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2011/2 Provisional Module Catalogue - UNDER CONSTRUCTION & SUBJECT TO CHANGE
 Module Code: MUS3045 Module Title: 19TH CENTURY MUSICAL AESTHETICS
Module Provider: Music and Sound Recording Short Name: MUS3045
Level: HE3 Module Co-ordinator: DOWNES SC Prof (Music Record)
Number of credits: 15 Number of ECTS credits: 7.5
 
Module Availability
Semester 2
Assessment Pattern
Coursework 1: a short critique of an extract (no more than 1000 words) - 15%
Coursework 2: an essay (no more than 2000 words) - 35%
Two-hour examination - 50%

You will need a weighted aggregate mark of 40%.
Module Overview
The purpose of this module is to enable students to build knowledge of issues in the aesthetics and criticism of music in the nineteenth century and to critique selected secondary literature.
Prerequisites/Co-requisites
A pass in one of the HE2 18th-, 19th-, or 20th/21st-Century Studies modules.
Module Aims
• To provide detailed perspectives on the aesthetics and critical practice in nineteenth-century musical culture.
• To develop an understanding of key texts in musical aesthetics.
• To develop an understanding of relevant areas of philosophy.
Learning Outcomes
By the end of the module you should be able to:

• Critique a text in nineteenth-century musical aesthetics.
• Define key terms in musical aesthetics.
• Relate ideas in philosophy to musical thinking of the period.

Transferable skills:

• Critical thinking.
• Cogent written argument.
Module Content
Topics considered may include:

• The sublime.
• The beautiful.
• The rise of instrumental music.
• The concept of Absolute music.
• Decadence.
• The concept of genius.
• Concepts of folk and nation.
• Historicism and Tradition.
• Eroticism.
• Realism.

Key writers are likely to include: Kant, Schelling, Schiller, Hoffmann, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Baudelaire.

Music by the following composers is likely to be considered: Beethoven, Wagner, Chopin, Mahler, Mussorgsky, Bruckner, Schumann, Strauss, Brahms.
Methods of Teaching/Learning
Expositions by the lecturer introducing the main topics and examples. Later in the module students will give short group presentations on selected key topics as preparation for the examination.
Selected Texts/Journals
Recommended Reading:
Dahlhaus, Carl, 1982: Esthetics of Music (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
le Huray, Peter, and Day, James (eds.), 1981: Music and Aesthetics in the eighteenth and early- nineteenth centuries (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
Last Updated
11.04.11