MUSIC 2611: Lament in Western Music
M 10:00 a.m.-12:20 p.m.
302 Music Building
Prof. Olivia Bloechl
304 Music Building
Office hours: M 2-3 p.m. and Tr 12-1 p.m., or by appointment
Email: olivia.bloechl@pitt.edu
Phone: 412-624-2711
Course Description:
This seminar explores laments in Western music and theater traditions, from the ancient Greeks through early modern opera through modern jazz, performance art, and concert music. In addition to thinking about the stylization of lamenting in these traditions, we will reflect on what musical lament can tell us about the cultures that produced it. We will focus especially on lamenting as a historically feminized act and one that gender-oppressed, queer, racialized, and colonized groups have often repurposed in the interest of justice and flourishing. In the last unit, we will also consider the value of lament in contemporary arts, as a response to modern life and recent crises. The seminar is open to all graduate students in Music and related disciplines.
In-Class Presentations:
Students enrolled for full credit will present informally in two seminar meetings, on a reading and a piece/recording assigned for that week. A sign-up for presentations will be circulated in the first meeting.
Final Project:
The final project will be a conference-style presentation (December 11) and a revised written version due by email to me during the final examination period (December 16, by 5:00 p.m.). The presentation should address a subject relevant to the course topic, and the final written version will be a research paper of 3000-3500 words, with documentation in notes and music examples as needed. This written version should incorporate feedback from the oral presentation. Students should meet with me to discuss possible topics early in the semester, and a 350-word abstract of the paper will be due in class on October 16. Students may opt to complete a creative or media component as part of their final project, as long as it complements the research component.
Materials:
Most readings and sound recordings are on physical reserve at the Music Library, but some items will be available on the Blackboard course site, as announced in class. Please check the Blackboard site regularly for content and announcements. It is also assumed that students will be reading relevant entries in the New Grove online (www.oxfordmusiconline.com) as needed week to week (Pitt users have a subscription).
COURSE SCHEDULE
WEEK 1 (Aug. 28): Introduction
Sept. 4: LABOR DAY, NO SEMINAR (rescheduled for Sept. 5)
WEEK 2 (Tuesday, Sept. 5): Lament, from Greek Tragedy to Baroque Opera
Reading:
Euripides, The Trojan Women
Loraux, The Mourning Voice, Ch. I, III, Conclusion
Michael Halleran, “Tragedy in Performance,” in A Companion to Tragedy
Hoxby, “The Doleful Airs of Euripides”
Listening and Viewing:
Euripides, Trojan Women, ll. 740-779, reconstruction by Stephen Daitz (http://www.rhapsodes.fll.vt.edu/Euripides/euripides.htm)
Cavalli, La Didone, act 1, scenes 4 and 7 (DVD)
Further Reading and Listening (optional):
Hagel, Ancient Greek Music: A New Technical History
Peter Wilson, “The Aulos in Athens,” in Performance Culture and Athenian Democracy
Edith Hall, “Actor’s Song in Tragedy,” in Performance Culture and Athenian Democracy
“The Aulos,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ik8cS_60aSI
WEEK 3 (Sept. 11): NO SEMINAR
WEEK 4 (Sept. 18): The Baroque Lamento: Cavalli’s La Didone
Reading:
Busenello, libretto for La Didone
Bianconi, Music in the Seventeenth Century, Ch. 23
Rosand, Opera in Seventeenth-Century Venice, Ch. 12
Heller, Emblems of Eloquence, Ch. 3
Viewing:
Cavalli, La Didone (DVD)
Further Reading (optional):
Virgil, The Aeneid, Book IV
Fabris, “Didone by Cavalli and Busenello”
WEEK 5 (Sept. 25): Icons of Baroque Lament I: Ariadne
Reading:
Tomlinson, “Madrigal, Monody, and Monteverdi’s ‘Via Naturale Alla Immitatione’”
Cusick, “‘There Was Not One Lady Who Failed to Shed a Tear’”
Cusick, Francesca Caccini at the Medici Court, Ch. 7
http://www.newmusicbox.org/articles/mary-jane-leach-sonic-confessions/
Listening:
C. Monteverdi, “Lasciatemi morire”
F. Caccini, “Lasciatemi qui solo”
M. J. Leach, Ariadne’s Lament
Further Reading (optional):
Ovid, Heroides
Holford-Strevens, “‘Her Eyes Became Two Spouts’: Classical Antecedents of Renaissance Laments”
