LECTURE LIST 2007-2008
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Music Tripos Courses
2010-11
LECTURE LIST 2010-11
Part IA
1 Harmony AVJ M
2 Counterpoint AA M
3 Historical subjects
Nineteenth-century Music MWE/BW M/L
4 Historical and Cultural Studies
Twentieth-century Music MFW L
Eighteenth-century Opera in Europe SC M
5 Analysis NJM M/L
6 Practical Musicianship JH M/L/E
Composers’ Workshop JH M/L
Part IB
1 Portfolio of Tonal Compositions JH M/L
Fugue (also Part II) AVJ M
2 Analysis MWE & others M/L
3 Portfolio of Free Compositions RGH/JRT
Composers’ Workshop JH M/L
4 Dissertation (also Part II) SC M
5 Advanced Keyboard Skills MWE M
6 Notation EAW M/L
7 Encounters in Balinese music KW L
8 Music and Society in Handel’s London AVJ L
9 The Mighty Handful and its Legacy MFW M
10 American Jazz, c.1940-c.1970 SJB M
11 Introduction to Music and Science IRMC M/L
12 Introduction to Schenkerian Analysis NJM M/L/E
Recital
Part II
1 Dissertation (also Part IB) SC M
2 Advanced Tonal Composition AVJ M
3 Portfolio of Free Composition JRT/RGH
Composers’ Workshop JH M/L
4 Analysis Portfolio PW M
5 Notation and Source Studies Portfolio EAW M
6 Test of Performance MWE/MF
7 Fugue (also Part IB) AVJ M
8 Don Giovanni SC M/L
9 Beethoven: the Late String Quartets NJM M/L
10 The Music of Miles Davis SJB M/L
11 Perception and Performance IRMC M/L
12 German Idealist Operas RGH L/E
13 The Music of Chopin JSR M/L
14 Globalization DRMI L
15 The Music and Musical Sources of Guillaume de Machaut SKR M/L
16 Studying Music as Performance NJC L
17 Choral Performance DGS M/L
Prizes, Scholarships and Grants
Key to lecturers’ initials
AA Andrew Arthur (Trinity Hall)
SJB Sam Barrett (Pembroke)
SC Stefano Castelvecchi (St John’s)
NJC Nicholas Cook (Darwin)
IRMC Ian Cross (Wolfson)
MWE Martin Ennis (Girton)
MF Margaret Faultless (Girton)
MFW Marina Frolova-Walker (Clare)
RGH Robin Holloway (Gonville & Caius)
JEH John Hopkins (Homerton)
DRMI David Irving (Christ’s)
AVJ Andrew Jones (Selwyn)
NJM Nicholas Marston (King’s)
SKR Susan Rankin (Emmanuel)
JSR John Rink (St John’s)
DGS David Skinner (Sidney Sussex)
JRT Jeremy Thurlow (Robinson)
BW Benjamin Walton (Jesus)
KW Kate Wakeling
EAW Edward Wickham (St Catharine’s)
PW Paul Wingfield (Trinity)
Code of practice for supervision
The supervision system is a central feature of Cambridge teaching, enabling supervisors and their pupils to work together to their best advantage, and free from overbearing central direction. While not wishing to impede this freedom in any way, and recognising that the duty to arrange adequate supervision rests with Directors of Studies, the Faculty Board of Music believes that some degree of co-ordination between Faculty lecture courses and College supervisions is advisable. Thus, the description of each lecture course in this Handbook includes the number of supervisions recommended by the Board, as suggested by the course lecturer. This recommendation takes into account the total amount of supervision thought to be manageable in the course of the academic year.
The ‘Guidance to Supervisors’ also includes suggestions as to the possible content and direction of supervisions; individual lecture titles, where provided, will themselves offer further help. In cases where the course lecturer is also acting as a supervisor, such information may of course be supplemented informally as necessary. In cases where the lecturer and supervisor are not the same person, the lecturer should provide, at the request of Directors of Studies, an outline of a suggested course of supervisions. Supervisors are also welcome to attend the lecture course concerned.
THE MUSIC TRIPOS
The Music Tripos consists of three parts: Part IA, Part IB, and Part II. The normal programme for an undergraduate who intends to spend three years reading music is as follows: Part IA of the Tripos at the end of the first year; Part IB at the end of the second year; Part II at the end of the third year. The attainment of honours in Part IB is an essential qualification for taking Part II.
PART IA
Candidates for Part IA offer six papers. Papers 1 and 3-5 are of three hours’ duration. Paper 2 shall consist of the submission of a portfolio of written work. Paper 6 consists of an aural test of not more than three hours’ duration, together with a separate keyboard test.
Papers 1 and 2: Harmony and Counterpoint I and II
Lecturers: Andrew Jones, Andrew Arthur
Aims and objectives
To develop literacy in the use of harmony and counterpoint by means of exercises in which part of the musical material (a treble or bass line, an opening passage, or a theme) is given. Musical skills that will be developed include the ability to perceive the harmonic implications of a melody or a bass, competence in creating a convincing structure, competence in manipulating contrapuntal lines, and a sense of instrumental idioms.
Description of the course
The course is taught through two lecture series. The first, on Harmony, will take place in the Michaelmas Term, and will consist of eight 90-minute lectures (which will include opportunities to practise a variety of harmonic techniques under supervision). The second lecture series, on Counterpoint, will be divided between Michaelmas and Easter Terms. In the Michaelmas Term there will be four lectures on sixteenth-century counterpoint followed by four on fugal exposition. Topics covered in the first four lectures will include dissonance treatment, shaping of lines, the setting of text, modal practice, and imitation; the second four lectures will focus on real and tonal answers, the countersubject, invertible counterpoint at the octave, order of voice entries, codettas, writing for instruments or keyboard, and redundant entries. In the Easter Term there will be two revision lectures which will include working through examination-style questions.
Description of the examination
Paper 1 (Harmony and Counterpoint I) will consist of an exercise in sixteenth-century counterpoint in three parts, and the completion of a song accompaniment in an eighteenth- or early nineteenth-century idiom. For Paper 2 (Harmony and Counterpoint II) candidates will be required to write a fugal exposition in four parts using invertible counterpoint, and either to write a set of variations (either for piano or for four-part instrumental ensemble on a ground) or to complete a passage for string quartet using a given opening (e.g. a minuet for string quartet in rounded binary form). Paper 1 will be assessed by three-hour written examination. Paper 2 will be made available between 10.00 am and noon on the fourth Monday of Full Easter Term, and is to be returned by noon on the following day (i.e. after a period of 24 hours). In the case of Paper 2, candidates will be required to sign a declaration that the work is entirely unaided; any infringements of this ruling will be dealt with very severely. The submission must be the original (not a photocopy) and must be entirely in the candidate’s own handwriting. Penalties will be implemented for late submission.
Precise submission details can be found in the publication Examinations: Information for Undergraduates.
Suggestions for preliminary study
Because A-level music syllabuses are very diverse, some undergraduates may arrive in Cambridge without a solid grounding in harmony and counterpoint. If you feel insecure in this respect, you will find it helpful to undertake some preliminary study.
You can do no better than to start with the chorale harmonizations of J.S. Bach in the Riemenschneider collection (published by Chappell) or the volume edited by Richter (published by Breitkopf and Härtel). Careful analysis of a chorale’s tonal phrase structure (including cadences), the balance of dissonant and consonant harmony, the counterpoint between treble and bass, and the inner part-writing, will all repay diligent study. Fugue is likewise best approached through the study of repertoire: see especially Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier (which is available in numerous editions).
The string quartet and song accompaniment questions pre-suppose familiarity with relevant music from the end of the eighteenth century and beginning of the nineteenth century. The Dover editions of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven quartets are worth acquiring, and you should get to know piano sonatas and songs by the same composers, and songs by Schubert and Schumann (e.g. Die schöne Müllerin, Dichterliebe).
Fortunately, there is no shortage of reliable scores and good recordings of sixteenth-century music, and you should study some masses and motets by Palestrina and Victoria. Though species counterpoint is not an examination requirement, the techniques illustrated in Fux’s Gradus ad Parnassum should prove a useful introduction to this part of the course. For a translation of selected passages see Johann Joseph Fux, The Study of Counterpoint from J.J. Fux’s Gradus ad Parnassum, trans. and ed. A. Mann (New York & London, 1971). For an introduction to sixteenth-century style, see particularly O. Swindale, Polyphonic Composition (London, 1962).
Walter Piston’s Harmony, 2nd ed., rev. Mark DeVoto (London, 1978) is also recommended. The following publication provides a briefer introduction to harmony, accompanied by 100 musical examples, to be worked as written exercises or at the keyboard: John Leach, Classic Harmony (1997) published by the author and available from 10 Woodlea, Worsley, Manchester, M28 2BJ.
Guidance for supervisors
The Music Faculty Board recommends that Papers 1 and 2 (Harmony and Counterpoint I and Harmony and Counterpoint II) be supervised together in groups of two for one hour per week through sixteen weeks of the academic year (some supervisors prefer to see students individually for half an hour). Although most of the lectures for these papers take place in the Michaelmas Term, supervisors are advised to pace the material over at least two terms, allowing time for revision in the Easter Term. All supervisors, especially those new to teaching this course, are welcome to attend the lectures.
Paper 3: Historical Subjects
Nineteenth-century Music
Lecturers: Martin Ennis, Ben Walton
Aims and objectives
To familiarise students with a broad range of Western music from c.1790 to c.1910, taking into account (where appropriate) changes in compositional style, and institutional, historical and cultural contexts.
Description of the course
Each of the two sets of lectures (on instrumental and vocal music, respectively) will move through the period in roughly chronological order, but with occasional diversions to follow important thematic links. Students will be expected to listen to a wide range of repertoire and to read a variety of texts about the music.
Description of the examination
The paper will be divided into three one-hour sections. The first will require students to write short notes on a variety of topics. Sections 2 and 3 will contain essay titles on instrumental and vocal music respectively.
Suggestions for preliminary study
Students should begin by assessing their present knowledge of the period and trying to fill gaps in their listening. Basic information about the period can be gained from Leon Plantinga, Romantic Music: A History of Musical Style in Nineteenth-Century Europe (New York: Norton, 1984). Harder, but with many more stimulating ideas and a greater range of cultural contexts, are Carl Dahlhaus, Nineteenth-Century Music (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989) and vol. 3 of Richard Taruskin, The Oxford History of Western Music (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). Also useful for the broad view, and certainly concise, is Arnold Whittall, Romantic Music (London: Routledge, 1987). A selective view of the early part of the century, with many valuable close readings of the piano and Lied repertoire, can be found in Charles Rosen, The Romantic Generation (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995). Volume 6 of Source Readings in Music History, ed. Ruth A. Solie (New York: Norton, 1998), contains a valuable collection of source documents. Also valuable, in a more specific area, is Opera: A History in Documents, ed. Piero Weiss (New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002).
Guidance for supervisors
The Music Faculty Board recommends that this course be taught in eight one-hour supervisions in groups of two to four students; four supervisions should be devoted to instrumental, and four to vocal music. The most important functions of the supervisions will be to extend the students’ knowledge both of the repertoire and of the musicological literature, and to develop essay-writing skills. While it would be useful in most cases to remain within the broad themes set out in the lectures, supervisors might, as well as ensuring that students have understood the main issues, encourage knowledge of works and/or writings not specifically referred to in the lectures.
All supervisors, especially those new to teaching this course, are welcome to attend the lectures.
Paper 4: Historical and Cultural Studies
Description of the exam
The paper will be divided into two sections. The first section will contain questions on 20th-century Music; the second section will contain questions on 18th-century Opera in Europe. Candidates are required to answer three questions, at least one question from each section.
A Twentieth-century music
Lecturer: Marina Frolova-Walker
Description of the course
It is not possible adequately to “cover” the music of last century in a course of eight lectures, since there are too many composers, trends and issues that are still of vital relevance to us, none of which we would want to see given short shrift in an all-encompassing survey course. Accordingly, this course will not be a general survey, and will proceed topically rather than chronologically. It will offer eight different cross-sections of last century’s art music in the West, based on different conceptions of what music aspired to be or what function it was designed to perform:
1. Music as transcendence (Scriabin, Mahler, Messiaen)
2. Music as construction (Schoenberg and others)
3. Music within an artistic synthesis (Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes and early Hollywood films)
4. “Music is powerless to express anything” (Stravinsky and others)
5. Music “for the people” (Hindemith and Soviet Socialist Realism)
6. Music as “conceptual art” (Cage and others)
7. Music as trance (Feldman and the minimalists)
8. Music as sound (sonorists and spectralists)
The course will be based around a limited number of case studies (a shorter and a longer listening list will be provided), which will be examined in their historical, aesthetic and social contexts; political background and developments in the other arts will be given close attention. In preparation for this course, it would be useful to read Alex Ross’s The Rest is Noise and Paul Griffiths’s surveys of twentieth-century music before and after 1945. The two volumes on twentieth-century music from Richard Taruskin’s Oxford History of Western Music are also highly recommended, although given their length, students would only be expected at this stage to browse through them for sections of particular interest.
Guidance for supervisors
The Music Faculty Board recommends that this course be supervised in four supervisions, usually spaced out through the academic year.
B Eighteenth-century Opera in Europe
Lecturer: Stefano Castelvecchi
Description of the course
The course will introduce students to important aspects of operatic life in eighteenth-century Europe. We will discuss the practices and conventions of dramaturgy, genre, form and style, the main traditions and repertoires (opera seria, opera buffa, tragédie lyrique, opéra comique, ‘reform’ opera, Singspiel), and a number of contextual aspects (institutions and patrons, production systems, theatrical architecture, eighteenth-century debates about opera, and its relationships with developments in culture and society and with the other arts). The lectures will move through the century in roughly chronological order, though a degree of flexibility will be imposed by the need to deal in a thematic way with the different national contexts and other issues (a list of lecture titles will be provided at the beginning of the course). Students will be invited to familiarise themselves with a variety of operatic samples (through libretti, scores, sound recordings and video recordings), and to study some of the relevant literature. In preparation for this course, it may be useful for students to begin acquainting themselves with representative examples of the main genres (say, Mozart’s Zauberflöte for the Singspiel).
