Assignment for Wednesday, March 1: Brahms Lieder

We are bumping up our schedule, so we have to leave the Chopin preludes unfortunately, and move to the wonderful composer Johannes Brahms. Look up his dates, and start assembling a chronology in your head of 19th-century composers. How do Brahms and Chopin compare? Brahms and Wagner, our next composer?

For Wednesday I would like us to analyze two of Brahms's lieder, "Wie Melodien zieht es mir" and "Meine Lieder." Please listen to both, and then choose one to analyze; as we did with Schubert and Schumann, find a translation and copy it into your printout. Analyze with Roman numerals, but look for "non-functional" passages: hexatonic cycles, chromatic progressions, etc. Please have your piece ready to hand in on Wednesday.

Wie Melodien zieht es mir

Meine Lieder

Assignment for Monday, February 27; Chopin continued

Let's continue with the Chopin Preludes; choose one or two from nos. 8-11, and be prepared to hand one of them in. I'm going to re-adjust the course schedule this weekend; we'll try to finish the Preludes quickly.

Also, please read these excerpts from Charles Rosen's wonderful book The Romantic Generation, on the Chopin Preludes. This is the kind of book that you can just dip into at random and learn something new; I highly recommend just browsing through it, looking for pieces you recognize. Or, you can also go to the index and look for your favorite composers & pieces - it's fun.

The entire book is available as an e-book from the Library:
https://vufind.carli.illinois.edu/vf-uiu/Record/uiu_6698223

Or you can download excerpts here:

Chapter 2, "Fragments" pt. 1 (p. 78-89)
Chapter 2, "Fragments" pt. 2 (p. 95-98)
Chapter 4, "Formal interlude" (p. 261-265)

One of the claims Rosen makes is that in 19th century music, "attention is deflected away from the bar and to the whole phrase as a unit." Does that ring true with your own experience? Please comment below; think of one example that might back up Rosen's claim, and one counter-example, from pieces that you already know.

Chopin Preludes, op. 28 - Ashkenazy

Assignment for Wednesday, February 22

Please choose one of Chopin's preludes no. 4, 5, or 6, and analyze it as best you can with Roman numerals; also write a sentence or two about the form of the piece (even though it's short). Be prepared to hand in your Prelude analysis.

Assignment for Monday, February 20

Please listen to the Chopin Preludes, op. 28, over the weekend. We'll be looking at the first three preludes on Monday; please try analyzing them, but you don't have to hand in anything for Monday. Have a good weekend!

Assignment for Wednesday, February 8 - Berlioz

Sorry to be late with this - for tomorrow's class, please make an outline of the form of the first movement of the Berlioz Fantastic Symphony. Include at the minimum the following:

• Introduction
• Exposition:
• first theme
• second theme
• Development
• Recapitulation
• (does it have first theme/second theme?)
• Coda

And if you can, go into more detail, especially in the development, highlighting important sections.

Also, I have put some of the Norton Critical Score online here, a couple of essays on the piece's composition and premiere by the great Edward T. Cone. Please read this for tomorrow - I'm not going to test you on it, but it is fun reading and it will help you with the piece.