Topic

Featured Works

Week 1

European antecedents. Second New England School. Edward MacDowell and the formation of American musical identity. Griffes the American impressionist

MacDowell, Woodland Sketches. Griffes, Sonata and Pleasure Dome of Kublai Kahn.

Week 2

Charles Ives part 1. The Yale years. Part-time composer.

Third Symphony. The Unanswered Question. Songs.

Week 3

Charles Ives part 2. Americanisms, masculinity, World War I, radicalism.

Three Places in New England. Concord Sonata, Second String Quartet.

Recommended:

Piano Sonatas by Ives and Copland; Piano Sonata No. 2 “Concord Mass, 1840-1860” Cedille

Performed by the University of Chicago’s own Easley Blackwood

Ives: Concord Sonata; Songs by Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Susan Graham, Charles Ives

Week 4

Gershwin & Copland. Modernism and populism.

Successful careers. Copland’s studies with Boulanger. Synthesis of European and American elements.

Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue. Copland: Organ Symphony, Piano Variations, and Appalachian Spring (original chamber version).

Week 5 - Samuel Barber and Leonard Bernstein

Neoromantic elements in Barber. European influence in Barber. Bernstein and musical theater.

Bernstein the educator.

Barber:  Violin Concerto. Songs. Bernstein: West Side Story, Third Symphony (“Kadish”), Mass.

Week 6 - American Academic Tradition

Piston, Sessions, Babbitt, Carter, Hansen, Perle, Crumb.

TBD

Week 7 - American Radicals

Harris, Cage, Cowell, Varese, Feldman, Rzewski,

TBD

Week 8 - Minimalism, Postmodernism and Neoromanticism

Del Tredici, Corigliano, Glass, Reich, Adams, Rochberg

TBD