Guidance for supervisors
For this course the Music Faculty Board recommends a set of four or five one-hour supervisions, to be held in groups of two to four students.
N.B.: Directors of Studies should ensure that supervision on any subject does not take place before the respective lecture.
Paper 5: Analysis
Lecturer: Nicholas Marston
Aims and objectives
To enable first-year undergraduates, partly through independent directed study:
• to acquire familiarity with and understanding of selected instrumental and vocal genres and forms of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries;
• to apply to selected compositions stylistically sensitive analytical and interpretative techniques and strategies;
• to communicate insights clearly and persuasively in the form of prose accounts supplemented where appropriate by musical examples.
Description of the course
A course of twelve lectures will be given during the Michaelmas and Lent Terms. The lectures will concentrate on the period to be examined in Section A of the examination paper, but up to four lectures may be devoted to setting out approaches to the prescribed repertoire to be examined in Section B.
Copies of the works or movements to be discussed in lectures for Section A will be provided at each lecture. Candidates are expected to purchase a copy of the recommended edition of the prescribed repertoire to be examined in Section B. Detailed reading and suggestions for further study will be provided in lectures as appropriate.
Description of the examination
The paper will be divided into two sections. In the first section (Section A), compositions, or extracts from compositions, either from the period 1700-1770 or from the period 1770-1830, will be provided for analysis. In the second section (Section B), compositions or extracts from compositions from the period not represented in the first section will be provided for analysis. The compositions or extracts examined in Section B will be drawn from a repertoire prescribed by the Faculty Board at the beginning of the academic year in which the examination takes place; copies of the music will be provided in the examination paper; candidates will not be allowed to use their own copies. Candidates will be required to answer TWO questions, one from each section.
For the 2011 examination, Section A will examine music of the period 1770-1830. The prescribed repertoire for Section B will be J. S. Bach: Das wohltemperirte Clavier (The well-tempered Clavier), book 1, ed. Richard Jones (ABRSM, 1994).
Suggestions for preliminary study
Candidates should make every effort to familiarise themselves with a wide range of music from the period 1700-1830, supplemented by lecturers' and supervisors' reading suggestions. Useful background texts for this course include Thomas Christensen (ed.), The Cambridge History of Western Music Theory (Cambridge: CUP, 2002), esp. pp. 726-926; Nicholas Cook, A Guide to Musical Analysis (London: Dent, 1987; repr. Oxford: OUP, 1994); James Hepokoski and Warren Darcy, Elements of Sonata Theory: Norms, Types, and Deformations in the Late-Eighteenth-Century Sonata (Oxford: OUP, 2006).
Guidance for supervisors
The Music Faculty Board recommends that this course be supervised in groups of between two and four for one hour per week through twelve weeks of the academic year. It is intended that study of the prescribed repertoire to be examined in Section B will be largely the responsibility of undergraduates, directed by supervisors; though supervisors are of course free to set assignments relating to both parts of the examination paper. At least some assignments should take the form of essays involving connected prose, supplemented where appropriate by music examples. All supervisors are welcome to attend the lectures.
Paper 6: Practical Musicianship
A Aural
Co-ordinator: John Hopkins
Aims and objectives
To achieve some measure of fluency and accuracy in the skills of detailed listening; to develop a short- and medium-term memory for musical shapes and forms; to notate what has been heard.
Description of the course
The above and other skills will be taught and tested in the classes.
Description of the examination
The following skills will be examined: memorisation and subsequent writing down of rhythms and dictation of melodies (for both of these questions, the starting pitch, the time and key signatures, and the number of bars, will be indicated); dictation of a passage from a four-part Bach chorale and dictation of a passage of three-part counterpoint (in both of these questions, at least one part will be given for the majority (though not all) of the question); mistake-spotting; orchestral scoring; aural analysis (i.e., putting together an analytical and interpretative commentary on a piece from the period 1700-1828 after three hearings without a score).
Suggestions for preliminary study
Listen to passages and whole pieces without a score, then attempt to reproduce or remember as much of them as possible; work on interval recognition and memorisation of rhythms.
B Keyboard
Co-ordinator: John Hopkins
Aims and objectives
To achieve some measure of fluency and accuracy in keyboard skills; to acquire a thorough knowledge of diatonic practice; to read scores at the keyboard.
Description of the course
The above and other skills will be taught and tested in the classes.
Description of the examination
The following skills will be examined at the keyboard: harmonisation of a given melody; realisation of a figured bass; transposition of a chorale; reading of a score of a string quartet; reading of a score of a piece of three-part sixteenth-century counterpoint using C3, C4, and F4 clefs.
The transposition exercise will require candidates to transpose the given song accompaniment by no more than two semitones up or down.
Candidates will be allowed perusal time of twenty minutes before their exam.
Suggestions for preliminary study
Paul Steinitz, One Hundred Tunes for Harmonization from the Great Masters (London, 1963); R.O. Morris and Howard Ferguson, Preparatory Exercises in Score Reading (Oxford, 1931, many times reprinted); R.O. Morris, Figured Harmony at the Keyboard: Part 1 (Oxford, 1932); David Ledbetter (ed.), Continuo Playing According to Handel (Oxford, 1990).
Composers’ Workshop
Co-ordinator: John Hopkins
This programme is open to students from all years of the undergraduate course as well as to those taking the M.Phil., and will run through the Michaelmas and Lent terms. There will be four main strands of activity: the presentation and discussion of current models of compositional practice; demonstration of instrumental, vocal and electronic techniques; workshop performance of student compositions and work-in-progress; presentations by visiting, resident and student composers of aspects of their own work. Among those leading the sessions will be Stephen Montague (New Music Associate), Robin Holloway, Jeremy Thurlow, John Hopkins, and the New Music Ensemble, together with a number of professional performers. It is also intended to feature a couple of high profile visiting speakers during the programme.
PART IB
Candidates for Part IB offer five papers: Papers 1 and 2; and three other papers provided that at least one paper shall be from Section A of the additional papers. (The additional papers are broken down into Section A, Historical Topics, and Section B, Other Topics.) At least two of the papers must be from among those examined by a three-hour written examination, and Paper 2, Analysis is included in the six hours of written examination. The following is a list of the additional papers divided into two sections:
Section A (Historical Topics):
6. Notation
7. Encounters in Balinese music
8. Music and Society in Handel’s London
9. The Mighty Handful and its Legacy
10. American Jazz, c.1940-c.1970
Section B (Other Topics):
11. Introduction to Music and Science
12. Introduction to Schenkerian Analysis
Candidates may also present a recital either on an instrument or of singing. Such a recital, if of sufficient merit, may be taken into account by the Examiners.
Paper 1: Portfolio of Tonal Compositions
Co-ordinator: John Hopkins
Aims and objectives
This course, examined by portfolio submission, is intended to allow students to develop the ability to conceive and sustain a musical argument over an extended time-scale. In addition to developing competence in handling certain forms (see below) and in employing tonality as a structural determinant, undergraduates will need to get to grips with basic compositional principles such as finding an appropriate balance between unity and diversity, developing a sense of coherence and completeness, and exploiting effectively the technical capabilities of instruments.
Description of the course
There will be 3 lectures in Michaelmas and 1 in Lent, covering topics such as invention, elaboration, development, variation, structures, and notation; students are also strongly encouraged to attend the lectures on Fugue (listed under Part II). Nonetheless, the most important component of the teaching for this course is regular supervision, either solo or in a group of two. Undergraduates should expect to produce a substantial piece of work for every supervision: this is the only way to make progress. It is strongly recommended that they gain experience in composing in a variety of styles, forms and textures in Michaelmas Term before starting work early in Lent Term on the pieces that they intend to submit. The portfolio submitted at the end of the course will contain two compositions and a fugue in three or four parts.
The following applies to the two non-fugal compositions:
- The total duration of the two compositions should be 12-15 minutes, excluding repeats, and neither piece should be shorter than 4 minutes.
- The maximum number of performers is five in each piece.
- One composition, and one only, may be for solo keyboard (including organ) or other polyphonic instrument; melody instruments may be used only in ensemble.
- One composition, and one only, may be a setting of words for a solo voice, accompanied either by the piano or by an ensemble of up to four instruments; this should have a clear and coherent musical design, over and above following the course of the words, though this design need not necessarily be one of the forms named below. A vocal submission may comprise either one substantial song or a group of shorter songs.
- With the possible exception given immediately above, the forms are to be chosen from: binary, ternary, scherzo and trio, ritornello, rondo, theme and variations, sonata. Candidates should identify the form used at the head of the movement in question.
- Tonality must play a clear role in the articulation of the musical argument and the delineation of these forms (and equally in the structuring of any vocal piece).
- The two pieces should be in different forms and scored for different instrumental combinations.
- Each piece should maintain a consistent and coherent idiom.
The pieces may be composed within the terms of a historical idiom (though there is no need to imitate the stylistic traits of an individual composer), or candidates may choose to develop a less historically based, more original style. Different pieces within one candidate’s portfolio need not show the same approach, but whichever is chosen, a demonstration of compositional ambition is to be encouraged.
When a piece is modelled on a historical style, occasional fleeting resemblances to existing works may occur, provided that such ideas have been substantially rethought. Candidates writing a set of variations may choose to borrow an existing theme, provided that they acknowledge the source. Otherwise, candidates may not use existing themes in their compositions.
Candidates will be expected to submit a CD recording, on conventional instruments, of one of these two compositions. If candidates prefer to record their piece on mini disk, facilities exist in the Pendlebury Library and in the Centre for Music and Science for transferring the recording to CD. Candidates will be responsible for providing a recording of an acceptable quality, but the quality of recorded sound will not contribute to the final mark. There should be no discrepancy between the score of a piece and the submitted recording.
In addition to these two compositions, the portfolio must include a tonal fugue in either three or four parts for either solo keyboard instrument or strings. Please note that the fugue may be written for keyboard, even if one of the other two compositions is as well. Candidates are advised to take a subject from a pre-existent tonal fugue, though original tonal subjects are permissible, provided that a traditional idiom is employed. The name of the composer of the subject must be indicated on the score. The exposition should contain a regular, invertible countersubject. A fugue in 4/4 with pervasive semiquaver motion should be about 40 bars in length. (Fugues written in shorter bar-lengths, such as 2/4 or 3/8, will have more bars, but should not much exceed 70 bars.)
Candidates who are also submitting a Portfolio of Free Compositions should ensure that their two Portfolios do not overlap in terms of musical content or style.
Submission of the portfolio
The portfolio must be submitted to the Chairman of Examiners so as to arrive not later than the fifteenth day of Full Easter Term. The compositions must have been written during the current academic year. Each work must have a cover sheet which has been signed by the supervisor under whose direction it was written, as an indication that the teacher approves its submission. Candidates will be required to declare that the compositions are their own work and that they do not contain material already used for a comparable purpose.
Of the two (non-fugal) compositions, one must be handwritten and the other music-processed.
Penalties will be implemented for late submission.
Precise submission details can be found in the publication Examinations: Information for Undergraduates.
Suggestions for preliminary study
You will need technical skills as well as good musical intuition, and these are best acquired through knowledge of the repertory. The best way to become familiar with music is to play it – no matter how well or badly. Play through, for example, some Beethoven piano sonatas; score-read some Haydn and Mozart string quartets; play through some Brahms duo sonatas; and study the scores. Recommended for reading: William Caplin, Classical Form (Oxford, 1998); Nicholas Cook, Analysis through Composition (Oxford, 1996); Arthur Hutchings, The Invention and Composition of Music (London, 1958); Arnold Schoenberg, Fundamentals of Musical Composition, ed. Gerald Strang and Leonard Stein (London, 1967); C.V. Stanford, Musical Composition (London, 1911).
Guidance for supervisors
The Music Faculty Board recommends that this course be supervised in sixteen weekly half-hour supervisions (some supervisors prefer to see students for eight fortnightly one-hour supervisions); no more than one supervision should be given in the Easter Term. Undergraduates should expect to write a substantial piece of work for every supervision, and to gain experience in a variety of styles and textures before starting to write the pieces they intend to submit. Study of formal procedures etc. in pieces from the repertoire is encouraged, even when a candidate wishes to work in an ‘original’ style. Examiners are reminded that the expression ‘tonal composition’ need not imply the adoption of the style of a particular composer. Each composition should exhibit stylistic consistency although the three individual compositions making up the portfolio may be in different styles.
Fugue
Lecturer: Andrew Jones
Aims and objectives
To develop the musical technique necessary to write a fugue.
Description of the course
The course is taught through lectures and supervisions.
In composing a fugue you will confront certain fundamental principles, all of which demand a sense of architectural balance: between counterpoint and harmony, between derived and new material, between different textures, between the keys of the middle entries, and so on. Although you should aim to produce a complete fugue for each supervision, there are many useful exercises of a more limited nature that you can profitably carry out: writing regular countersubjects to fugue subjects, writing double and triple invertible counterpoint, constructing sequences out of given material, and so on.
Description of the examination
The fugue is submitted as part of the Portfolio of Tonal Compositions. See above for details.
Suggestions for preliminary study
Whilst the fugues in J. S. Bach's Das Wohltemperirte Clavier provide unrivalled models, you are advised to examine works by a wide selection of eighteenth-century composers, especially those fugues that contain a regular countersubject.
If you want to read books on fugue, you could profitably consult Ebenezer Prout, Fugue (Augener, 1891; reprinted Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood, 1969), and André Gedalge, Treatise on the Fugue, trans. and ed. Ferdinand Davis (University of Oklahoma Press, 1965), though any similar textbooks will be helpful.
Guidance for supervisors
The Music Faculty Board recommends that the fugue component of the PTC course be supervised separately in eight individual supervisions of 30 minutes each, at fortnightly intervals during the year. Undergraduates should aim to write a complete fugue for each supervision. All supervisors, especially those new to teaching this course, are welcome to attend the lectures.
Paper 2: Analysis
Lecturers: Martin Ennis and others
Aims and objectives
To acquire and develop a range of techniques and approaches for the understanding of nineteenth-century (post-1830) and twentieth-century music. As in the first-year course, worthwhile analysis is shown to be interpretative and not merely descriptive, and also to engage with an understanding of historical and cultural factors as well as stylistic and technical issues.