Cusick, “Re-Voicing Arianna (and Laments): Two Women Respond”
Gordon, Monteverdi’s Unruly Women, Ch. 2
WEEK 6 (Oct. 2): Icons of Baroque Lament II: Dido
Reading:
Harris, Preface to Purcell, Dido and Aeneas (score), ed. Dent and Harris
Harris, Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, chapter on reception
Peraino, “I am an Opera,” in Blackmer and Smith, ed., En Travesti
Herissone, ed., The Ashgate Research Companion to Henry Purcell, Ch. 7
Bloechl, “Confession and Freedom in Baroque Lament”
Listening:
H. Purcell, “Thy Hand, Belinda/When I Am Laid,” Dido and Aeneas, act 3
Perf. Marian Anderson (Marian Anderson: Rare and Unpublished Recordings)
Perf. Jennifer Lane, with the Mark Morris Dance Group (1995)
Perf. Jeff Buckley (Meltdown Festival, 1995)
Perf. Malena Ernman (2014)
H. Purcell, “Ah! Belinda/Peace and I are Strangers Grown,” Dido and Aeneas, act 1
Further Reading (optional):
Tomko, “Dance,” in The Oxford Handbook of Opera, esp. pp. 521-24
Koestenbaum, The Queen’s Throat, 233-35
Oct. 9: FALL BREAK, NO SEMINAR (rescheduled for Oct. 10)
WEEK 7 (Tuesday, Oct. 10): Eighteenth-Century Instrumental Lament
Reading:
Caplin, “Topics and Formal Functions: The Case of the Lament,” in Mirka, ed., The Oxford Handbook of Topic Theory
McClary, “Technologies of the Body in Baroque Music,” in Melzer and Norberg, ed., From the Royal to the Republican Body
Leguin, Boccherini’s Body, Ch. 4
Solomon, Mozart: A Life, Ch. 12
Listening:
Marais, Tombeau pour M. de Ste-Colombe
Bach, Goldberg Variations, Aria and Var. 13
Boccherini, Cello Sonata in C Major, G. 17, II
Mozart, Violin Sonata in E minor, K. 304/300c, II
WEEK 8 (Oct. 16): Nineteenth-Century Instrumental Lament
Reading:
Solomon, Late Beethoven, Ch. 12
Chua, Beethoven and Freedom, 173-88
Hirsch, “Schubert’s Reconciliation of Gothic and Classical Influences,” in Bodley and Horton, ed., Schubert’s Late Music
Peraino, Listening to the Sirens, Ch. 2
Listening:
Beethoven, Sonata Op. 110, movs. III-IV (“klagend” sections)
Schubert, Piano Sonata in A major, D. 959, II
Tchaikovsky, Symphony No. 6, IV: Adagio lamentoso
WEEK 9 (Oct. 23): Afterlives of Lament I: Schubert’s “Die Doppelgänger,” from Schwanengesang
Reading:
Kerman, The Art of Fugue, Ch. 4
Chusid, A Companion to Schubert’s Schwanengesang: History, Poets, Analysis, Performance, Ch. 1, 3 (pp. 81-85)
Binder, “Disability, Self-Critique and Failure in Schubert’s ‘Die Doppelgänger’,” in Bodley and Horton, ed., Rethinking Schubert
Ross, Listen to This, 239-45
Listening:
Bach, Fugue in C-sharp Minor, WTC I
Schubert, “Die Doppelgänger”
Perf. Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau
Perf. Marian Anderson
WEEK 10 (Oct. 30): Requiems for Troubled Times: Mozart, Britten, Galas
Reading:
Wolff, Mozart’s Requiem, Ch. II
Wiebe, Britten’s Unquiet Pasts, Ch. 6
Pope and Leonardi, “Divas and Disease, Mourning and Militancy: Diamanda Galas’s Operatic Plague Mass”
Listening:
Dies irae (sequence)
Mozart, Requiem, “Dies Irae”
Britten, War Requiem, “Dies Irae”
Galas, Plague Mass, “Dies Irae”
WEEK 11 (Nov. 6): Afterlives of Lament II: Holiday’s “Strange Fruit”
Listening:
“Strange Fruit”
Perf. Billie Holiday
Perf. Nina Simone
Perf. Cassandra Wilson
Cassidy, “Celebrate”
Hill, “Black Rage”
Reading:
Clarke, Billie Holiday, Ch. 9
Du Bois, “Of the Sorrow Songs”
Salamishah Tillet, “Strange Sampling: Nina Simone and Her Hip-Hop Children”
Daphne Brooks, “Open Channels”
Further Reading:
Winters, “Contemporary Sorrow Songs”
WEEK 12 (Nov. 13): Jazz Lament, with Prof. Aaron Johnson?
Reading:
TBA
Listening:
J. J. Johnson, “Lament” (1954)
Miles Davis, “Lament” (Miles Ahead)
WEEK 13 (Nov. 20): Grievability and Adams’ The Death of Klinghoffer, with Prof. Robert Fink?
Reading:
Butler, Precarious Life, Ch. 2
Kramer, “The Great American Opera: Klinghoffer, Streetcar, and the Exception”
Taruskin, “Music’s Dangers and the Case for Control,” The New York Times, 9 December 2001
Fink, “Klinghoffer in Brooklyn Heights”
Viewing:
Adams, The Death of Klinghoffer
Further reading (optional):
Longobardi, “Reproducing Klinghoffer”
WEEK 14 (Nov. 27): INDIVIDUAL RESEARCH MEETINGS (NO SEMINAR)
WEEK 15 (Dec. 4): Rosenblum, Lament/Witches’ Sabbath, with Prof. Mathew Rosenblum
Reading:
Rushton, The Music of Berlioz, Ch. 9
Listening:
Berlioz, Symphonie Fantastique, V (“Dream of a Witches’ Sabbath”)
Rosenblum, Lament/Witches’ Sabbath
WEEK 16 (Dec. 11): FINAL PRESENTATIONS