Professors

Dorit Tanay (Tel Aviv University)

Schedule

Tuesday
From 13:30
to 15:00
Thursday
From 13:30
to 15:00

Course description
One of the first things ever noted about music already by the Greeks is how powerful it is. Specifically, it has power over the emotions. It can excite or pacify, seduce or awe, entertain or frighten. Precisely because of its immense power it has always been coveted by the powerful. So music’s relation to power has two distinct aspects: the internal power of music and the external powers exerted on the practice of music. In this course we shall examine the history of Italian music from the age of Monteverdi to the age of Vivaldi (1580-1750) through the lens of this twofold relation.

Special attention will be given to the rebirth of the Greek notion of powerful music, in Monteverdi’s music. We will observe the unleashing of music’s power to depict and convey emotions, as the outcome of composers’ struggle for expressive autonomy. Monteverdi and other Italian composers gave birth to new musical idioms characterized by theatricality, eroticism, and pseudo improvisation on the one hand, bizarre sonorities, chaotic forms and erratic musical effects on the other. The simulation of desire, pleasure, or alternatively outmost sorrow and distress by musical textures and sounds were the most important innovations of the new Italian musical language. Typically Italian genres were invented already around 1600 such as the madrigal, the cantatas, the toccata, the La Folia, and above all opera. Yet, the evolution of these Italian musical compositions coincided with major changes in the sciences, in philosophy and in politics, combined with the emergence of sovereignty and subjectivity that challenged accepted scientific and artistic norms.

We shall study Italian music of the age in question, focusing on its musical characteristics and on the political and ideological agendas that informed and nourished the Italian musical style. The course will culminate with a deep going analysis of Monteverdi’s two outstanding operas: L’Orfeo, and L’incoronazione di Poppea. In these two magnificent musical theaters the interconnection between music, politics and philosophy foregrounds in the most clear and conspicuous way: these musical works transform into art form the struggle between divine power and human power, between the power of the absolute prince and the power of his subjects. We shall see that Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea – carries a political message that is almost as scandalous today as it was when first performed.

Teaching and Evaluation method
Presentations in class: 20%
final paper 80%.

Syllabus
Week 1: Music as power: The Greek views. Reading: P. Burkkholder, D. J. Grout, C. Palisca, A History of Western Music, 7th edition. N.Y 2006, chapter 1, pp. 10-23, Plato- From the Republic, Aristotle- From the Politics. In O. Strunk, Source Readings in Music History, N. Y 1950, pp. 4-12, 13-24.
Week 2: Towards expressive music: The Italian Madrigal from Arcadelt to Monteverdi’s Book 5 of madrigals. Reading: P. Burkholder, D. J. Grout, C. Palisca, A History of Western Music, 7th edition, N.Y 2006, chapter 11, pp. 243-255. G. M Artusi, from L’Artusi, overo, Delle imperfettioni della moderna musica. In O. Strunk, Source Readings in Music History, N.Y 1950, pp. 393-404.
Week 3: Musical eroticism. Reading B. Gordon, Monteverdi's Unruly Women: The Power of Song in Early Modern Italy, Cambridge University Press, 2004, chapter 1.
Week 4: Madrigalian desire. Reading: B. Gordon, Monteverdi's Unruly Women: The Power of Song in Early Modern Italy, Cambridge University Press, 2004, chapter 3.
Week 5: Between chaos and harmony: Italian instrumental music. Reading: P. Burkholder, D. J. Grout, C. Palisca, A History of Western Music, 7th edition, N.Y 2006, Chapter 15, pp. 344-352. G. Buelow, A History of Baroque Music, Indiana University Press, 2004, chapters 2 and 4.
Week 6: Vivaldi and his legacy. Reading: G. Buelow, A History of Baroque Music, Indiana University Press, 2004, chapter 14.
Week 7: The birth of opera. Reading: Vincenzo Galilei, Dialogue on Ancient and Modern music. In O. Strunk, Source Readings in Music History, N.Y 1950, pp. 302-322. L. Rosow “Power and Display: Music in Court Theatre.” In T. Carter and J. Butt, eds. The Cambridge History of Seventeenth - Century Music, Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2005, pp. 198-218. F. W. Sternfeld, The Birth of Opera, Oxford, 1998, pp. 1-38.
Week 8 and 9: Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo. Reading: Tim Cater, Monteverdi’s Musical Theatre, New Haven; Yale UP, 2002, Chapters 2 and 3. M. Calcagno, From Madrigal to Opera: Monteverdi's Staging of the Self. University of California Press, 2012, Part I.
Week 10: Music and the politics of 16th and 17th centuries Venice. Reading: E. Rosand, “Music in the Myth of Venice,” Renaissance Quarterly, Vol. 30, No. 4 (1977): 511-537.
Week 11 and 12: Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea. Reading: E. Rosand, Opera in Seventeenth century Venice. California, 1991, pp. 9-40. M. Calcagno, From Madrigal to Opera: Monteverdi's Staging of the Self. University of California Press, 2012, chapter 7. Wendy Heller, Emblems of Eloquence: Opera and Women's Voices in Seventeenth-century Venice, University of California Press, 2002, chapters 2 and 3. W. Heller, “Tacitus Incognito: Opera as History in "L'incoronozaione di Poppea" Journal of the American Musicological Society, Spring 1999, Vol. 52 (1), pp. 39-96.

Venice
International
University

Isola di San Servolo
30133 Venice,
Italy

-
phone: +39 041 2719511
fax:+39 041 2719510
email: viu@univiu.org

VAT: 02928970272