Important notice
The course guide is provisional.
The PDF version of the course guide may take a few days to become available in the DDD.
Rudiments of Music Theory and Interpretation of Early Music
Code: 42201Credits: 10
| Degree programme | Type | Course |
|---|---|---|
| Musicology, Musical Education and Interpretation of Early Music | OP | 1 |
Contact lecturer
- Name :
- Lidia López Gómez
- Email :
- lidia.lopez@uab.cat
Teaching staff (external to UAB)
- Juan Carlos Asensio Palacios (coord. ESMUC)
- Xavier Blanch
- Josep Borràs i Roca
- Javier Artigas Pino
Group languages
You can consult this information at the end of the document.
Prerequisites
There are no compulsory requirements for the inscription in this subject, beyond the general administration requirements for the master inscription. Intermediate notions of music theory and interpretation are, however, highly advised.
Objectives
1) Knowledge of the origins of the Early Music movement.
2) Knowledge of the theoretical foundations of musical performance.
3) Knowledge of the specific theoretical criteria for the interpretation of Early music according to the movement known as historically informed performance.
4) Development of a personal critical sense regarding the theoretical foundations of the interpretation of Early Music.
5) Handling of different types of primary sources as a driver in the creation of an interpretive project.
6) Communication, both orally and in writing, and according to an adequate scientific methodology, of the most relevant musicological and interpretive aspects developed through the different pre-established practices.
Learning outcomes
- Assess the suitability of each analytical and interpretive regarding the issues addressed in the interpretation of early music and in relation to each type of historical and documentary source methodology.
- Discerning the different methodologies and resources to obtain basic data on early music file.
- Apply a simple way to obtain these resources of different kinds of data from early music.
- Identify the basic methodological procedures apply different perspectives to research on early music.
- Distinguish the adequacy and implementation methodologies appropriate to each type of interpretative research project on early music.
- Working in interdisciplinary contexts related to musicology, music education and interpretation.
- Apply critical capacity in musicological research projects and interpretive projects.
- Propose innovative projects proposed in musicological research and interpretive projects.
Contents
• Theoretical and critical foundations of musical interpretation.
• The Early Music movement: origins and evolution. The International and Hispanic panorama.
• Organology of ancient instruments: pitches, tunings, consorts.
• Analysis of historical texts on musical performance.
• Critique of studies on historically informed performance.
• Practical cases of interpretation.
• Direct reading of treatises and practical experimentation in exemplifications and concrete and applicable interpretive problems.
Learning activities and methodology
| Title | Hours | ECTS | Learning outcomes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Personal study of theoretical treatises and comparison between different HIP performances | 93.75 | 3.75 | 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8 |
| Masterclasses with ICT support | 18.75 | 0.75 | 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 |
| Critical comments on proposed readings | 25 | 1 | 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8 |
| Analysis of different listening examples of Historically Informed Performance | 12.5 | 0.5 | 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 |
Sessions will include the following:
• Analysis of various evolutionary examples of historically informed performance
• Critical comments on proposed readings
• Masterclasses
Assessment
Continuous assessment activities
| Title | Weight | Hours | ECTS | Learning outcomes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Text commentary | 30% | 32.5 | 1.3 | 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 |
| Research Project | 40% | 35 | 1.4 | 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 |
| Critical commentary on music examples | 30% | 32.5 | 1.3 | 1, 2, 3, 5, 7 |
The assessment of the module will be carried out according to the following criteria:
a. Preparation of a critical commentary on texts dealing with performance practice (30%).
b. Preparation of a critical commentary on a range of listening examples related to performance practice (30%).
c. Completion of a research project on one or more chapters of a primary theoretical source related to the practice of musical performance (40%).
Attendance/participation in more than 80% of the scheduled sessions will allow students to earn up to 1 additional point in the final assessment.
At the time of each assessment activity, the lecturer will inform students (via Moodle) of the assessment procedure and the date for the review of grades.