Description of the course
By and large, each lecture discusses one work, chosen to represent a certain kind of repertoire and to illustrate the possibilities of a particular analytical approach as well as for its own intrinsic interest. Scores are distributed at each lecture. In the Michaelmas Term nineteenth-century repertoire is discussed, thereafter music from the twentieth century.
Description of the examination
The paper, which lasts three hours, is divided into two sections. In the first section, a set work, either from the period 1830–1914 or from the period 1914 to the present day, is prescribed not less than two weeks before the start of the examination by written papers. The choice of period for the set work is at the Examiners’ discretion. Candidates can bring unmarked copies of the relevant score into the examination. In the second section, compositions or extracts from compositions from the period not represented by the set work are provided for analysis. Candidates must answer two questions, one from each section.
Suggestions for preliminary study
Preliminary study should concentrate on the acquisition of a good working knowledge of music in all genres from Beethoven and Schubert onwards. In addition, students may find it useful to read Nicholas Cook, A Guide to Musical Analysis (London, 1987); Jonathan Dunsby and Arnold Whittall, Music Analysis in Theory and Practice (London, 1988); and George Perle, The Listening Composer (Berkeley, 1990).
Guidance for supervisors
The Music Faculty Board recommends that this course be supervised in groups of between two and four for one hour per week through twelve weeks of the academic year. Supervisors should see their students on a regular basis through the year. They should set individual pieces, movements, or works for close analytical reading. At least some of the work should be in essay form involving connected prose. Supervisions are not to be given on the set work, announced two weeks prior to the examination, and teaching in the Easter Term should finish in time to allow students to devote plenty of time to this. All supervisors, especially those new to teaching this course, are welcome to attend the lectures.
Paper 3: Portfolio of Free Compositions
Co-ordinators: Robin Holloway, Jeremy Thurlow
Aims and objectives
This paper, examined by portfolio submission, is primarily designed to allow students to develop the ability to compose in a manner and style of their own choice. The rubric imposes certain restrictions; the intention is to prevent a one-sided submission and to encourage variety in the choice of genres.
Description of the course and of the portfolio
Candidates are required to submit a portfolio of three compositions. One should be a setting of words, and one should include either fugal elements or incorporate the techniques of ground bass and/or chaconne. Normal staff notation will usually be expected, but electro-acoustic submissions are also acceptable. In addition, each candidate must submit a recording on CD of at least one of the three pieces. If candidates prefer to record their pieces on mini disk, facilities exist in the Pendlebury Library and in the Centre for Music and Science for transferring the recording to CD. There should be no discrepancy between the score of a piece and the submitted recording.
Submission of the portfolio
The portfolio must be submitted to the Chairman of Examiners so as to arrive not later than the fourth day of Full Easter Term. The compositions must have been written during the current academic year. Each work must have a cover sheet which has been signed by the supervisor under whose direction it was written, as an indication that the teacher approves its submission. Candidates will be required to declare that the compositions are their own work and that they do not contain material already used for a comparable purpose.
Penalties will be implemented for late submission.
Precise submission details can be found in the publication Examinations: Information for Undergraduates.
Suggestions for preliminary study
The main priority is, always, familiarity with a wide range of twentieth-century music in all its epochs, tendencies, intonations and levels. Candidates are also encouraged to read text-books or articles by composers whose music appeals to them and to familiarise themselves with the theories and accounts of personal practice of twentieth-century composers. It is advisable for prospective composers to consult potential supervisors as soon after their arrival in Cambridge as possible, in order to plan useful preparation, to investigate the possibilities for performance, and to find out about the facilities available in the electro-acoustic studio.
Guidance for supervisors
The Music Faculty Board recommends that this course be supervised in six individual supervisions, usually spaced out through the academic year.
Composers’ Workshop
Co-ordinator: John Hopkins
This programme is open to students from all years of the undergraduate course as well as to those taking the M.Phil., and will run through the Michaelmas and Lent terms. There will be four main strands of activity: the presentation and discussion of current models of compositional practice; demonstration of instrumental, vocal and electronic techniques; workshop performance of student compositions and work-in-progress; presentations by visiting, resident and student composers of aspects of their own work. Among those leading the sessions will be Stephen Montague (New Music Associate), Robin Holloway, Jeremy Thurlow, John Hopkins, and the New Music Ensemble, together with a number of professional performers. It is also intended to feature a couple of high profile visiting speakers during the programme.
Paper 4: Dissertation
Co-ordinator: Stefano Castelvecchi
Aims and objectives
The dissertation gives undergraduates an opportunity to engage in research on a subject of their choice.
Description of the course
The dissertation should be of not fewer than 5,000 and not more than 7,000 words (excluding bibliography and appendices, but including footnotes), on a musical subject of the candidate’s choice, which falls wholly or substantially outside the subject or subjects chosen by the candidate for any other paper. The subjects chosen are extraordinarily diverse, and each student’s progress is supported primarily by means of supervisions. However, the Faculty provides two introductory lectures, one at the end of the Easter term in the year before, and another during Michaelmas term, concerning the choice and definition of a topic, and the process of writing and editing. There will be an opportunity after the second lecture to discuss your choice of topic (or, if you have not yet made one, the possibilities you have in mind) with the lecturer.
Candidates will be discouraged from choosing subjects that are likely to involve extra costs, such as travel costs, and will only be allowed to choose subjects for which supervision is available in Cambridge. Candidates are reminded that the weight of the dissertation should be directed towards a musical topic.
Candidates must read and consider fully the University policy on plagiarism to be found at: admin.cam.ac.uk/univ/plagiarism/
The 7,000-word limit is deliberate: it is intended to encourage a concise, neatly defined subject. Beware of suggesting a subject so broadly defined that it would need a book to do it justice. Discuss your subject with a supervisor before offering it for Faculty Board approval.
Suggestions for preliminary study
During the summer vacation preceding your second year, begin defining a general (and, if possible, a more specific) area for your dissertation, having had initial discussions with your Director of Studies (and, if possible, with a potential supervisor). Some dissertations might involve a considerable amount of preparatory work. The Long Vacation offers an opportunity to make a start.
Submission of title for approval
The title of the dissertation must be submitted to the Chairman of Examiners so as to arrive not later the Division of the Michaelmas Term preceding the examination; approval from the Undergraduate Teaching Committee of the Faculty Board must be obtained not later than the end of Full Michaelmas Term. Accompanying the title should be a synopsis of the dissertation, of about one hundred and fifty words, countersigned by your supervisor (actual or prospective) as a mark of the latter’s approval.
Further details can be found in the publication Examinations: Information for Undergraduates.
Submission of the dissertation
The dissertation must be submitted to the Chairman of Examiners so as to arrive not later than the eighth day of Full Easter Term. Dissertations must be word-processed, unless previous permission has been obtained from the Chairman of Examiners to present the dissertation in manuscript. In addition, the Examiners have the power to request an electronic copy if necessary. Candidates are required to sign a declaration that the dissertation is their own work, unaided except as specified in the declaration, and that it does not contain material already used to any substantial extent for a comparable purpose.
Penalties will be implemented for late submission.
Precise submission details can be found in the publication Examinations: Information for Undergraduates.
Guidance for supervisors
The Music Faculty Board recommends that this course be supervised in four individual supervisions, usually spaced out through the academic year. Supervisors should not normally comment once a first draft has been produced and discussed.
Paper 5: Advanced Keyboard Skills
Co-ordinator: Martin Ennis
Aims and objectives
To develop further the keyboard skills taught in Part IA of the Music Tripos; to acquire a knowledge of the application of such skills in practical contexts.
Description of the course
The paper will be taught in a combination of seminars, run by the Faculty, and supervisions,
organised by the Colleges.
Description of the examination
The exam consists of five components. Three are examined after a total of thirty minutes’ preparation by the candidate: (i) harmonization of a melody; (ii) orchestral score-reading; and (iii) vocal score-reading (C1, C3, C4, and F4 clefs). The other two components – (iv) figured bass and (v) transposition of a song accompaniment – will be given out at least two days before the examination. The transposition exercise will require candidates to transpose the given song accompaniment by no more than two semitones up or down. The instrumentalist and/or singer with whom to perform, respectively, (iv) and (v) will be supplied by the Examiners. Candidates are required to play on a variety of keyboard instruments.
Suggestions for preliminary study
Candidates will find it most useful to work from scores, rather than from collections of exercises. However, a knowledge of theoretical sources would be an advantage to anyone studying figured bass. To this end treatises on eighteenth-century performance practice, notably C.P.E. Bach's Versuch über die wahre Art das Clavier zu spielen (Berlin, 1753) and J.J. Quantz's Versuch einer Anleitung die Flöte traversiere zu spielen (Berlin, 1752), could usefully be studied. Both are available in translation.
Guidance for supervisors
The Music Faculty Board recommends that this course be supervised in eight individual supervisions, usually spaced out through the academic year.
Paper 6: Notation
Lecturer: Edward Wickham
Aims and objectives
To introduce students to the notation of polyphonic music in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, to the theory by which it is underpinned, and to the techniques of editing and source studies.
Description of the course
While the 14th century is a period of experimentation and rapid development in musical notation, the 15th and 16th centuries see the emergence of something like a consensus and can be regarded as a period of relative stability in notational practice.
For approximately half the course, students will focus on the transcription and editing of repertoire from this later period (using sources such as the Alamire MSs and the "Burgundian" chansonniers): this will provide students with a practical skill which can be applied to repertoire from throughout the 16th and early 17th centuries, and introduce them to the issues and challenges facing editors of Renaissance music.
The other element in the course will be a history of notational practice from Franco of Cologne to the mid-15th century, tracing the evolution of Ars Nova (and, to an extent, Trecento) notation and relating it to changing compositional styles. Necessarily more discursive in character, this part of the course will nevertheless provide an important historical/theoretical context for students' practical exercises in transcription and widen further their perspectives on the multifarious functions of musical notation.
The two sections of the course will not be taught consecutively. Rather, the plan will be to begin and end with the transcription/editing element, with the historical survey coming in the middle.
The course will be taught in 12 one-hour lectures.
Description of the examination
A three hour paper consisting of two transcription exercises from a late Medieval/early Renaissance source and one gobbets question in which candidates will be required to identify and comment on three facsimiles (from a choice of five) taken from sources dating from the period 1200-1600.
Suggestions for preliminary study
Students should acquaint themselves with Carl Parrish The Notation of Medieval Music (New York, 1957), especially chapters 1 and 2, and with Richard Rastall The Notation of Western Music: An Introduction (2nd ed., Leeds, 1998), especially the introduction. John Caldwell, Editing Early Music (Oxford, 1995), Willi Apel, The Notation of Polyphonic Music (Cambridge, Mass., 1949) and James Grier, The Critical Editing of Music (Cambridge, 1996) will also prove invaluable during the course.
Guidance for supervisors
The Music Faculty Board recommends that this course be supervised in groups of two or three for one hour per week through four weeks of the academic year. As least two of these supervisions should focus on the practical techniques of transcription and editing early Renaissance repertoire, and one should involve consideration of general issues in editing practice.
Paper 7: Encounters in Balinese music
Lecturer: Kate Wakeling
Aims and objectives
To explore and situate the key developments in Balinese music-making across the twentieth century, and to develop an awareness of the complexities of cross-cultural interaction and the interplay between musical practice and socio-political processes.
Description of the Course
The Indonesian island of Bali has been variously represented as a land of rude savages, a paradise of artistic endeavour, a bloodthirsty Communist hub and the ultimate in modern tourist destinations. This course locates how Bali’s diverse musical practices - from ceremonial gamelan to ‘Indo pop’ - may have been active in creating, upholding or subverting these differing representations. Tracing the development of Balinese music across the twentieth century, the course will explore the complex interplay between Balinese music-making and Dutch colonial occupation, Euro-American Orientalist fantasy, the growth of Indonesian nationalism, the 1965 ‘New Order’ regime and the so-called ‘reformation’ era from 1998 to the present day.
The course will investigate developments in Bali’s now famous gamelan tradition, (the varying ensembles of bronze and bamboo instruments, usually featuring gongs, metallophones, drums and flutes), introducing the key tenets of gamelan musical structure and discussing its contentious relationship with Hindu-Animist cosmology, as well as considering developments in composition approach, tonal systems and performance contexts. The course will also examine a range of other Balinese musical forms including the vocal ‘kecak’ chant, music for the sendratari (stadium-scale dance dramas), the 1970s rise of Balinese experimental composition and the island’s burgeoning Death Metal scene, exploring some of the ways Balinese musicians have deployed musical practice to manage complex political struggle. In turn, these issues prompt broader ethnomusicological discussion on culture contact, authenticity and musical change, performance contexts (particularly divisions between the sacred and secular), and issues in representation.
Description of the Examination
The paper will last three hours. Candidates will be required to answer three questions, from a broader choice.
Suggestions for preliminary study
See Michael Tenzer’s Balinese Music (North Clarendon, Vermont, 1999) for a good introduction to Balinese gamelan music. Tenzer’s Gamelan gong kebyar: The art of twentieth-century Balinese gamelan (Chicago, 2000) focuses on the development of Bali’s virtuoso kebyar tradition – see particularly chapters 3 and 4 for discussion of its development and social context. Adrian Vickers’ Bali, Paradise Created (Singapore, 1989) is a good introduction to the complex history of interaction between Bali and the West. See McGraw’s 2009 journal article on ‘Radical tradition: Balinese musik kontemporer’ in Ethnomusicology 53 (1): 115-141 for a taste of Bali’s experimental music scene.
Guidance for supervisors
The course will be taught by lectures and seminars and (depending on the number of students) supervisions. Where supervisions are given these will be arranged by the lecturer.
Paper 8: Music and Society in Handel’s London
Lecturer: Andrew Jones
Aims and objectives
To develop an understanding of the contexts – both general and specific – in which Handel composed music during the years when he lived in London, and of the relationship between them and the music of Handel and his contemporaries.
