Research Paper – Spring 2024
This paper should focus on an issue faced by musicians, composers, or society (or all of the above) throughout the time period we have studied/will be studying this semester.
Many examples are given below. The paper should not be a biography of any composer or a historical background on one specific genre, but a discussion of how problems were faced and overcome. Of if they weren’t overcome, what are the lasting effects?
There is a rubric below, under the possible research topics.
Your task: Investigate a musical, aesthetic, philosophical, political, or other struggle or problem that a composer, or group of composers, had to overcome or solve. Choose from one of the periods we study in this course (Classical, Romantic, or Modern). Each generation of composers faced a multitude of artistic, personal, and societal problems that affected their music, and your paper should reflect that.
Note: An example, which you may not use, is the onset of deafness that Beethoven experienced as a young adult and its ensuing progression to the inevitable end.
Choose from the topics below. If there’s something specific you’d like to research that is not represented in this list, check with me for approval.
Remember: You don’t have to develop a full thesis statement until you do some research.
The final product will be a 8-10 page paper, type-written, double-spaced with a bibliography of 8-10 sources (please don’t use our textbook or dot-com websites!). Use one of the accepted formats for citations and the bibliography, such as MLA or Chicago (several links are provided in the 482 folder).
Potential Topics:
General
Beethoven’s 9th Symphony – How did he incorporate voices into an instrumental genre?
Schoenberg – the problem of atonality, the audience disapproval – who is music written for?
Schoenberg – the 12-tone method – a need for order?
Stravinsky – the new rhythm – Rite of Spring – how did Stravinsky ‘free’ rhythm, and why did the audience react so strongly?
Dealing with creative limits and censorship: how did Mozart deal with censorship while composing The Marriage of Figaro; how did Shostakovich & Prokofiev compromise (or did they?) while facing strict legal issues during the Communist regime in Russia?
The German lied – how did Schubert and Schumann capture and translate the meanings found in German romantic poetry into music?
The Program Symphony/tone poem – how were Berlioz and Strauss able to express specific stories and ideas in instrumental music?
Sociology:
Opera Buffa – Reflections of Social Change in Mozart’s “The Marriage of Figaro” – how does one portray the social classes on stage without getting into trouble with the censors?
Cosmopolitan Society – Gluck’s “Orfeo” embodies the synthesis of several national styles and tastes – how did he do it?
Pubic Audiences Appreciate Art and Music – Opera Comique – high vs low art. Does one have to sacrifice quality of art to gain mass appeal?
Working Musicians –
Josef Haydn, Father of the Symphony” – how did he manage to be so creative within the patronage system?
Beethoven – the struggle to be a freelance musician – how did he change the way composers earned a living?
Mozart – the boy genius who then had to work for a living – how did his struggles represent composers’ place in society during the 18th Century?
Commercial Music Meets Classical:
Geo. Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” – how did he synthesize classical and jazz? Was he successful?
Leonard Bernstein Jazzes It Up – “Preludes, Fugues, and Jazz Riffs? How to appeal to two different musical tastes – blending jazz with classical?
Third Stream Jazz – invention or natural evolution? – Gunther Schuller’s experiments
The little Jewish kid from Brooklyn goes West – Aaron Copland meets Billy the Kid – how did he get the audience back in the concert hall?
Ethnic ties –Third World influence on classical music – Steve Reich or Philip Glass – how did they incorporate foreign musical techniques and concepts into Western classical music?
Aaron Copland and the Americana in the 1930’s and 1940’s
Culture/Diversity:
Duke Ellington – how did he make jazz into an elevated art form and make the public love it? How can jazz be like classical music in the hands of a master songwriting artist?
Duke Ellington and the Cotton Club
Ragtime – the importance of black pianists at the turn of the 20th century
Florence Price – how she overcame racism and sexism to become the first black woman to have her music played by a major symphony orchestra
Silvestre Revueltas – how did he use indigenous music to create Mexican nationalism
More ethnic ties – the rise of composers from previously underrepresented countries/regions – how did composers incorporate their own national styles into a classical idiom?
Feminism:
Beethoven’s “Fidelio” – heroine Lenore saves the day and her husband. How does this and other operas at the time portray women as heroes or forces to be reckoned with? How does this shatter stereotypes?
Fanny Mendelssohn – a lost voice in the shadows of her famous brother?
Amy Beach – composer or the “perfect wife”?
Clara Schumann – Superwoman does it all – pianist, composer, mother of 8 kids with a crazy husband, the secret love of another young composer (Brahms) while wearing heels and dancing backwards.
Humanitarianism:
Mozart and the Freemasons – “The Magic Flute” – how incorporate the teachings of the Freemasons into theater. Does it work?
Enlightened Despots and their Patronage for the Arts – Emperor Joseph II (Austria) – Mozart’s struggle to be accepted vs. A. Salieri’s success.
The Ode to Joy – in which Beethoven reveals a universal message – the brotherhood of the world. How did he incorporate this text into an instrumental form, the symphony. Why does it work? Why does this work continue to bring people together 200 years after it was written?