If the minimum final mark required to pass the module (5/10) is not achieved, students will be offered the opportunity to complete a specific recovery assignment. Students who take advantage of this option may obtain a maximum final average mark of 5.
Students who submit less than 30% of the required assessment evidence will be recorded as "Not Assessable".
RELEVANT OBSERVATIONS
- If a student commits any irregularity that may lead to a significant alteration of the grade for an assessment activity, that assessment activity will be graded 0, regardless of any disciplinary proceedings that may be initiated. If multiple irregularities occur in the assessment activities of the same course, the final grade for the course will be 0.
- Should the assessment activities be unable to take place in person, their format will be adapted (while maintaining the same weighting) to the possibilities offered by the UAB's virtual learning tools. Assignments, activities and class participation will be carried out through forums, wikis and/or exercise discussions via Teams, etc. The lecturer will ensure that students are able to access these resources or will provide alternative means within their reach.
- The single assessment will consist of completing, on a single day, assessment activities a., b. and c., maintaining the same percentage weighting for the final grade.
- For this course, the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies is permitted exclusively for support tasks, such as bibliographic or information searches, or text proofreading. Students must clearly identify which parts have been generated using this technology, specify the tools used, and include a critical reflection on how these tools have influenced both the process and the final outcome of the activity. Failure to disclose the use of AI in this assessed activity will be considered a breach of academic integrity and may result in a partial or total penalty in the activity grade, or more severe disciplinary sanctions in serious cases.
Bibliography
BARTEL, Dietrich. Andreas Werckmeister’s Musicalische Paradoxal-Discourse A Well-Tempered Universe. Lanham (Maryland), Lexington Books, 2018.
BENT, Margaret. “Sense and rhetoric in late medieval polyphony” en Music in the Mirror: Reflections on the History of Music Theory for the 21st Century (eds. GIGER, Andreas and MATHIESEN, Thomas J.). Lincoln / London, Nebraska University Press, 2002.
BENT, Margaret. “The grammar of early music preconditions” en Tonal Structures in Early Music (ed. COLLINS-JUDD, Cristle). New York, Garland Publishing, 1998.
BUELOW, George J. The Late Baroque Era From the 1680s to 1740. Londres, MacMillan Press, 1993.
BUTT, John. Music Education and the Art of Performance in the German Baroque. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1994.
BUTT, John. Playing With History: The Historical Approach to Musical Performance. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002.
CARROZZO, Mario. “Music only became autonomous when it stopped being useful. Richard Taruskin e la storiografia musicale postmoderna”, Il saggiatore musicale, vol. 21, 2014.
COLLINS-JUDD, Cristle. Musical Theory in the Renaissance. Londres. Ashgate, 2013.
COLLINS, Timothy A. “Reactions against the Virtuoso. Instrumental Ornamentation Practice and the Stile Moderno”, International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music, vol 23-2, 2001.
CYPESS, Rebecca. Curious and Modern Inventions Instrumental Music as Discovery in Galileo’s Italy. Chicago, University of Chicago, 2016.
CYPESS, Rebecca. “Esprimere la voce humana. Connections between Vocal and Instrumental Music by Italian Composers of the Early Seventeenth Century”, The Journal of Musicology, vol. 27-2, 2010.
CYPESS, Rebecca. “Frescobaldi's Toccate e partite... libro primo (1615–1616) as a pedagogical text. Artisanship,imagination, and the process of learning”, Recercare, vol. 27-1.2, 2015.
DEMEYERE, Ewald. Johann Sebastian Bach’s Art of Fugue. Performance practice based on german eighteenth-century theory. Leuven, Leuven University Press, 2013.
DEVIE, Dominique. Le Tempérement Musical. Philosophie, Histoire, Théoire et Pratique. Beziers, Société de Musicologie du Languedoc, 1990.
