(Juilliard, fall semester, 1998)

Course outline:

What is classical music, anyway?

(class discussion)

When classical music functioned like pop

Handel’s operas in London

Rossini and bel canto opera

Mozart and his "Paris" symphony—music written to make the audience applaud

Pop music in the rock & roll era

Eruption: the beginning (1954-1956)

Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Elvis, doo wop

Art, commerce, girl groups, Motowns (early ‘60s)

Beach Boys, the Shirelles, Phil Spector, the Supremes, Marvin Gaye

Revolution (late ‘60s)

Brits: the Beatles and the Stones

adventurers and pioneers: Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, the Band, the Velvet Underground

soul music: Otis Redding, Aretha Franklin, James Brown

Fragmentation (‘70s)

Heavy rock, singer-songwriters, glam, disco, punk (including Led Zepellin, Joni Mitchell, Elvis Costello, Van Halen, David Bowie, the Sex Pistols, and the Ramones, plus classic disco songs)

Many different worlds (‘80s and ‘90s)

Megastars, hiphop, speed metal, electropop, gangsta rap, alternative, house music, techno (including Bruce Springsteen, Prince, Michael Jackson, Madonna, Public Enemy, Sonic Youth, Slayer, the Pet Shop Boys, R.E.M., Hüsker Dü, N.W.A., Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, Tori Amos, and P.J. Harvey, plus various house and techno songs)

The crisis in classical music (and our response as musicians)

The aging audience; does classical music have a future?

Should classical performance change? Should musicians dress less formally, talk to the audience, and use theatrical lighting?

What sort of music should composers write?

How should classical music be marketed? Should it become more commercial, and use more vivid advertising?

Should classical music reach out to new audiences, including minorities?

Should classical musicians play other kinds of music, too?

(discussion is not limited to just these questions!)

How you’re graded:

class discussion

two short papers (two pages each), on topics to be announced

final project (six-page paper):

Choose a classical work and write about it the way rock critics write about rock. In other words, don’t write about the history of the work you choose, and don’t do musical analysis. Instead, talk about what the music means. Distinguish it from other classical pieces. Why do you like it? (Or, if it’s a work you don’t like, why don’t you like it?) What does it make you feel? Where does it fit in our current world? Why should anyone listen to it, what kind of people will like it, and what will it say to them?

plus a final exam