Artistic expression:
Artistic Style and Sensibility – music of the Rococo and Gallant styles – how did this stylized music lead to new
Art as Satire – The Beggar’s Opera, Kurt Weil’s The Three Penny Opera, and others: how did opera serve as social commentary?
Visual art – movements, trends, inspiration from one artist to another – how did composers draw musical parallels with the artistic “isms” of the early 20th century (such as Dadaism, surrealism, etc.)?
Technology:
Improvements in Brass and Woodwind Instruments – Composers have more resources in the orchestral palette. Which composers take full advantage of this in the 19th century by become master ‘orchestrators’, and how did they do it?
Electronic instruments – early 20th century – The Theremin and the Communist Menace
The First Music Computers – it takes up the whole darn room – Milton Babbitt – does it matter if anyone listens?
New media: Composing with Magnetic Tape – the first electronic compositions
Edgard Varese – experiments in “noise as music”
Multimedia – New art forms, e.g., performance art
Psychology:
Communal uses – rituals (weddings, funerals, patriotic-Beethoven, Tchaikovsky)
Film music as the psychological thread – use classical composers only
Super-star and super ego – Franz Liszt – like a rock star
Brahms – resignation and depression – the “Classical Romantic”: he chose art over love! How did his Third Symphony explain it all?
Wagner – super-egomaniac – does it affect his art? Does it matter that he was a terrible person?
Literature and Music:
The Opera Librettist – artist and part of the creative team – Metasasio
Lorenzo Da Ponte and W.A. Mozart create timeless beauties.
The Structure and Syntax of Classical Music – analysis of a Haydn symphony (or string quartet)
Composers as authors – Robert Schumann promotes the new music; Hector Berlioz gets “critical” and comical; Franz Liszt waxes poetic
Music and Words – sublime synthesis in the art songs of Schubert
Philosophy:
Nietzche – the cults of Apollo and Dionysus
Wagner – theories on music drama
Schopenhauer and Wagner – the will and its expression as music
John Cage – the philosophy of music – just what IS music, anyway?
Theatre:
Mozart as supreme dramatist – Don Giovanni – its characters live through the music
Verdi – transformation of Shakespeare’s Othello
“Amadeus” – artistic license gone too far?
Science
Mathematics – Schoenberg’s 12-tone Method, Xenakis and Spectral music – do musical languages created from mathematical principles still count as ‘art’?
Business:
Art for art’s sake – the Romantic’s utopia. Do we compose because we want to, or because we have to?
Patronage – private v. public – how do composers earn a living?
Politics and Revolution:
Composers of Communist Russia
Censorship – aesthetic and political, totalitarianism (e.g. composers of the old Soviet Union)
Rousseau – philosopher and musician becomes father of the French Revolution
Beethoven’s “Bonaparte Symphony” – How did Beethoven become so enraptured with ‘heroes’? Why did he dedicate his 3rd Symphony to Napoleon, and why did he later take it back?
VERDI – Vittorio Emanuel Rei D’Italia – his name becomes a cry for freedom. How does an opera composer become a national hero?
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Methodology: In your paper, you should discuss some of the prominent composers, theorists, philosophers, and others, whose work demonstrates support and provides examples for your thesis. Focus on the time periods will be studying this semester – the Classical through Modern eras. Avoid extraneous biographical information.
Assignments will be given in stages to help you work on your paper throughout the semester to hopefully avoid the last minute rush. (75 points total)
(10 points) Thesis proposal – One-to-two page explanation of what you would like to research. Do some browsing in the library and on the internet to ascertain that there is enough material available to you.
(5 points) Bibliography – Create a bibliographic list of possible sources (10-15) – books, journal articles, and websites (you may use only .edu’s and .org’s, excluding Wikipedia)
(10 points) Topic Outline – Provide a two-page outline of your paper-to-be. This should have enough detail to demonstrate that you have done substantial research to complete the paper on time. It should also serve as the underlying structure of your paper.
(50 points) Completed Paper – Eight-to-ten pages in length, one-inch margins, double-spaced. Original title, your name, class number. Works Cited page at the end. (See rubric on last page.)
NOTE: Bonus points can be obtained if you tie the topic of your paper in with a similar problem faced by a modern artist. This should not, in any way, take the place of your historical research, but can gain you some extra points.
Rubric – Completed Paper (50 points)
Thesis Statement – What are you going to argue & how are going to do it?
5 points
Bibliography/Works Cited – 7-10 credible sources: mix of books, articles, and websites. Were you consistent in using MLA or Chicago format for each citing? (also submitted separately, included with paper)
5 points
Organization – Is your paper arranged in a logical manner: introduction – thesis – body of paper in ordered sections – examples – conclusion
10 points
Content/Relevancy – Is your supporting material filled with meaningful, relevant explanations and examples that support your thesis? Did you include examples of some of the music we studied? Did you talk about some of the composers we studied? Is there extraneous information that doesn’t serve any purpose?
20 points
Comprehensiveness – with respect to your thesis, did you research enough material to adequately cover your topic?
10 points