Description of the course
The course begins with three introductory lectures devoted to the political, religious, social, economic, cultural, and aesthetic contexts in which Handel and his London contemporaries worked. The remaining nine lectures are organised according to the specific contexts in which music was cultivated: the physical locations where music was performed (opera house, church, pleasure garden, tavern, domestic environment, etc.); the patrons and institutions that promoted music (the royal family, members of the aristocracy, a joint stock company, a charitable institution, etc.); and the occasions for which music was required (royal weddings, deaths, coronation, important political events, etc.). The relationship between context and music will be considered: to what extent was Handel’s music influenced by occasion, place, patron(s), audience, rivals, existing musical tradition? Inevitably much attention will be devoted to the music of Handel, but that of his contemporaries will also be studied: native-born composers such as Arne, Boyce, Croft, and Greene, as well as other foreigners who took up residence in London, e.g. Ariosti, Giovanni Bononcini, Lampe, Pepusch, and Porpora.
Suggestions for preliminary study
It is essential that you should get to know some music by Handel before the course begins. This is especially important in the case of the operas and oratorios, not only because they are long, but also because several of the lectures will be devoted to them. Specific suggestions: operas: Rinaldo, Tamerlano, Orlando, Serse; oratorios: Saul, Belshazzar, Theodora, Jephtha; orchestral music: the opus 6 concertos; church music: the Cannons anthems.
The best book on Handel’s life and music is Donald Burrows, Handel (Oxford, 1994). The following are indispensable: Winton Dean and John Merrill Knapp, Handel's Operas: 1704-1726 (2nd edition; Oxford, 1995); Winton Dean, Handel’s Operas: 1726-1741 (Woodbridge, 2006); Winton Dean, Handel's Dramatic Oratorios and Masques (Oxford, 1959). Otto Erich Deutsch, Handel: a Documentary Biography (New York, 1974 (reprint)) is an invaluable compilation of source readings.
The definitive book on the church music (with generous coverage of other composers, especially Croft) is Donald Burrows, Handel and the English Chapel Royal (Oxford, 2005). Chapter 1 of John Caldwell, The Oxford History of English Music (Oxford, 1999), provides a comprehensive overview of the music of the period.
Description of the examination
The paper will last three hours. Candidates will be required to answer three questions, from a broader choice.
Guidance for supervisors
The Music Faculty Board recommends that this course be supervised in groups of two or three for one hour per week through four weeks of the academic year. For each of these supervisions an essay should be written. In addition, a revision session in the Easter Term is useful, for which undergraduates would practise writing timed essays. Supervisors could usefully complement the lectures by encouraging undergraduates to familiarise themselves closely with the music, and by studying music that has not been covered in the lectures.
Handel will figure prominently in the lecture course; one or two supervisions should be devoted to his operas and one or two to his oratorios. Depending on the interest of the undergraduates, other aspects might include orchestral music, church music, occasional music, domestic music. Some attention should be paid to the music of Handel’s contemporaries, perhaps through direct comparison with works by Handel in the same genre.
All supervisors, especially those new to teaching this course, are welcome to attend the lectures.
Paper 9: The Mighty Handful and its Legacy
Lecturer: Marina Frolova-Walker
Description of the course
The course will introduce students to the music and ideology of the "Mighty Handful" (also known as The Five, or the Kuchka), a group of Russian composers that included Balakirev, Borodin, Musorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov and Cui. These composers were drawn together in the 1860s by the idea of creating a distinctively Russian school of composition (i.e. non-Western and especially non-Germanic) that would also stand distinct from standardised Conservatoire learning. The course will trace the group's development from the time of their self-education, through the intensive period of their collective creative work, and finally to the ideological crisis that led to a reassessment of the earlier ideals by the most prominent members, Musorgsky and Rimsky-Korsakov. The group's legacy will be located in the works of the next generation of Russian composers, such as Glazunov and Rachmaninov, further afield in the works of Debussy, Ravel and Stravinsky, and then back in the Russia of the Stalinist period.
Suggestions for preliminary study
Reading: Francis Maes, A History of Russian Music: from Kamarinskaya to Babi Yar (Berkeley, 2002); Richard Taruskin, Defining Russia Musically (Princeton, 1997) and Musorgsky: Eight Essays and an Epilogue (Princeton, 1993); Marina Frolova-Walker, Russian Music and Nationalism: From Glinka to Stalin (Yale, 2007).
Listening/Watching on DVD where possible: Operas by Musorgsky (Boris Godunov), Borodin (Prince Igor); Rimsky-Korsakov (The Maid of Pskov, The Snow Maiden, The Golden Cockerel and others); symphonic pieces: Glinka's Kamarinskaya, Balakirev's Tamara, Rimsky-Korsakov's Easter Overture and Sheherazade, Borodin's Symphonies 1 and 2; Musorgsky's piano cycle Pictures at an Exhibition, etc.
Description of the examination
The paper will last three hours. Candidates will be required to answer three questions, from a broader choice.
Guidance for supervisors
The Music Faculty Board recommends that this course be supervised in four supervisions, usually spaced out through the academic year.
Paper 10: American Jazz, c.1940-c.1970
Lecturer: Sam Barrett
Aims and objectives
This course will examine the main movements in jazz in the U.S.A. from the birth of Bebop in the early 1940s through to the beginnings of Fusion in the late 1960s. Emphasis will be placed on both stylistic developments and their historical and cultural contexts.
Description of the course
The lectures will provide an overview of the period, addressing specifically the rise of bebop, cool jazz, hard bop, modal jazz and free jazz. The contributions made by individuals such as Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Charles Mingus and John Coltrane will be considered at some length. Specific albums will also be examined in detail, including Jazz at Massey Hall (Debut/OJC), Birth of the Cool (Capitol), Kind of Blue (Columbia/Legacy) and Love Supreme (Impulse). The wider historical and cultural context for jazz in this period will also be studied, with particular attention paid to economic conditions and the involvement of musicians with the Civil Rights Movement.
Suggestions for Preliminary Study
Those unfamiliar with the outlines of jazz history are advised to read the relevant chapters of Mark Gridley, Jazz Styles: History and Analysis (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, multiple editions (e.g. 7th ed., 2000, chs. 9-15)) and to listen to a selection of the albums discussed therein. Ashley Kahn’s handbooks, Kind of Blue (New York: Da Capo Press, 2000) and Love Supreme (London: Granta Books, 2002), also provide gentle introductions for those coming to this music for this first time. All students should read Scott Deveaux, The Birth of Bebop: A Social and Musical History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997) (begin with the Introduction, then Parts II and III), and Ingrid Monson, Freedom Sounds: Civil Rights Call out to Jazz and Africa (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007) (those less theoretically inclined might want to return to the Introduction after browsing other chapters). Stimulating historical readings are also brought together in Robert Walser, Keeping Time: Readings in Jazz History (New York: Oxford University Press), 1999.
Description of the examination
The paper will last three hours. Candidates will be required to answer three questions, from a broader choice.
Guidance for supervisors
The Music Faculty Board recommends four supervisions for this course, of which at least one should be directed towards detailed consideration of an individual album. Those new to supervising in this area are welcome to attend the lectures and to contact Sam Barrett for further information about the structure of the course.
Paper 11: Introduction to Music and Science
Lecturers: Ian Cross and others
Aims and objectives
This course is intended to help musicians gain an awareness of the problems and benefits involved in considering music from scientific perspectives, which provide insights about music that are different from those of practical, analytical, historical or critical studies. Scientific methods and concepts aim to help us ‘probe beneath the surface’ of our intuitions about the physical world, as well as those about the mental world, including our musical experiences. At the same time, however, the scientific approach can be interpreted as excluding other ways of understanding or knowing, and the concepts and practices of science require careful scrutiny in order to ascertain their limits.
The Introduction to Music & Science course explores the concepts underlying a scientific understanding of music. It starts by examining the relationships between music and science, the nature of empiricism, and proceeds to explore music from the perspectives of acoustics, psychoacoustics and the cognitive sciences. The course will also assess the impact of music technology, from the recording studio to computer music.
Description of the course
The course is taught by lecture and workshop, with one lecture a week taking place throughout Michaelmas and Lent terms (sixteen in all). The first lecture introduces notions of science and music, refining definitions of both terms. The first topic provides an introduction to basic physical concepts in sound, sound-production on musical instruments and sound reproduction. The second is an examination of the links between sound as a physical phenomenon, and sound as we apprehend it, the first presenting a psychoacoustical overview of our auditory sensitivities, while the second relates these sensitivities to broader functional characteristics of mind. In the Lent Term eight lectures and workshops are devoted to the scientific exploration of our experience of music. Topics include: the nature of musical perception and memory; attention and categorisation; cognition of tonal structure; the perception of pitch, time and timbre; music and human emotion; music and the auditory environment; musical development and music in performance. Course materials will be made available on the web in advance of each week's lecture.
Description of the examination
The paper will last three hours. Candidates will be required to answer three questions, from a broader choice.
Suggestions for preliminary study
There are many books on music and science, but none that covers adequately the range of subjects addressed in this course. However, two in particular are widely available in Cambridge libraries and are useful as core texts: Campbell and Greated, The Musicians’ Guide to Acoustics (London, 1988) and Dowling and Harwood, Music Cognition (London, 1986). A more advanced account of music in cognition is Bob Snyder's Music & Memory (Cambridge, Mass., 2001), which is highly recommended; Francis Rumsey's Sound and Recording: An Introduction (Oxford, 1997) provides a useful guide to recording and studio technology. A brief general introductory source is: Thompson Music Thought & Feeling: Understanding the Psychology of Music, (New York, 2009) and Hallam, Cross, and Thaut Oxford Handbook of Music Psychology (Oxford, 2008) may be useful as reference. Both of these are available in the Pendlebury Library.
Guidance for supervisors
Supervisors should contact Ian Cross to receive copies of relevant course materials; handouts and reading lists for all lectures will be available in advance of the lectures. It is usual to arrange four supervisions in each of Michaelmas and Lent Terms.
Paper 12: Introduction to Schenkerian Analysis
Lecturer: Nicholas Marston
Aims and objectives
Probably no body of theory has had more impact on current understanding of tonal music than that of Heinrich Schenker (1868-1935). Schenker’s conception of tonal structure as grounded in a contrapuntal Ursatz which is ‘composed out’ through successive layers of diminution invites the analyst to investigate the interrelationship of structure and embellishment in tonal music by means of voice-leading reduction. The characteristic graphic notation in which a Schenkerian analysis is presented enables the analyst to present this interrelationship in a highly detailed, elegant, and concise fashion.
This course will provide a critical understanding of the conceptual basis of Schenker’s theory of tonal structure, and will teach basic techniques of voice-leading analysis and notation sufficient to enable undergraduates to prepare graphs of short works from the tonal repertoire.
Description of the course
Following a series of seminars given during the Michaelmas and Lent Terms, students will be offered a number of supervisions (normally three or four) extending into the Easter Term. It is not necessary for Directors of Studies to arrange additional supervision. Following the initial exposition of concepts and techniques, teaching will centre largely around short weekly exercises to be completed in preparation for discussion and class evaluation. There will also be occasion for critical discussion of Schenker’s own analyses, and of related literature.
Description of the exam
The paper will last three hours. Candidates will be required to answer two questions.
Suggestions for preliminary study
One of the best introductions to Schenker’s thought, by one of his most distinguished students, is Oswald Jonas, Introduction to the Theory of Heinrich Schenker, trans. and ed. John Rothgeb (New York and London, 1982; repr. Ann Arbor, 2006). Those interested in the cultural context of Schenker’s work should read Nicholas Cook, The Schenker Project: Culture, Race, and Music Theory in Fin-de-siècle Vienna (Oxford, 2007).
No basic textbook is followed in the course, but parts of the following may be found useful: Allen Forte and Steven E. Gilbert, Introduction to Schenkerian Analysis (New York and London, 1982), especially Part I; Allen Cadwallader and David Gagné, Analysis of Tonal Music: A Schenkerian Approach (Oxford, 1998); Tom Pankhurst, SchenkerGUIDE: A Brief Handbook and Website for Schenkerian Analysis (New York, 2008; ). Schenker’s own Five Graphic Music Analyses (Fünf Urlinie-Tafeln) (New York, 1932; repr. 1969), with an introduction and glossary compiled by Felix Salzer, is an affordable paperback volume containing analyses of music by Bach, Haydn, and Chopin.
Recital
Aims and objectives
To give undergraduates the opportunity to demonstrate technical and musical proficiency on an instrument or as a singer.
Description of the course
Teaching is not provided by the Faculty. Undergraduates should make their own arrangements for tuition, in consultation with their Director of Studies.
Description of the examination
The examination will consist of a recital, lasting no longer than ten minutes, either on an instrument or of singing. The recital may take place before an audience consisting of staff, students, and others, including External and Internal Examiners.
Candidates must inform the Chairman of Examiners not later than the division of the Michaelmas Term preceding the examination of the instrument chosen or type of voice (see Summary of Submission Dates in the publication Examinations: Information for Undergraduates). This information must be supplied in written form, and initialled by the candidate’s Director of Studies.
Candidates who have not submitted this information by the required date and subsequently received a confirmation of entry from the Chairman of Examiners will not be permitted to offer a recital. (It is not sufficient merely to inform your college of your intention.) Once committed, candidates will not be permitted to withdraw except for medical reasons, in which case a doctor’s certificate must be provided.
• NB: From Michaelmas 2010 the Part IB Chairman of Examiners will require IB Recital declarations to be submitted by the Director of Studies concerned. The precise procedure will be decided before the start of the academic year, and all students and Directors of Studies will be made aware of this at the beginning of Michaelmas Term.
In 2011 the examination will take place on 16, 17 and 18 March.
Two copies of the piece or pieces of the candidate’s choice should be brought to the examination. Candidates must make their own arrangements for an accompanist or page-turner (or both), if required.
PART II
Candidates for Part II shall offer six papers in all: these shall include at least one and not more than four from papers 1-5, and at least two from Papers 6-17. Unless otherwise noted, all written exams are three hours long.
Candidates must offer a combination of papers that is examined by at least six hours of written examination. Candidates should be aware that not all written exams are three hours long, and must ensure that they offer a legal combination of papers in this respect.
