Music 690N - Art Song

This seminar examines several art song traditions, primarily nineteenth-, twentieth-, and twenty-first-century musical settings of texts by German, French, English, and American poets and writers. Despite a broad chronological framework, this course is expressly not intended to function as a survey of the wide-ranging repertories of art song literature. Instead, we will approach the loosely defined musical genre of art from several critical perspectives, including themes of word-music relations, nature, travel, memory, subjectivity, gender, sexuality, politics, performance, and reception. Regular visits by vocalists, pianists, musicologists, and poets will amplify our discussion of issues about interpreting these texts and songs.

This course is open to Music Graduate students in any concentration. Undergraduate Music majors may enroll with instructor permission only.