This class offers a comprehensive picture of music theories, aesthetic positions, and compositional practices of the 20th century. The recognition unfolds on different levels: cultural-historical contexts, relationships with the other arts, evolution of musical genres, repercussions of political events, the role of the new media, composer’s writings, aesthetic theories, compositional techniques, jazz and popular music. For a century eminently characterized by stylistic pluralism and the differentiation of languages, the path necessarily follows specific lines which will change every year.
Course Prerequisites
Basic knowledge of the history of Western music
Teaching Methods
The teaching is based on lectures combined with gradual checks of the the learning process through oral discussions and written texts. The material of the lectures is available for the students on a google drive. 30 hours of lectures are integrated by 12 hours of additional training, dedicated to further investigations on the topics presented in the lectures.
Assessment Methods
Oral exam. The object of the individual colloquium are the theoretical positions which were delineated during the course, the analyzed works and a selection of the above listed bibliography. In order to verify the progress of the acquisitions, a written exam will be sheduled around the half of the course duration.
Texts
Robert Morgan, Twentieth-Century Music. A History of Musical Styles in Modern Europe and America, New York: Norton, 1991. Enciclopedia della musica, diretta da Jean-Jacques Nattiez, volume 1, Einaudi, Torino 2001. The Cambridge History of Twentieth-Century Music, ed. by Nicholas Cook and Anthony Pople, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Musica e società, vol. 3 (Dal 1830 al 2000), a cura di Virgilio Bernardoni e Paolo Fabbri, Lucca: LIM, 2016. Elliot Antokoletz, A History of Twentieth-Century Music in a Theoretic-Analytical Context, Abingdon: Routledge, 2014.
Contents
The lectures of this year retrace the evolution of the musical languages and the compositional techniques through the 20th century, focusing on the transformations within single genres: symphonic-orchestral music, music theatre, string quartet, vocal ensemble and film music. The plurality of the approaches and stylistic options finds a correspondence in the changes of the social structures, in the historical events and in the shifting of the philosophical horizon. During the 20th century, the concept of autonomous art, dominant in the former century, experienced moments of radicalization and experimentation; at the same time, it showed signs of decline when art music began to intersect with extra-European traditions or musics rooted in technological reproduction.
Course Language
Italian
More information
Students authorized to benefit of inclusive training should contact the teacher who will fix, case by case, the adequate didactic path.