The re-use of material from one examination paper in another is strictly forbidden. This rule applies to all papers, dissertations, submitted essays, etc. However, candidates offering Paper 6, Test of Performance, together with a Dissertation, Analysis Portfolio or Notation Portfolio, are advised that only one of those coursework submissions may include discussion of the repertoire they are offering in Paper 6.
The Examiners are empowered to request a candidate to attend an interview (a viva voce examination) on matters arising from the examinations; however, they take account of the interview only if it would be to the candidate’s advantage. Interviews normally take place on the final Wednesday or Thursday of Full Summer Term (in 2011, Wednesday 15/Thursday 16 June): candidates are required to keep these dates free of binding commitments.
Paper 1: Dissertation
Co-ordinator: Stefano Castelvecchi
Aims and objectives
The dissertation gives undergraduates an opportunity to engage in research on a subject of their choice.
Description of the course
The dissertation should be of not fewer than 7,000 and not more than 10,000 words (excluding bibliography and appendices, but including footnotes), on a musical subject of the candidate’s choice, which falls wholly or substantially outside the subject or subjects chosen by the candidate for any other paper. The subjects chosen are extraordinarily diverse, and each student’s progress is supported primarily by means of supervisions. However, the Faculty provides two introductory lectures, one at the end of the Easter term in the year before, and another during Michaelmas term, concerning the choice and definition of a topic, and the process of writing and editing. There will be an opportunity after the second lecture to discuss your choice of topic (or, if you have not yet made one, the possibilities you have in mind) with the lecturer.
Candidates will be discouraged from choosing subjects that are likely to involve extra costs, such as travel costs, and will be allowed only to choose subjects for which supervision is available in Cambridge. Candidates are reminded that the weight of the dissertation should be directed towards a musical topic.
Candidates must read and consider fully the University policy on plagiarism to be found at: admin.cam.ac.uk/univ/plagiarism/
The 10,000-word limit is deliberate: it is intended to encourage a concise, neatly defined subject. Beware of suggesting a subject so broadly defined that it would need a book, rather than a dissertation, to do it justice. Discuss your subject with a supervisor before offering it for Faculty Board approval.
Suggestions for preliminary study
During the summer vacation preceding your final year, begin defining a general (and, if possible, a more specific) area for your dissertation, having had initial discussions with your Director of Studies (and, if possible, with a potential supervisor). Some dissertations might involve a considerable amount of preparatory work. The Long Vacation offers an opportunity to make a start.
Submission of title for approval
The title of the dissertation must be submitted to the Chairman of Examiners so as to arrive not later the Division of the Michaelmas Term preceding the examination; approval from the Undergraduate Teaching Committee of the Faculty Board must be obtained not later than the end of Full Michaelmas Term. Accompanying the title should be a synopsis of the dissertation, of about one hundred and fifty words, countersigned by your supervisor (actual or prospective) as a mark of the latter’s approval.
Further details can be found in the publication Examinations: Information for Undergraduates.
Submission of the dissertation
The dissertation must be submitted to the Chairman of Examiners so as to arrive not later than the eighth day of Full Easter Term. Dissertations must be word-processed, unless previous permission has been obtained from the Chairman of Examiners to present the dissertation in manuscript. In addition, the Examiners have the power to request an electronic copy if necessary. Candidates are required to sign a declaration that the dissertation is their own work, unaided except as specified in the declaration, and that it does not contain material already used to any substantial extent for a comparable purpose.
Penalties will be implemented for late submission.
Precise submission details can be found in the publication Examinations: Information for Undergraduates.
Guidance for Directors of Studies
The Music Faculty Board recommends that this course be supervised in four individual supervisions, usually spaced out through the academic year. Supervisors should normally see work only up to the production of the first draft.
Paper 2: Advanced Tonal Composition
Co-ordinator: Andrew Jones
Aims and objectives
This paper, examined by portfolio submission, is designed to allow students to develop to a higher level of sophistication the skills, practical knowledge, and insight into repertoire already acquired in the Part IB Portfolio of Tonal Compositions. In the Advanced Portfolio the idioms studied should be appropriate to a period and place in Europe between 1820 and 1900.
Description of the course
There is one lecture on Advanced Tonal Composition in the Michaelmas Term. The most important component of the teaching for this course is regular supervision. Candidates are required to submit a portfolio comprising one substantial composition, which should be either an instrumental work in four movements or an extended song cycle. The duration of the composition should be between thirty and forty-five minutes. The composition should be scored for a maximum of five performers (including a singer, in the case of a song cycle). The instruments are to be chosen from the following: flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, French horn, piano, violin, viola, cello, double bass. Melody instruments may be used either in a duo with piano or in an ensemble of at least three instruments; the piano may be used on its own. The possible types of composition include (for example) piano sonata, sonata for melody instrument and piano, song cycle for voice and piano, piano trio, string quartet, clarinet quintet, wind quintet. As stated above, candidates should demonstrate a detailed understanding of an idiom appropriate to a period and place in Europe between 1820 and 1900.
Candidates are required to submit a CD recording of one or more movements or songs from their composition, amounting to not less than 10 minutes' music, performed on conventional instruments. (Facilities exist in the Pendlebury Library and in the Centre for Music and Science for transferring the recording from mini disk to CD.) Provided that the standards of playing and recording are of a reasonable level, the quality of performance will not affect the mark. Candidates should not revise their scores after making the recording: the players should play off parts which correspond exactly to the score being submitted.
Candidates who are also submitting a Portfolio of Free Compositions should ensure that their two Portfolios do not overlap in terms of style.
Submission of the portfolio
The portfolio must be submitted to the Chairman of Examiners so as to arrive not later than the fifteenth day of Full Easter Term. The composition must have been written by the candidate during the current academic year, and must have a cover sheet which has been signed by the supervisor under whose direction it was written, as an indication that the teacher approves its submission. Candidates will be required to declare that the composition is their own work and that it does not contain material already used to any substantial extent for a comparable purpose. Penalties will be implemented for late submission.
Precise submission details can be found in the publication Examinations: Information for Undergraduates.
Suggestions for preliminary study
Familiarity with the appropriate repertory, through playing, listening and study, is the best form of preparation.
Paper 3: Portfolio of Free Compositions
Co-ordinators: Robin Holloway, Jeremy Thurlow
Aims and objectives
This paper, examined by submission, is primarily designed to allow students to develop the ability
to compose in a manner and style of their own choice. The rubric imposes certain restrictions;
the intention is to prevent a one-sided submission and to encourage variety in the choice of
genres.
Description of the course and of the portfolio
Candidates are required to submit a portfolio of three compositions. One of the compositions
should be a setting of words, and one should include fugal elements and/or incorporate the
techniques of ground bass and/or chaconne. One piece should be for orchestra (with or without
voices) or ensemble of no fewer than ten players. One piece should be no shorter than eight
minutes in duration. Normal staff notation will usually be expected, but electro-acoustic
submissions are also acceptable. In addition, each candidate must submit a recording on
CD of at least one of the three pieces. If candidates prefer to record their piece on mini disk, facilities exist in the Pendlebury Library and in the Centre for Music and Science for transferring the recording to CD. Provided that the standards of playing and recording are of a reasonable level, the quality of performance will not affect the mark. There should be no discrepancy between the score of a piece and the submitted recording.
Submission of the portfolio
The portfolio must be submitted to the Chairman of Examiners so as to arrive not later than the fourth day of Full Easter Term. The compositions must have been written by the candidate during the current academic year. Each work must have a cover sheet which has been signed by the supervisor under whose direction it was written, as an indication that the teacher approves its submission. Candidates will be required to declare that the contents of the portfolio are their own work and that they do not contain material already used to any substantial extent for a comparable purpose.
Penalties will be implemented for late submission.
Precise submission details can be found in the publication Examinations: Information for Undergraduates.
Suggestions for preliminary study
The main priority is, always, familiarity with a wide range of twentieth-century music in all its epochs, tendencies, intonations and levels. Candidates are also encouraged to read text-books or articles by composers whose music appeals to them and to familiarise themselves with the theories and accounts of personal practice of twentieth-century composers. It is advisable for prospective composers to consult potential supervisors as soon after their arrival in Cambridge as possible, in order to plan useful preparation, to investigate the possibilities for performance, and to find out about the facilities available in the electro-acoustic studio. It is usual for a candidate for the Portfolio of Free Compositions in Part II to have already studied for the Portfolio of Free Compositions, Paper 3 in Part IB.
Guidance for Directors of Studies
The Music Faculty Board recommends that this course be supervised in six individual supervisions, usually spaced throughout the academic year (some supervisors may prefer to see students for twelve supervisions of half an hour).
Composers’ Workshop
Co-ordinator: John Hopkins
This programme is open to students from all years of the undergraduate course as well as to those taking the M.Phil., and will run through the Michaelmas and Lent terms. There will be four main strands of activity: the presentation and discussion of current models of compositional practice; demonstration of instrumental, vocal and electronic techniques; workshop performance of student compositions and work-in-progress; presentations by visiting, resident and student composers of aspects of their own work. Among those leading the sessions will be Stephen Montague (New Music Associate), Robin Holloway, Jeremy Thurlow, John Hopkins, and the New Music Ensemble, together with a number of professional performers. It is also intended to feature a couple of high profile visiting speakers during the programme.
Paper 4: Analysis Portfolio
Co-ordinator: Paul Wingfield
Aims and objectives
To enable candidates to demonstrate their engagement with analytical issues and methods at an advanced level.
Description of the course
This paper requires that candidates demonstrate their understanding of a range of analytical issues and methods. The submitted essays, which will usually be supplemented by extensive musical examples, may both involve analysis of selected compositions; alternatively, one or both of the essays might address theoretical issues raised by the work of other analysts, or offer critiques of specific existing analyses. The possible range of topics and approaches will necessarily be very wide, but might include some of the following: Schenkerian analysis; pitch-class set theory; neo-Riemannian transformational theory; text-music relationships; functional analysis; motivic analysis; analysis of serial compositions; analysis of rhythm, timbre, and other non-pitched parameters; analysis of performance; and listener-oriented analysis. Candidates are reminded that there are no limits on the musical repertoires upon which their projects may draw.
Progress will be monitored mainly by individual supervisions (to be arranged by Directors of Studies), but the Faculty will provide three lectures early in the Michaelmas Term, the first two exploring current analytical trends and the third concerning the choice and definition of essay topics.
Description of the examination
Candidates will be required to submit two essays involving the use of analytical techniques, to a maximum total length of 8,000 words (excluding bibliography and appendices, but including
footnotes). In the case of submissions involving substantial non-verbal elements (e.g. Schenkerian graphs) the total number of words may be reduced accordingly. Each of the two essays should be separately paginated and bound, with any appendices included following the text. The approved abstract should be reproduced, with the subheading ‘Abstract’, at the head of each essay and before the beginning of the main text. All those offering an Analysis Portfolio must ensure that they submit, with their portfolio essays, complete copies of the scores or texts being analysed. Copies should be in A4 format unless clear legibility is compromised by this restriction. Bar numbers must be included, and clearly legible, in all cases. Score copies should be bound separately from the relevant essays, so that they may conveniently be read alongside your work. Where reproduction of the complete score is impractical (e.g. in the case of an opera) it is your responsibility to ensure that sufficient music examples are included to allow detailed assessment of your work.
Suggestions for preliminary study
Craig Ayrey and Mark Everist, eds, Analytical Strategies and Musical Interpretation: Essays
on Nineteenth- and Twentieth-century Music (Cambridge, 1996)
Ian D. Bent and Anthony Pople, ‘Analysis’, The New Grove Dictionary, second edition
Nicholas Cook, A Guide to Musical Analysis (London, 1987)
Jonathan Dunsby and Arnold Whittall, Music Analysis in Theory and Practice (London, 1988)
David Epstein, Beyond Orpheus: Studies in Musical Structure (Cambridge, Mass., and London, 1979; repr. Oxford, 1992)
Joel Lester, Analytic Approaches to Twentieth-Century Music (New York and London, 1989)
Anthony Pople, ed., Theory, Analysis and Meaning in Music (Cambridge, 1994)
Articles in journals such as Journal of Music Theory; Music Analysis; Music Theory Spectrum
Submission of portfolio
Candidates will be required to submit brief abstracts of the essays to the Course Co-ordinator, countersigned by the supervisor concerned, outlining the nature of the two projects. The length of each abstract should be 50-100 words long. About two weeks before the end of Michaelmas Term you will be provided with a form on which to submit your abstracts. These submission forms need to be handed in to the Course Co-ordinator not later than the fourth day of the Full Lent Term preceding the examination. The candidate must obtain approval of the proposed subjects by the Undergraduate Teaching Committee of the Faculty Board not later than the division of Lent Term. The finished portfolio must be submitted to the Chairman of Examiners so as to arrive not later than the eleventh day of Full Easter Term. The projects contained in such a portfolio shall be written by the candidate during the current academic year. Candidates will be required to declare that the essays are their own work and that they do not contain material already used to any substantial extent for a comparable purpose.
Penalties will be implemented for late submission.
Precise submission details can be found in the publication Examinations: Information for Undergraduates.
Guidance for Directors of Studies
The Music Faculty Board recommends that this course be supervised in not more than six individual supervisions spaced throughout the academic year.
Paper 5: Notation and Source Studies Portfolio
Co-ordinator: Edward Wickham
Aims and objectives
This paper is intended to allow students to explore notations and original source material from any historical period, ancient to modern. It is examined by submission.
Description of the portfolio
Candidates are required to submit three projects involving the study of notations and of original source material from the Western art music tradition, of a length between 6000 and 8000 words.
There is no limitation on the type of material to be studied; nevertheless, it will usually be the case that each project will deal with either the same materials (and ask different questions about them), or the same questions (explored through different materials). It is intended that candidates confront and find ways of handling issues thrown up by specific notations and/or types of source: the portfolio should therefore contain some original transcription, whether it be of complete works or extracts; and accompanying notes, in which the nature of the issues and ways of dealing with them are explained. If necessary, the portfolio may include recorded examples. Each of the three projects need not be of equal weight in the portfolio.
Candidates are advised that it is possible to take this paper as well as a written notation paper in Part II, provided that the portfolio projects do not coincide with the repertories dealt with in any written notation paper.
