submarine; All You Need Is Love
• The Beatles ("White Album") [ARS Capital SWBO 101]: Back in the U.S.S.R.; While My Guitar Gently Weeps; Helter Skelter; Blackbird; I Will (optional); Julia; Revolution No. 9
• Let it Be [ZCD 241]: I Me Mine (optional)
• Abbey Road [MCD 6913]: Oh! Darling (optional); "Side 2": Here Comes the Sun; Because; You Never Give Me Your Money; Sun King; Mean Mr. Mustard; Polythene Pam; She Came in Through the Bathroom Window; Golden Slumbers/Carry that Weight/The End; Her Majesty
• 1967-1970 [MCD 6920]: Strawberry Fields Forever

• Yellow Submarine [ZVC 4194] (optional)

• Allan F. Moore: The Beatles, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Cambridge etc.: Cambridge University Press, 1997 [reserves: ML421 .B4 M66 1997]
• The Beatles: Complete Scores, London etc.: Wise Publications, 1993 [ARS M1741.18 .B369 1993] (optional)
• Tim Riley: Tell me why: A Beatles commentary [ML156.7.B4 R5 1988] (optional)
• William J. Dowlding: Beatlesongs, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989 [ARS ML421 .B4 D74 1989] (optional)

Frank Zappa

• Lumpy Gravy [MCD 6915]
• Uncle Meat [MCD 6914]
• We're Only In It For The Money [MCD 6916]
• Burnt Weeny Sandwich [private CD T.P.]
• Broadway the Hard Way [private CD T.P.]
• Freak out! [MCD 6918] (optional) Reading:

• Christopher Smith: "Broadway the hard way: Techniques of allusion in the music of Frank Zappa," College music symposium 35 (1995), pp. 35-60 [reserves: ML5 .C697]
• James Borders: "Form and the Concept Album: Aspects of Modernism in Frank Zappa's Early Releases," Perspectives of New Music 39/1 (2001), pp. 118-160 [reader]
• Frank Zappa and Peter Occhiogrosso: The Real Frank Zappa Book, London: Picador Books 1989 [reserves: private copy T.P.]
• Lyrics on http://globalia.net/donlope/fz/index.html

• Poème électronique (1957-58) [MCD 6154 vol.1]
• Déserts (1950-54) [M1045 .V29 D4 1959 (score) ; MD 3953]

• Lawrence Ferrara: "Phenomenology as a Tool for Musical Analysis," MQ 70 (1984), 355-73 [reserves: ML5 .M98]
• Olivia Mattis: "Varese's multimedia conception of Déserts," MQ 76 (1992), 557-583 [reserves: ML5 .M98]
• Marc Treib: Space calculated in seconds: The Philips Pavilion, Le Corbusier, Edgard Varese, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996, xiv-xvi, 174-191, 212-213 [reader], 119-138 [reserves: NA6750 .B7 P497 1996]

• Gesang der Jünglinge (1955-56) [ML96.5 .S864 NO.3 (score); MCD 4695]

• Karlheinz Stockhausen: "Gesang der Jünglinge," Elektronische Musik 1952-1960, booklet, Kürten (Germany): Stockhausen, 1991, pp. 134-148 [reader]
• Karlheinz Stockhausen: "Music and Speech in Gesang der Jünglinge," Elektronische Musik 1952-1960, booklet, Kürten (Germany): Stockhausen, 1991, pp. 149-171 [reader]

• Atmospheres (1961) [M1045 .L72 A8 1971 (score); MCD 3271]
• Lux aeterna (1966) [M2092.6 .L72R45 (score); MCD 3271]
• Lontano (1967) [M1045 .L72L8(score); MCD 3283]
• 10 pieces for wind quintet (1968) [M557 .L72 S9 (score); MD 10869 vol.2]

• Clendinning, Jane Piper: “Structural factors in the microcanonic compositions of Gyorgy Ligeti,” in: Concert music, rock, and jazz since 1945: Essays and analytical studies Rochester, U. of Rochester 1995, p. 229-256 [reader]
• Gyorgy Ligeti: Interview with Joseph Häusler,” Ligeti in conversation, London, Eulenburg: 1983, 83-110 [reserves: ML410.L723 G992 1983]

• Partiels [M985 .G869 P2 1976 F (score); MCD 6857]
• Modulations [M985 .G869 M6 1978 F (score); MCD 6857]

• François Rose: “Introduction to the pitch organization of French spectral music,” Perspectives of new music, 34/2 (1996), pp. 6-39 [reader]

• The Sea Hawk (E. W. Korngold, USA 1940) [ZVC 4070]

• Royal S. Brown: "Interlude I: Erich Wolfgang Korngold: The Sea Hawk (1940)", Overtones and Undertones: Reading Film Music, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994, pp. 97-118 [reserves: ML2075 .B879 1994]

• Ran (Kurosawa, Takemitsu, Japan 1985) [ZVC 15095]

• Miguel Mera: "Takemitsu's Composed Space in Kurosawa's Ran," RMA - Music and Film Conference, University of Southampton 19-21 April, 2001 [handout]

• Cassandra's Dream Song (1970) [M62 .F364 C3 1975 (score); Emmanuel Pahud: MCD 5899; Carin Levine: MCD 5902; Pierre-Yves Artaud : MCD 5571 and three versions on MD 11075]
• Mnemosyne (1986) [M62 .F364 C24 1986 (score); MCD 3211]

• Brian Ferneyhough: "Shattering the Vessels of Received Wisdom: In Conversation with James Boros," Collected Writings, pp.369-405 [reader]
• Brian Ferneyhough: "The Tactility of Time," Collected Writings, pp.42-50 [reader]
• Ellen F. Waterman: "Cassandra's dream song: A literary feminist perspective," Perspectives of new music, vol. 32, no.2 (summer 1994), p.154 - 172 [reserves: ML5 .P467]

 

 

Presentations (6/3-6/5)

Presentations I

Mo 6/3

Presentations II

Wed 6/5