MYE 565E - Compositional Context

Course Objectives

1. Through readings and discussion, to develop an intellectual awareness of one of the main contextual and interpretative issues in the study of Music History,
2. To develop an understanding of the interplay, within musical repertoires, of compositional intention and audience reception
3. To further students’ understanding of compositional choice within stylistic parameters
4. To familiarise with how current ideas on the chosen topic have been formed and are expressed

Course Description

A focus on the governing conventions and compositional priorities as revealed in instructional manuals, treatises, composers' sketches, theory/practice relationships; modernist and traditional approaches to melodic syntax; dissonance treatment and chromaticism; polyphony; text setting; and formal closure,