Submission of the portfolio
Candidates will be required to submit brief abstracts of the three projects to the Course Co-ordinator, countersigned by the supervisor concerned, outlining the nature of and source material for each of the three projects. The abstracts should arrive not later than the fourth day of the Full Lent Term preceding the examination. The candidate must obtain approval of the proposed projects by the Undergraduate Teaching Committee of the Faculty Board not later than the division of Lent Term. The finished portfolio must be submitted to the Chairman of Examiners so as to arrive not later than the fifteenth day of Full Easter Term. Each project must have a cover sheet which has been signed by the supervisor under whose direction it was written, as an indication that the teacher approves its submission. Candidates will be required to declare that the transcriptions and notes are their own work and that they do not contain material already used to any substantial extent for a comparable purpose.
Penalties will be implemented for late submission.
Precise submission details can be found in the publication Examinations: Information for Undergraduates.
Suggestions for preliminary study
Candidates are encouraged to find out about any kind of notation(s) and source(s) which interest them, and to examine all available editions of the material. Contact should be made with the Course Co-ordinator as early as possible.
Guidance for Directors of Studies
The Faculty Board of Music recommends that the course be supervised in six individual supervisions.
Paper 6: Test of Performance
Martin Ennis, Margaret Faultless
Description of the examination
The test of performance, which may take place before an audience consisting of staff, students, and others, including External and Internal Examiners, shall consist of a recital of not more than twenty-three minutes’ playing time, on an instrument or in accompaniment of an instrument or of singing. Candidates must inform the Secretary of the Faculty Board of the instrument chosen or the type of voice, along with details of the complete programme, not later than the fourth day of the Full Lent Term next preceding the examination. Candidates must provide an accompanist or page turner (or both), if required. Candidates must provide the Examiners with two copies of each piece they are performing, in the edition being used. In addition candidates should provide the Examiners with two copies of a programme setting out the pieces in the order in which they are to be performed. Candidates may wish to prepare further copies of the programme for use by the audience.
Students may, if they wish, use part of their Recital repertoire as a subject for the Dissertation, Analysis Portfolio or Notation Portfolio.
Aims and objectives
To give undergraduates the opportunity to demonstrate technical and musical proficiency on an instrument or as a singer.
Description of the course
Teaching is not provided by the Faculty. Colleges should provide at least an equivalent of 8 supervisions in instrumental/vocal supervision. Undergraduates should make their own arrangements for tuition, in consultation with their Director of Studies.
Submission of a programme
Details of the complete programme must be sent to the Chairman of Examiners for approval, so as to arrive not later than the fourth day of the Full Lent Term preceding the examination (see Summary of Submission Dates in the publication Examinations: Information for Undergraduates).
Paper 7: Fugue
Lecturer: Andrew Jones
Aims and objectives
To develop the musical technique necessary to write a fugue. Having acquired a basic technique in Part IB, in Part II you will develop greater fluency and sophistication, as well as the ability - essential for all musicians - to 'hear' music silently.
Description of the course
The course is taught through lectures and supervisions. Part II undergraduates are welcome to attend the Part IB Fugue lectures. Having spent a year working on fugue, you are likely to derive greater benefit from them the second time. General comments about fugue are given under Part IB.
Description of the examination
The examination lasts four hours. Candidates are required to compose a fugue in not more than four parts from a choice of subjects. The length of the examination reflects not its intrinsic difficulty, but simply the amount of time that (experience shows) it takes to write a good fugue. The candidate may choose whether or not to use a free or regular countersubject, but the fugue should contain some invertible counterpoint.
Suggestions for preliminary study
See Part IB.
Guidance for supervisors
The Music Faculty Board recommends that fugue be supervised in twenty individual supervisions of 30 minutes each. (This number can be reduced at the supervisor's discretion: some very competent undergraduates might feel sufficiently prepared for the examination by the middle of the Lent Term, and prefer to reduce the frequency of the supervisions from weekly to fortnightly.) Undergraduates should write a complete fugue for each supervision. It is essential that, from about the middle of the Lent Term onwards, undergraduates should gain experience in writing timed fugues under examination conditions. All supervisors, especially those new to teaching this course, are welcome to attend the lectures.
Paper 8: Don Giovanni
Lecturer: Stefano Castelvecchi
Description of the course
We will explore Da Ponte and Mozart’s Don Giovanni from a variety of perspectives. These will include ways in which composer and librettist related to the practices of their time in terms of musical and dramaturgical conventions, stylistic registers, and genre (the latter a long-debated issue in the case of this opera); the transformations of the myth of Don Juan in literature and drama, before and after the operatic masterpiece that has come to be its most celebrated version; how the creation and the understanding of Don Giovanni may have been influenced by aspects of its social and cultural context (such as class relations, libertinism, the cult of sensibility), or by the lives of its authors; and the opera’s later reception, including interpretations by philosophers, anthropologists, theatre producers and film directors.
Description of the examination
The paper will last three hours. Candidates will be required to answer three questions, from a broader choice.
Suggestions for preliminary study
Students should familiarise themselves with Da Ponte and Mozart’s Don Giovanni — with the poetry and the dramaturgy of the Italian libretto (using an English translation alongside), and with the music (through scores and sound recordings or videos). The most reliable orchestral score and piano-vocal reduction are those from the Neue Mozart Ausgabe, published by Bärenreiter and available in multiple copies in the Pendlebury Library, the University Library, and some college libraries. A more affordable score is that published by Dover. Good general introductions may be found in the relevant passages of classics of Mozart literature such as Hermann Abert, W. A. Mozart, translated by Stewart Spencer and edited by Cliff Eisen (New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 2007).
Guidance for Directors of Studies
The course will be taught in lectures, seminars, and possibly supervisions, partly depending on the number of students (Directors of Studies and the course lecturer should keep in touch about the number and content of possible supervisions).
Paper 9: Beethoven: the Late String Quartets
Lecturer: Nicholas Marston
Aims and objectives
The string quartets op. 127, 130, 131, 132, 133 (Grosse Fuge, the original finale of op. 130), and 135 were Beethoven’s last major compositions, written between 1824 and late 1826. Beethoven did not live to see them all published; nor did he hear—whatever that may have meant for him by this time—all of them performed. The range of perspectives from which these works may be studied is legion. Compositional genesis, reception, and notions of ‘late style’ will all be investigated in this course, but permanently at the centre will be the analytical study of the quartets themselves.
Description of the course
A series of eight seminars will be given in the Michaelmas and Lent Terms (MT5-8; LT1-4), and a single revision supervision will be offered later in the year. Directors of Studies are not required to arrange supervisions independently. A reading knowledge of French and German will be advantageous, though not essential.
Description of the exam
The paper will last three hours. Candidates will be required to answer three questions, from a broader choice.
Suggestions for preliminary study
Close familiarity with the music will be taken for granted: the aim of the course is to enrich and extend understanding through discussion rather than to provide an introduction ab initio. The most authoritative scores are currently those edited by Rainer Cadenbach (op. 130/133 and 135) and Emil Platen (op. 127, 131, 132) in the Henle Studien-Edition (HN 9740-9744); those taking the course are strongly advised to acquire their own copies.
The bibliography is daunting; the following intentionally excludes periodical literature, and makes no attempt at comprehensiveness:
Adorno, Theodor W., Beethoven: The Philosophy of Music, ed. Rolf Tiedemann, trans. Edmund Jephcott (Oxford, 1998)
Bent, Ian, trans. and ed., ‘Four Essays on the Styles of Beethoven’s Music’, in Bent (ed.), Music Analysis in the Nineteenth Century, Vol. 1: Fugue, Form and Style (Cambridge, 1994), 302-29 [extracts from Schlosser, Fétis, von Lenz, Ulïbïshev]
Brandenburg, Sieghard (ed.), Ludwig van Beethoven: Briefwechsel: Gesamtausgabe, 7 vols (Munich, 1996-)
Chua, Daniel K. L., The “Galitzin” Quartets of Beethoven: Opp. 127, 132, 130 (Princeton, NJ, 1995)
Cooper, Barry, Beethoven (Oxford, 2000)
Dahlhaus, Carl, Ludwig van Beethoven: Approaches to His Music, trans. Mary Whittall (Oxford, 1991)
Hatten, Robert S., Musical Meaning in Beethoven: Markedness, Correlation, and Interpretation (Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1994)
Johnson, Douglas (ed.), Alan Tyson, and Robert Winter, The Beethoven Sketchbooks: History, Reconstruction, Inventory (Oxford, 1985)
Kerman, Joseph, The Beethoven Quartets (London, 1967)
Kinderman, William (ed.), The String Quartets of Beethoven (Urbana and Chicago, 2006)
____________, Beethoven, 2nd edn (Oxford, 2009)
Knittel, K. M., ‘From Chaos to History: The Reception of Beethoven’s Late Quartets’ (Ph. D. diss., Princeton, 1992)
____________, ‘The Construction of Beethoven’, in The Cambridge History of Nineteenth-Century Music, ed. Jim Samson (Cambridge, 2002), pp. 118-50
Köhler, Karl-Heinz, and others (eds), Ludwig van Beethovens Konversationshefte, 11 vols (1968-)
Kunze, Stefan (ed.), Ludwig van Beethoven: Die Werke im Spiegel seiner Zeit: Gesammelte Konzertberichte und Rezensionen bis 1830 (Laaber, 1987)
Lenz, Wilhelm von, Beethoven et ses trois styles (St Petersburg, 1852; repr. New York, 1980)
Lockwood, Lewis, Beethoven: The Music and the Life (New York, 2003)
Marx, Adolf Bernhard, Ludwig van Beethoven: Leben und Schaffen, 2 vols (Berlin, 1859)
Painter, Karen, and Thomas Crow (eds), Late Thoughts: Reflections on Artists and Composers at Work (Los Angeles, 2006)
Radcliffe, Philip, Beethoven’s String Quartets (London, 1965; repr. Cambridge, 1978)
Riethmüller, Albrecht, Carl Dahlhaus, and Alexander L. Ringer (eds), Beethoven: Interpretationen seiner Werke, 2 vols (Laaber, 1994)
Said, Edward W., On Late Style: Music and Literature Against the Grain (New York, 2006)
Solomon, Maynard, Late Beethoven: Music, Thought, Imagination (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London, 2003)
Spitzer, Michael, Music as Philosophy: Adorno and Beethoven’s Late Style (Bloomington and Indianapolis, 2006)
Stanley, Glenn (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Beethoven (Cambridge, 2000)
Wagner, Richard, Beethoven, trans. Edward Dannreuther (London, 1880)
Wallace, Robin, Beethoven’s Critics: Aesthetic Dilemmas and Resolutions During the Composer’s Lifetime (Cambridge, 1986)
Wolff, Christoph (ed.), The String Quartets of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven: Studies of the Autograph Manuscripts (Cambridge, Mass., 1980)
Guidance for Directors of Studies
Directors of Studies are not required to arrange supervisions for this course.
Paper 10: The Music of Miles Davis
Lecturer: Sam Barrett
Aims and Objectives
To get to know, appreciate and critically digest the musical output of a figure associated with almost all major styles in jazz from the 1940s until his death in 1991. To understand his position within the wider musical scene, and evaluate influences on and the reception of his music.
Description of the course
Seminars will provide a forum for considering Miles Davis’s music in a broadly chronological fashion: general themes will be identified in advance, with synthetic overviews, position statements and discussion guided by the course leader, complemented by student presentations providing focused readings. Multiple theoretical approaches will be encouraged, including analytical, historical, cultural, and as far as can be attempted sociological. Exploration of a combination of ways into discussing the music should allow ways through the course for both those interested primarily in technical details and those beginning from a broader historical and cultural interest in the music. Since Miles Davis was as much an arranger, facilitator and director as a soloist, significant attention will be paid to his interactions with band members, arrangers, producers and others, as well as his engagement with a wide range of musical styles. The advantages and limitations of writing jazz history through a ‘star’ figure will also be addressed.
Description of the exam
The paper will last three hours. Candidates will be required to answer three questions, from a broader choice.
Suggestions for preliminary study
Gaining familiarity with recordings is the first requirement. Miles Davis’s music is widely available commercially and much can be heard for free through the web (most obviously via Spotify and to a certain extent Youtube, but also with additional orientation through NPR); a collection of his recordings is also held in the Pendlebury. Rough guides to seminal recordings are also easily available either through collected reviews (e.g. The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings, compiled by Richard Cook and Brian Morton) or record overviews (e.g. Richard Cook, It’s About That Time: Miles Davis On and Off Record (London, 2005)). Those new to his music might begin by listening along with such guides or canonic histories of jazz such as Mark Gridley’s Jazz Styles (Prentice Hall, multiple editions), or Henry Martin and Keith Waters, Jazz: The First Hundred Years (London, 2006, 2nd ed.). Going further, students might begin to listen with an understanding of basic frameworks as may be deduced (somewhat unreliably) from fakebooks – a few are held in the Pendlebury. Transcription of solos, either through an instrument or directly onto manuscript, provides a good way into getting to know musical procedures, as does improvisational exploration within same or similar frames.
For general reading, it is best to start with Miles Davis’s autobiography (with Quincy Troupe), Miles: The Autobiography (London, 1990). The status of this text, its language and compilation will itself be one topic of interest during the course, for an initial orientation, see the Introduction to the new edition of Jack Chambers’s, Milestones (London, 1998, new ed.). Ian Carr’s biography, Miles Davis (London, 1999, rev. ed.), provides a more straightforward musically-focused biography. Those looking to deepen their appreciation of musical features might then turn to individual studies, e.g. Ashley Kahn’s, Kind of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece (New York, 2000), and Paul Tingen’s Miles Beyond: The Electric Explorations of Miles Davis, 1967-1991 (New York, 2001). Beginning points for critical readings include Amiri Baraka’s essay, the collection edited by Gerald Early, Miles Davis and American Culture, and Gary Tomlinson’s essay, ‘Miles Davis: Musical Dialogician’ – for full details see the reading list. Shifting historical perspectives are best addressed through Readers edited by Bill Kirchner and Gary Carner. A full reading list with complete details for individual items will be made available at the beginning of the course.