DREYFUS, Laurence. “Early Music Defended against Its Devotees. A Theory of Historical Performance in the Twentieth Century” en The Musical Quarterly, vol. 69-3, 1983.
DUCKLES, Vincent. “Patterns in the Historiography of 19th Century Music”, Acta Musicologica, vol. 42-1,2, 1970.
FEDER, George. Music Philology An Introduction to Musical Textual Criticism, Hermeneutics, and Editorial Technique. Hillsdale (New York), Pendragon, 2011.
GARRAT, James. Palestrina and the German Romantic Imagination. Interpreting Historicism in Nineteenth-Century Music. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002.
GLIXON, Beth L. Studies in Seventeenth-Century Opera. Londres, Ashgate, 2010.
HAYNES, Bruce. “Pitch in northern Italy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries”, Recercare, vol. 6., 1994.
HAYNES, Bruce. A History of Performing Pitch. The history of A. Lanham (Maryland), Scarecrow Press, 2002.
HAYNES, Bruce. The End of Early Music. A Period Performer's History of Music for the Twenty-First Century. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2007.
JOHNSTON, Gregory S. A Heinrich Schütz Reader Letters and Documents in Translation. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2013.
KELLY, Thomas Forrest. Early music: a very short introduction. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2001.
KEVORKIAN, Tanya. Baroque piety religion, society, and music in Leipzig, 1650-1750. Londres, Ashgate, 2007.
KITE-POWELL, Jeffery. A Performers Guide to Renaissance Music. Bloomington (Indiana), Indiana University Press, 2007.
KIVY, Peter. Authenticities: Philosophical Reflections on Musical Performance. Ithaca (New York), Cornell University Press, 1995.
KUIJKEN, Barthold. The Notation Is Not the Music. Reflections. Bloomington (Indiana), Indiana University Press, 2013.
LEDBETTER, David. “On the Manner of Playing the Adagio. Neglected Features of a Genre”, Early Music, vol. 29-1, 2001.
McCLARY, Susan. Structures of Feeling in Seventeenth-Century Cultural Expression. Toronto, University of Toronto, 2007.
MUGGELSTONE, Erica. “Guido Adler's The Scope, Method, and Aim of Musicology”, Yearbook for Traditional Music, vol. 13, 1981.
NEUMANN, Frederick. “The Overdotting Syndrome. Anatomy of a Delusion”, The Musical Quarterly, vol. 67-3, 1981.
PROD'HOMME, Jacques Gabriel y BAKER, Theodore. “A Musical Map of Paris”, The Musical Quarterly, vol. 18-4, 1932.
SMITH, Anne. The Performance of 16th-Century Music. Learning from the Theorists. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2011.
SOLERTI, Angelo. Le origini del Melodramma. Torino, Fratelli Bocca, 1903.
STRAS, Laura. Women and music in sixteenth-century Ferrara. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2018.
STRUNK, Oliver. Source Readings in Music History. New York, Norton & Norton, 1950.
TARUSKIN, Richard. Text and Act: Essays on Music and Performance. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1995.
TARUSKIN, Richard. Cursed Questions On Music and Its Social Practices. Oakland (California), University of California Press, 2020.
VAN ELFEREN, Isabella. Mystical Love in the German Baroque Theology, Poetry, Music. Toronto, Scarecrow Press, 2009.
WILLIAMS, Peter. “Some thoughts on Italian elements in certain music of Johann Sebastian Bach”, Recercare, vol. 11, 1999.
WOOLEY, Andrew and KITCHEN, John. Interpreting Historical Keyboard Music Sources, Contexts and Performance. Londres, Ashgate, 2013.
If needed, additional bibliographical references will be provided for each session.
Software
Does not apply.
Course groups and languages
The information provided is provisional until November 30. After this date, you will be able to consult the language of each group through this link. To access the information, you will need to enter the course CODE
| Type of teaching | Group | Language | Semester | Shift |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| (TEm) Theory (master) | 1 | Spanish | annual | morning-mixed |