The University of
  Mississippi

Music 502: Baroque Music

Warren Steel
232 Music Building
915-5183/915-7268
mudws@olemiss.edu


Objectives: Familiarity with and understanding of selected works of Western music of the 17th and early 18th century; identification and study of distinctive features of the music of this period; the ability to pursue basic research on the music of this period, and to present this research in oral and written form.

Texts:

Topics for discussion:

  1. Introduction: monarchy, religion, and the rhetoric of the Arts
  2. The birth of opera, monody, and the concerted madrigal (1-13, W1)
  3. New genres of instrumental music in Italy (14-25, W2)
  4. Church music in Italy, 1600-1650 (26-31, W3-5))
  5. Music in France to 1650 (32-48, W6)
  6. Music in the Empire through the Thirty-Years War (49-59, W7-W8)
  7. Music in England to 1660 (60-65, W9-W11)
  1. New vocal genres in Italy, 1635-1680 (66-74, W12-W14))
  2. French music to the death of Lully (75-80, W15-W18)
  3. Music in Spain, Portugal, and their colonies (81-87, W19-W23)
  4. Music in the Empire during the later seventeenth century (88-100, W24-W26)
  5. England from the Restoration to 1715 (108-115, W28-W34)
  1. Sonata and concerto in late seventeenth-century Italy (101-107, W27)
  2. Italian vocal music, 1680-1730 (116-120, W35)
  3. French music, 1690-1725 (121-124, W36-W42)
  4. German traditions and innovations, 1690-1750 (125-130, W43-W45)

Course requirements:

  1. Attendance and participation in class discussion.
  2. Reading and listening as assigned.
  3. Class work as assigned.
  4. Book or record review, due by midterm.
  5. Research project, due at end of term.
  6. Midterm examination. Bring a blue book.
  7. Final examination. Bring a blue book.
  8. Final grades will be simple letter grades, without plus or minus.

Review and study materials

  1. Listening review 1
  2. Listening review 2
  3. Listening review 3
  4. Dr. Steel's Baroque Anthology video playlist (YouTube)
  5. Summary of Monteverdi's L'Orfeo
  6. Summary of Monteverdi's Vespers
  7. Contents of Banchieri's Nuovi Pensieri Ecclesiastici
  8. Contents of Sances's Cantade
  9. Summary of Schütz's works
  10. Summary of Schütz's biblical histories
  11. Libretto of Purcell, Dido and Aeneas
  12. Contents of J.S. Bach, Clavier-Übung
  13. Thomas Coryat describes Venetian music
  14. Thomas Coryat describes Venetian orphans
  15. Thomas Mace discusses musical rhetoric

Links of interest:

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