Guidance for Directors of Study
The course will be taught in a combination of seminars and supervisions. Although arrangements cannot be confirmed at this stage, it is likely that each student will be offered twelve two-hour seminars and three supervisions. Supervisions will be arranged by the lecturer – those wishing to make alternative arrangements should let him know in advance.
Paper 11: Perception and Performance
Lecturer: Ian Cross
Aims and objectives
This course constitutes an introduction to the experimental study of musical behaviour. It is intended to equip students to assess critically scientific ideas about the nature of musical experience by introducing them to experimental methods and techniques, as well as to enable students to investigate issues in music perception and performance by means of practical experiment.
Description of course
The course will encompass advanced aspects of the scientific study of the perception and performance of music. Students will plan, undertake, and present a brief experimental study of an aspect of musical perception or performance.
The course will comprise the following subjects as a common core for all students:
(a) theories of musical perception and performance
(b) experimental methods and techniques
Under (a), around five/six seminars will be given, presenting current theories of perception and performance with specific reference to music, and mapping out the published resources in the area.
Under (b), a set of five/six seminars will be held in which students will be introduced to the fundamentals of inferential statistics, to experimental design, and additional demonstration sessions will be held to introduce students to the use of computing and electroacoustic equipment in constructing and carrying out experimental studies.
All formal seminars will be held in the Michaelmas Term, and students will be required to choose, plan and undertake an independent experimental study in Lent Term. Informal supervisory sessions will be arranged as required during the Lent Term.
A number of handouts will be distributed during the course, and students are advised that they should ensure that they have a copy of all course material that is distributed. Documents outlining fundamentals of experimental design and the use of inferential statistics in the analysis of experimental results are available on the internet at:
These should be consulted by all students taking the course (they can be accessed through any internet-connected computer in the cam.ac.uk domain).
Description of the examination
The examination will consist of two elements (i) the submission of a written report and (ii) a two-hour* written examination. Each element counts as 50% of the overall mark.
*Reminder: Part II candidates must offer a combination of papers that is examined by at least six hours of written examination.
(i) The written report (which should be between 2,000 and 4,000 words in length exclusive of references and appendices) should give an account of an experimental study of musical behaviour. It should be presented in hard copy and in electronic form by the fifteenth day of Full Easter Term.
Precise submission details can be found in the publication Examinations: Information for Undergraduates.
(ii) In the examination, candidates will be required to answer two questions, which will cover: general issues in the experimental study of musical behaviour; aspects of experimental design; theories of musical behaviour and cognition; evaluation of primary literature; scientific and critical approaches to music.
Suggested for preliminary study
Several books provide broad accounts of recent work in the field. Thompson's Music, Thought and Feeling: Understanding the psychology of music (OUP, 2009) is a good introductory text; the Oxford Handbook of Music Psychology (OUP, 2009) provides a comprehensive reference text, as does the Oxford Handbook of Music and Emotion (OUP, 2010). An extremely approachable introduction to experimental design can be found in Greene & D’Oliveira’s Learning to Use Statistical Tests in Psychology (Milton Keynes, 1999, 2nd edn); a broader account of empirical approaches is given in Sommer & Sommer's A Practical Guide to Behavioural Research (OUP, 2002, 5th edn), while an excellent account of the principles underlying the experimental use of statistical inference can be found in Howell's Fundamental Statistics and the Behavioral Sciences (Thompson-Wadsworth, 2004 - 6th edn) and at its associated website (at: ). A comprehensive reading list will be distributed at the end of the first lecture, and handouts that introduce experimental methods and aspects of primary sources will be made available during the course. All students undertaking the course must familiarise themselves with the music technology resources in the Centre for Music & Science - even a little experience will be valuable.
Guidance for Directors of Studies
The course will be taught through a combination of lectures, seminars, and supervisions. The supervisions will be organised by the lecturer responsible for the course; it is expected that a total of four supervisions will be arranged, which will take place in Lent Term and be associated with the experimental component of the course.
Paper 12: German Idealistic Operas c.1860-1940
Lecturer: Robin Holloway
Description of the course
This new course will be devoted to the small but exalted line of idealistic German operas concerned with the Artist (composer, writer, painter) - in society, in personal life, in connexion with his art – that originates in Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (1862-67), continues via Strauss’s Feuersnot (1900-1) and Pfitzner’s Palestrina (1914-15) into Hindemith’s Cardillac (1926) and Mathis der Maler (1938). Slightly to the side, but clearly related, are some of Schreker’s full-blooded “degenerate” stageworks of the early c.20th, and Berg’s Lulu (1929-35). Related in a different way are Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos (1912) and Intermezzo (completed 1923): indeed the whole tradition culminates obliquely in Strauss’s last (and best) opera Capriccio (1939-40). The course will cover these if time permits: it will certainly find time for an extremely important variation upon the same theme, Schönberg’s Moses und Aron (1930-32).
Description of the exam
The paper will last three hours. Candidates will be required to answer three questions, from a broader choice.
Suggestions for preliminary study
It would be helpful to acquaint yourselves with the works mentioned above, and some of the literature surrounding them.
Guidance for Directors of Studies
The course will be taught in a combination of seminars and supervisions. Although arrangements cannot be confirmed at this stage, it is likely that each student will be offered twelve two-hour seminars and three supervisions. Supervisions should be arranged by Directors of Studies.
Paper 13: The Music of Chopin
Lecturer: John Rink
Aims and objectives
The course will focus on Chopin’s music, its stylistic and historical contexts, and its legacy. By the end of the course students should have:
- gained specialist knowledge about Chopin’s music, including issues of style, genre, performance, and reception
- encountered a range of historical and analytical approaches to the study of nineteenth-century music and acquired an understanding of how they might be used and combined
- developed critical skills for use in studying primary and secondary sources (e.g. contemporaneous accounts of Chopin as a performer and teacher)
- learned about key issues in nineteenth-century performance practice and their relevance (or not) to current praxis
- an understanding of the unique problems that obtain in editing Chopin’s music in addition to more general editorial considerations
- learned how the study of sketch material potentially sheds light on compositional process and musical genesis.
Description of the course
The course will address broad themes such as style, genre, performance, and reception. The seminars will therefore focus on topics such as the following: Chopin’s Musical Style, Chopin’s Musical Structures, the Chopin Genres, Performing Chopin, Chopin as Improviser, and Chopin Reception. Examples will be drawn from the principal genres in which Chopin worked (i.e. etudes, concertos, nocturnes, polonaises, mazurkas, waltzes, sonatas, preludes, scherzos, ballades and fantasies). Contemporaneous accounts of Chopin as a performer and teacher will be considered (thus shedding light on nineteenth-century performance practice), and the unique problems encountered in editing Chopin’s music will also be broached. Insight into Chopin’s compositional process will be provided through discussion of selected sketches.
Description of the examination
The paper will last three hours. Candidates will be required to answer three questions, from a broader choice.
Suggestions for preliminary study
A full list of compulsory and optional readings will be distributed at the beginning of the course. Students would benefit from reading one or more of the following in advance:
• Jim Samson, The Master Musicians: Chopin (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996).
• Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger, Chopin: Pianist and Teacher as Seen by His Pupils, trans. Naomi Shohet with Krysia Osostowicz and Roy Howat, ed. Roy Howat (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986).
• John Rink, Chopin: The Piano Concertos (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).
Comparison of respective volumes in the following editions would also be useful: Wydanie Narodowe (Polish National Edition; ed. Jan Ekier and Paweł Kamiński); Henle Urtext (ed. Ewald Zimmermann); The Complete Chopin – A New Critical Edition (ed. John Rink, Jim Samson, Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger and Christophe Grabowski), and the 'Paderewski Edition' (ed. Ignacy Paderewski, Józef Turczyński and Ludwik Bronarski).
Finally, listening to as much of Chopin's music as possible would be interesting and enriching, as would the comparison of different performers' interpretations of given works.
Guidance for Directors of Studies
The course will be taught in a combination of seminars and supervisions. There will be twelve two-hour seminars, and it is recommended that each student has three supervisions, which should be arranged by Directors of Studies.
Paper 14: Globalization
Lecturer: David R. M. Irving
Aims and objectives
To gain familiarity with globalization theory; to develop an understanding of the history of music commodification; to critique issues of copyright and cultural ownership in the contemporary production of music recordings (particularly World Music); to develop analytical approaches to the understanding of exoticism and orientalism in music.
Description of the course
We live in a globalized world. From the sixteenth century to the present, global networks of exchange have enabled the flow of people, ideas, technology, and cultural practices around the Earth; at the same time, human societies have become increasingly integrated and interdependent, in economic and cultural terms. What does this mean for music? There has been a sharp increase in the diversity of the range of musical styles and cultures that are known and circulated around the world, because of the intensification of mass communication and the sharing of commodities, but there has also been an encroaching standardization and homogenization, due largely to Western hegemony, which has led to the loss or decline of many unique musical practices. This is the paradox of globalization: it makes us all more different – due to our expanding global consciousness and the increasingly varied ways in which we define our own identities within the world – but at the same time it makes us all more similar, especially in terms of the ways we produce and consume different musics.
The musicological study of globalization is a new and exciting field that encompasses elements of sociology, economics, critical theory, and of course the well-known areas of exoticism and orientalism. The global commodification of music – from sheet music and instruments in the early modern period to mp3 files in the present day – is one of the key areas that will be examined in lectures and seminars; the patterns and processes of worldwide cross-cultural exchange will provide a framework for our discussion of how music can transcend geocultural boundaries. We will consider musical change and transfer within the context of the four “waves” of globalization, and will also examine the history and development of the burgeoning industry of World Music. Another crucial issue that will be addressed is the subject of musical copyright and cultural ownership.
Description of the examination
The paper will last three hours. Candidates will be required to answer three questions, from a broader choice.
Suggestions for preliminary study
A full list of compulsory and optional readings will be provided at the beginning of the course. However, preliminary familiarization with a range of literature is strongly encouraged, and the following texts are recommended:
Agnew, Vanessa. Enlightenment Orpheus: The Power of Music in Other Worlds. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008
Bellman, Jonathan, ed. The Exotic in Western Music. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1998
Bohlman, Philip V. World Music: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002
Born, Georgina, and David Hesmondhalgh, eds., Western Music and its Others: Difference, Representation, and Appropriation in Music. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000
Eriksen, Thomas Hylland. Globalization: The Key Concepts. Oxford and New York: Berg, 2007
Locke, Ralph P. Musical Exoticism: Images and Reflections. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008
Nettl, Bruno. The Western Impact on World Music: Change, Adaptation, and Survival. New York: Schirmer, 1985
Osterhammel, Jürgen, and Niels P. Petersson. Globalization: A Short History. Trans. Dona Geyer. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2005
Steger, Manfred B. Globalization: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003
Stone, Ruth M. Theory for Ethnomusicology. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2008
Taylor, Timothy D. Beyond Exoticism: Western Music and the World. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2007
Taylor, Timothy D. Global Pop: World Music, World Markets. New York and London: Routledge, 1997
Students should also listen to the World Routes programme on BBC Radio 3, and familiarize themselves with a range of ‘exotic’ or ‘orientalist’ works from the Western canon, especially operas and other dramatic works, such as Purcell’s The Indian Queen, Handel’s Tamerlano, Mozart’s Die Entführung, Verdi’s Aida, Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, and Tan Dun’s Marco Polo.
Guidance for Directors of Studies
The course will be taught by lectures and seminars. Where supervisions are required, these will be organized by the lecturer.
Paper 15: The Music and Musical Sources of Guillaume de Machaut
Lecturer: Susan Rankin
Aims and objectives
This course aims to present to students the sonorous complexity of a late medieval art music repertory, using the music and musical sources of Guillaume de Machaut as its focus. Students will learn how to read notations for his music and how to read the ‘grammar’ of his compositional style. Much of the course will concern contemporary manuscripts in which Machaut’s musical and poetical works are collected, and those ways in which interpretation of the material can be determined by its context. Through close knowledge of this one (prolific) composer, it is intended that students explore those ways in which an elite musical repertory of the late middle ages was shaped by (and itself shaped) a rich intellectual and artistic culture.
Description of the course
The course is taught by lecture and seminar, with sessions in each of the Michaelmas and Lent terms (beginning Wednesday 13th October). Subjects for study will include: notations and their transcription (primarily concentrating on the shorter works, the vernacular songs); the increasing concern in fourteenth-century France with text, and ways of recording textual material in writing; manuscript sources for Machaut’s works (including Vg, currently held on loan in the Parker Library at Corpus Christi College); Machaut as poet-composer-compiler; the transmission of Machaut’s music and poetry in specially designed collections as a tool for interpretation of individual parts of his oeuvre; and elements of Machaut’s musical style, contrasting different genres and examining text/music relations.
Description of the examination
The paper will last three hours. Candidates will be required to answer three questions, including at least one transcription and at least one essay.
Suggestions for preliminary study
The main edition is Leo Schrade, ed., The Works of Guillaume de Machaut, 2 vols, Polyphonic
Music of the Fourteenth Century 2, 3 (Monaco, 1956; rep. 1977). A well-informed overview of
Machaut as composer is in Grove Music Online (Arlt), and an extremely useful guide to study of many aspects of Machaut is Lawrence Earp, Guillaume de Machaut: A Guide to Research (New York and London, 1995). For interesting studies of parts of his oeuvre see Sylvia Huot, From Song to Book: The Poetics of Writing in Old French Lyric and Lyrical Narrative Poetry (Ithaca and London, 1987); and Robertson, Anne Walters. Guillaume de Machaut and Reims: Context and Meaning in his Musical Works (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).
Guidance for supervisors
As a Part II course, it is not expected that this course be supervised intensively: however, students will need some individual preparation in notational techniques as well as essay writing. Supervisors should contact Susan Rankin to receive copies of relevant course materials; handouts and reading lists will be made available at each session.
