Changes in American Musical Life Assignment

Music 15, Winter 2022 Final Paper Prompt – Genius and the Canon Due: 3/8/22, 11:59pm PST

Listening: Corelli, Concerto Grosso in D major op. 6, no. 4 (1714) Ludwig van Beethoven

Symphony No. 9 (1822-1824) Movement 4, Presto, allegro assai

Johannes Brahms Symphony No. 4 (1884)

Movement 4, Allegro energico e passionate Amy Beach

Gaelic Symphony (1894) Movement 2, alla siciliana

Clara Schumann Piano Trio in G minor, op. 17

Igor Stravinsky Octet (1923)

Alex Temple The Man Who Hated Everything (2015)

(And other works we’ve covered in class with approval)

Reading: Frisch, Music in the Nineteenth Century

Concert Culture and the “Great” Symphony, 174-178 The Romantic Imagination, 13-22 Music and the Age of Metternich, 32-37 Franz Schubert, 42-45 The Opera Industry, 52-60 Robert Schumann and the Lied, 109-111 Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel and the Musical Salon, 85-87 Clara Wieck Schumann and the Keyboard, 87-90

Goehr, The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works “After 1800: The Beethoven Paradigm,” excerpts, 205-208

Burkholder, “Museum Pieces: The Historicist Mainstream in Music of the Last Hundred Years,” 115-134 Amy Beach, 753-755

Spitzer and Zaslow, The Birth of the Orchestra. “Corelli’s Orchestra,” 105-106 “Corelli’s Career,” 115-117 “Venues and Performances, 118-123”

Tick, “Passed Away is the Piano Girl: Changes in American Musical Life, 1870-1900” 325-345

Temple, “Composers, Performers, and Consent” (primary source) Upton, Woman in Music, 15-32 (primary source)

(NOTE: You need not, and in fact SHOULD NOT, use all of these sources – they are simply the sources available to you. Use whichever best suit the tack you take for this paper)

Assignment Description: Using the notes you received on your outline, you will flesh out draft/outline into a full paper. The prompt from the outline remains essentially the same (see below)

This full paper will be 3-4 pages double-spaced.

Format: Typed, 12-pt. Times New Roman, double-spaced .doc or .docx format, standard 1” margins

You must use proper Chicago-style citation formatting.

Prompt:

J. Peter Burkholder argues that “Once the concert hall became a museum, the only works appropriate to be performed there were museum pieces—either pieces which were already old and revered or pieces which served exactly the same function, as musical works of lasting value which proclaimed a distinctive musical personality, which rewarded study, and which became loved as they became familiar.” The idea of the concert hall as a sort of “musical museum” that preserves the work of long-dead composers, as well as the repercussions of this notion for living composers, forms the basis of this paper.

Your paper will will explore two areas: 1. The emergence of the musical canon, focusing on the music and reception of Ludwig van Beethoven. 2. How the canon and “musical museum” have affected the music produced after Beethoven and the ways in which later composers contend with its existence. This should include SPECIFIC examples.

Your paper should have a clear thesis statement that uses the above readings and music to make a clear statement about (2). Your framing and background from (1) will serve as important context.

There are a number of different directions you could go with this paper. Here are some questions you might consider*:

How did the idea of writing music, especially symphonies, change as a result of the “musical museum?” – How did the existence of the canon affect the works of Johannes Brahms (a late-19th century composer), Igor Stravinsky (a 20th century composer), and 21st century composers like Alex Temple? How are their ideas and works reactions to the existence of a traditional canon of musical masterworks? – How might the idea of genius and the musical museum affect the relationship between composers and the musicians that play their works? – How did pervasive societal attitudes towards expectations of gender roles affect opportunity for admittance into the canon?

*You will not be able to thoroughly consider all of these ideas in 3-4 pages, and will have to choose the tack you take.

You must back up your argument by citing sources from the reading above. Use no other sources.