| Unit name | Music in 1920's Paris |
|---|---|
| Unit code | MUSI30108 |
| Credit points | 20 |
| Level of study | H/6 |
| Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24) |
| Unit director | Professor. Ellis |
| Open unit status | Not open |
| Pre-requisites |
None |
| Co-requisites |
None |
| School/department | Department of Music |
| Faculty | Faculty of Arts |
This unit explores the vibrant trends in new music in Paris during the 1920s, combining repertorial study with cultural-historical work. Music by Fauré, Ravel, Stravinsky, Satie, Milhaud, Poulenc, Honegger and others will be complemented by work on popular and middelbrow musics, including jazz, revue and operetta. Aesthetic trends including neoclassicism and surrealism will assume particular importance in the study of multimedia works for the stage and involving film, with Cocteau’s brand of modernism analysed closely. For the purposes of the unit, the ‘1920s’ will stretch from 1918 to 1930, also taking in Satie’s Parade of 1917.
This unit’s aims are: 1) to introduce students to a repertory of 20th -century music embracing both art-music and popular styles; 2) to set a repertory of 20th-century music in its artistic and aesthetic contexts; 3) to allow students to engage with critical texts about music, dance and the visual arts in combination; 4) to develop students’ skills in critical listening; 5) to develop students’ skills in the oral and written presentation of their ideas.
At the end of the course, students should: 1) be familiar with the broad outlines of musical life in 1920s Paris, including its main institutions, resident artists, and international visitors; 2) understand the tenets of the main aesthetic movements that acted as drivers for artistic and musical cultures; 3) be able to discuss the musical repertory, showing understanding of its stylistic features and the traditions embedded within them; 4) write critically and perceptively about Parisian musical culture, in light of recent scholarly writing.
And additionally (specific to Level H) to: a) incorporate a consistently strong grasp of detail with respect to content b) argue effectively and at length (including an ability to cope with complexities and to describe and deploy these effectively) c) display to a high level skills in selecting, applying, interpreting and organising information, including evidence of a high level of bibliographical control d) describe, evaluate and/or challenge current scholarly thinking e) discriminate between different kinds of information, processes, interpretations f) take a critical stance towards scholarly processes involved in arriving at historical knowledge and/or relevant secondary literature g) engage with relevant theoretical, philosophical or social constructs for understanding relevant works or traditions h) demonstrate an understanding of concepts and an ability to conceptualise i) situate material within relevant contexts (invoking interdisciplinary contexts where appropriate) j) apply strategies laterally (perhaps leading to innovative results)
Weekly 2 hour seminars for the whole cohort
All the assessment is summative: 1x3000-word essay (50%); 1x 2-hour exam (50%). Both the essay and the exam will demonstrate (1) and (2), and (a)-(j), with the essay in particular providing an opportunity for the students to demonstrate (3) and (4), and (b)-(f).
1) Daniel Albright, Modernism and Music: an Anthology of Sources (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004)
2) Jeffrey H. Jackson, Making Jazz French: Music and Modern Life in Interwar Paris (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003)
3) Kelly, Barbara L., Tradition and Style in the Works of Darius Milhaud, 1912-1939 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003)
4) Roger Nichols, The Harlequin Years: Music in Paris 1917-1929 (London: Thames & Hudson, 2002; or Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003)
5) Glenn Watkins, Pyramids at the Louvre: Music, Culture and Collage from Stravinsky to the Postmodernists (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994)
6) Whiting, Steven Moore, Satie the Bohemian: from Cabaret to Concert Hall (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999)