Paper 16: Studying music as performance
Lecturer: Nicholas Cook
Description of the course
For historical reasons, musicologists have tended to treat music more as a form of writing than as an embodied, real-time practice in which meaning is generated in the act of performance. In this course we shall explore what a musicology of performance might look like. Topics include the 'page-to-stage' approach that predominates in contemporary music theory; ethnographic approaches to performance as a social practice; psychological and cultural approaches to the performing body; the potential and limitations of recordings as musicological sources; computer-aided approaches to the analysis of recordings; and the impact of recording and record production on performance culture in the twentieth century and beyond. A major concern throughout the course will be the tension between 'hard' analytical approaches to recorded sound, which may all too easily reinscribe assumptions drawn from score-based analysis, and approaches based on the quite different assumptions of interdisciplinary performance studies: I hope to show that this tension can be a productive one.
Description of the examination
The paper will last three hours. Candidates will be required to answer three questions, from a broader choice.
Suggestions for preliminary study
Two useful compilations, both edited by John Rink, are The Practice of Performance: Studies in Musical Interpretation (Cambridge, 1995) and Musical Performance: A Guide to Understanding (Cambridge, 2002). For a personal take on the relationship between performer and analyst see Jonathan Dunsby's Performing Music: Shared Concerns (Oxford, 1996). Timothy Day examines the impact of recording on performance in A Century of Recorded Music: Listening to Musical History (Yale, 2000), and many topics in this area are covered by the Cambridge Companion to Recorded Music (ed. Nicholas Cook et al., 2009). Three other recently published books attest to current interest in recorded music: Mine Dogantan-Dack (ed.), Recorded Music: Philosophical and Critical Reflections (London, 2009); Amanda Bayley (ed.), Recorded Music: Performance, Culture and Technology (Cambridge, 2010), and Arved Ashby, Absolute Music, Mechanical Reproduction (Berkeley, 2010). For the Western 'art' tradition, a first draft of performance history during the age of recording may be found in Robert Philip's books Early Recordings and Musical Style: Changing Tastes in Instrumental Performance, 1900-1950 (Cambridge, 1992) and Performing Music in the Age of Recording (Yale, 2004). Ingrid Monson's Saying Something: Jazz Improvisation and Interaction (Chicago, 1997) fuses ethnography with close listening to recordings; Albin Zak's The Poetics of Rock: Cutting Tracks, Making Records (Berkeley, 2001) considers the role of recording in the definition of contemporary popular music; and Louis Meintjes analyses the South African recording studio as both symbol and metonym of politics in Sound of Africa! Making Music Zulu in a South African Studio (Durham NC, 2003). Finally the Cambridge Companion to Performance Studies (ed. Tracy Davis, 2008) offers perspectives on interdisciplinary performance studies.
Guidance for Directors of Studies
The course will be taught through lectures and supervisions. The Faculty Board recommends that no more than four supervisions be given.
Paper 17: Choral Performance
Course co-ordinator: David Skinner
Aims and objectives
Choral Performance is designed for students hoping to gain knowledge about, understanding of, and experience and expertise in performance practices relevant to choral repertoire from plainchant to the modern day. The course is tailored to stand alone as a Part II option, but it will also feed into the MMus Choral Studies course.
Description of the course
The course has three strands reflecting the specialist areas available to individual candidates: Singing Studies; Conducting Studies; and Performance Studies. These lead, respectively, to a series of tests of advanced choral skills, a similar series of tests on conducting, and a performance project involving the observation of designated choral activities in Cambridge. In addition to their specialist work, all candidates will engage in independent research leading to a short dissertation on performance-related issues in choral music.
CORE TEACHING (required of all candidates)
There will be FOUR lectures covering topics such as the following:
• Course introduction, and overview and history of choral establishments in England;
• Issues of pitch, tempo and vocal scoring in choral works before 1650;
• General principles of editing choral music;
• From modern edition to CD: Britain’s ‘second choral’ tradition
from c.1960 to the present day.
Guidelines will also be offered on how to research a dissertation topic for Choral Performance.
NOTE: CANDIDATES ARE EXPECTED TO ATTEND ALL LECTURES REGARDLESS OF THEIR CHOSEN STRAND.
Description of the course elements
DISSERTATION
All candidates will undertake independent research and write a short dissertation to a maximum total length of 5,000 words (excluding bibliography and appendices, but including footnotes) on topics of Choral Performance as introduced by the core lectures (though candidates following Strand 3 should choose a topic that is unrelated to the assigned choral project). Candidates will be invited to focus on a work (or body of works) from a single composer, historical period, or collection (manuscript or printed), and explore the performance-related issues that arise when working with facsimile or original sources, early printed editions, modern editions or the various interpretations by modern performers found either in the concert hall or on record.
In addition to the Dissertation, candidates must select one of the following options:
STRAND 1: Singing Studies
There will be SIX lectures covering all aspects of the choral tests described below. It should be noted that the extra time must be spent on mastering the performance of the notation options; it is not expected that choral scholars will have a particular advantage here, as the notations will be unfamiliar to most candidates. A live performance in exam conditions will require a firm understanding of the notation and more than adequate ability to sing from facsimile with little perusal time.
STRAND 2: Conducting Studies
There will be TWO lectures on aspects of choral conducting, and candidates will be expected to attend an agreed number of rehearsals and/or evensongs in at least FIVE Cambridge chapels in order to gain a broader understanding of the various approaches/methodologies on offer.
STRAND 3: Performance Studies
Candidates in Strand 3 will observe, study, and assess a choral project undertaken by one of the chapel choirs in Cambridge. This option, which contains no practical element in examination but which will nevertheless provide considerable exposure to live performing practices comparable in nature to the work carried out by singers and conductors on the course, will vary from year to year. The Performance Project for 2010-11 will be a commercial recording of the church music of Thomas Weelkes (1576-1623), which will be undertaken by the Choir of Sidney Sussex College, the viol consort Fretwork, and soloists from the vocal consort Alamire. Candidates will attend an agreed number of rehearsals and/or concerts relating to the project, set up their own interviews with the performers and director, and conduct their own independent research into the performance-related issues that arise from the project. A two-hour written examination will be taken in Easter Term.
Description of the examination
The paper will be examined as two equal elements: a Dissertation and either a two-hour* written examination or a practical examination in either Singing or Conducting Studies.
*Reminder: Part II candidates must offer a combination of papers that is examined by at least six hours of written examination.
Dissertation
The Dissertation must not exceed 5,000 words (excluding bibliography and appendices, but including footnotes) on topics of Choral Performance as introduced by the core lectures. As noted above, candidates following Strand 3 will be required to choose a topic that is unrelated to the assigned choral project. All candidates must discuss their proposed Dissertation topic with the Course Co-ordinator before submitting them for approval by the Faculty Board of Music. The title of the Dissertation and a brief abstract of between 100-150 words must be submitted to the Chairman of Examiners of Part II to arrive by no later than the division of Michaelmas Term preceding the examination. Approval from the Undergraduate Teaching Committee of the Faculty Board must be obtained no later than the end of Michaelmas Term. The submission sheet must be countersigned by the candidate’s supervisor indicating his or her approval. The Dissertation itself must be submitted by the 8th day of Full Easter Term.
Candidates must read and consider fully the University policy on plagiarism to be found at: admin.cam.ac.uk/univ/plagiarism/
Penalties will be implemented for late submission.
Precise submission details can be found in the publication Examinations: Information for Undergraduates.
1) Singing Studies
Candidates in Strand 1 will be taken through a series of tests lasting 18 minutes, including a) singing an extended passage in plainchant notation; b) singing from a facsimile choir-book of repertoire dating from the late 15th or early 16th century (white mensural notation) as part of a vocal consort; and c) singing two prepared pieces of choral repertory (one from the 16th century) as part of a vocal consort. They will be given 15 minutes immediately before the examination for perusal of the first two items; the prepared pieces will be announced by the Course Co-ordinator at the end of Lent Term immediately preceding the examination. The date of the examination will be announced during Michaelmas Term.
NOTE: Candidates will be awarded credit for accuracy of reading, accuracy of intonation, quality of vocal timbre, sensitivity in ensemble singing and general musicality of approach. The prepared pieces should be note-perfect, and singers will be expected to respond to specific requests in terms of tempi, tuning, vocal quality, etc., which the conductor will highlight during the examination process.
2) Conducting Studies
Candidates in Strand 2 will have 18 minutes to rehearse two works from a selection of five (to be announced at the end of Michaelmas Term) with a vocal consort. The date of the examination will be announced during Michaelmas Term.
3) Performance Studies
Written examination
Candidates will answer two questions from a broader choice.
At the first lecture (Core lecture 1) all candidates will be required to declare to the Course Co-ordinator which of the three strands they intend to take.
Suggestions for preliminary study
Notation:
Apel, W., The Notation of Polyphonic Music 900-1600 (Cambridge, Mass.: Medieval Academy of America, 1953), especially 87-144; Berry, M., Plainchant for Everyone (Royal School of Church Music, 1987); NB: a practical guide to mensural notation will be distributed in class.
General:
Bent, M., Counterpoint, Composition, and Musica Ficta (New York and London: Routledge, 2002).
Bent, M., ‘The grammar of early music: prerequisites for analysis’, in Tonal Structures in Early
Music, ed. C.C. Judd (New York: Garland, 1998).
Haskell, H., The Early Music Revival: a History (New York: Dover, 1996).
Hill, D., Training your choir (London: Boosey and Hawkes, 2007).
Kenyon, N., Authenticity and Early Music: a Symposium (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988).
Taruskin, R., Text and Act: essays on music and performance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), especially essays 1-7.
Early Music, 25 (November, 1997), 25th Anniversary Issue: essays on listening and early music.
Guidance for supervisors
Candidates will be required to find a supervisor for their Dissertation. Where appropriate, College Directors of Music are encouraged to lend advice on choral conducting and singing, though the bulk of tuition will be offered in the lectures.
PRIZES, SCHOLARSHIPS AND GRANTS
There are several prizes, scholarships and grants for award to students working on musical subjects. The information below is drawn from the University Statutes and Ordinances, published each year. Notices also appear in the ‘Awards’ issue of the University Reporter published in early November.
John Stewart of Rannoch Scholarships in Sacred Music
The scheme for the examination for the John Stewart of Rannoch Scholarships in Sacred Music will consist of:
(a) dissertation of not fewer than 5,000 words and not more than 10,000 words on a topic in Sacred Music proposed by the candidate and approved by the Faculty Board of Music;
(b) a viva voce examination on the dissertation, which may also include ear-tests, keyboard tests, and such other tests as the Examiners deem to be desirable.
If there are candidates of sufficient merit, at least two John Stewart of Rannoch Scholarships in Sacred Music, each tenable for three years, will be offered for competition to students resident in the University. The Managers may renew the tenure for a fourth year, but for no longer. The annual value of the Scholarship is £300.
A candidate should send the proposed subject of his or her dissertation to the Registrary, The Old Schools, Trinity Lane, not later than the end of the third quarter of the Michaelmas Term (29 November). Candidates should include with details of the proposed subject a declaration that the work has not already and will not in future be submitted for a University examination. If two or more candidates show equal proficiency, preference will be given to natives of the counties of Wiltshire, Somerset and Gloucester, including the city and county of Bristol. Students who wish to claim such preference must submit a certificate of their place of birth when their names are sent to the Registrary. The Registrary will communicate each candidate’s proposed subject to the Managers and will inform the candidates whether or not their subjects are acceptable not later than the last day of the Michaelmas Term (19 December). Dissertations must be sent to the Registrary so as to reach him not later than the last day of Full Lent Term (in 2011, 18 March), together with a certificate signed by the candidate that it is his or her own original work. The viva voce examination will be held not later than the Division of the Easter Term (in 2011, 21 May).
Ord Travel Fund
The Ord Travel Fund was established by a gift made to the University in 1959 by the Committee of the Cambridge University Madrigal Society in recognition of the work of Boris Ord, founder and for thirty-eight years conductor of the Society. The income of the Fund is available to provide grants to assist students of music to travel in Europe and in the Mediterranean countries of Africa and Asia, or exceptionally elsewhere, in order to increase their interest in and understanding of the art and practice of music, and to improve their knowledge of languages for the same purpose. Members of the University may apply for a grant provided that they have spent at least two complete terms studying for a Part of the Music Tripos and that twelve complete terms have not passed after their first term of residence. (Please note that this precludes first-year students from applying.)
Applications for grants, accompanied by a short description of the proposed travel and a short supporting paragraph from the student’s Director of Studies, must be submitted through the candidate’s College Tutor. Applications must be submitted to the Registrary, The Old Schools, Trinity Lane, not later than the division of Full Lent Term (13 February). The Faculty Board of Music will not normally consider retrospective applications, and it will normally give priority to candidates seeking to broaden their musical experience beyond the immediate requirements of the Music Tripos. It will also give priority to candidates who can demonstrate that they have active connections with institutions abroad: a letter from the relevant organisation, confirming its commitment to the project, will be a particularly valuable piece of evidence. Applications should include a full breakdown of the costs required to undertake the project (for example, travel, study fees, subsistence, etc.). Grants will be awarded not later than the last day of Full Lent Term (in 2011, 18 March).
As the amount available for grants is very limited (in 2010-11, a total of £1,600), it is extremely unlikely that the Ord Travel Fund will be able to cover all of the costs associated with your trip. You are therefore strongly advised to seek financial assistance from your College as well as other available sources. Please give details of any such applications for funding that you have made, stating what the maximum/minimum contribution might be.
Not later than the division of term next following the term or the vacation in which the travel is completed, each recipient of a grant shall send to the Secretary of the Faculty Board of Music for transmission to the Awarders a short report on his or her travel.
Donald Wort Prizes
The Donald Wort Funds provide three Donald Wort Prizes, awarded for excellence in Tripos examinations, to the candidates judged by the Examiners for Part IA, Part IB and Part II of the Music Tripos to have shown the greatest proficiency in each examination.
The value of the prizes shall be determined by the Faculty Board of Music; the value of the prizes is £150 for Part IA and Part IB, and £250 for Part II.
William Barclay Squire Prize
The Prize shall be awarded each year by the Examiners of Part II of the Music Tripos to a candidate who has shown distinction in any two papers which in the judgement of the Examiners are to be regarded as on subjects in the history of music.
The value of the Prize is £250.
Nigel W. Brown Prize
The arrangements for this Prize are currently under review. Students and Directors of Studies will be updated as necessary during the year.
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