| CODE | MSP3220 | ||||||||||||
| TITLE | Avant-Garde Music | ||||||||||||
| UM LEVEL | 03 - Years 2, 3, 4 in Modular Undergraduate Course | ||||||||||||
| MQF LEVEL | 6 | ||||||||||||
| ECTS CREDITS | 6 | ||||||||||||
| DEPARTMENT | Music Studies | ||||||||||||
| DESCRIPTION | Avant-garde music – or New Music – continues to be one of the most hotly contested and controversial fields of musical activity. Philosophers and critical theorists in particular take a keen interest in the avant-garde not only for its aesthetic content but for the claims it makes towards the future and the relationship between art and society. By considering both the formal and social questions that this music raises and how they have been addressed by theorists, we are able to understand the complex ways in which music informs conceptions of modernity and everyday life. Accordingly, throughout the course we will read a number of key works of critical theory that discuss avant-garde music and its purpose and apply these to historical and contemporary musical practices. Study-unit Aims: The fundamental aim of this study-unit is to introduce students to the concept of the avant-garde and its iterations from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present day. In the process, students will be familiarised with various aesthetic and political ideologies that developed in tandem with avant-garde movements, and the instutions which supportd them, many of which endure to this day. The study-unit thus equips students with the critical tools necessary to understand and interpret cutting-edge art movements in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Learning Outcomes: 1. Knowledge & Understanding By the end of the study-unit the student will be able to: - Know some of the basic texts and theoretical approaches in critical theory dealing with avant-garde music and cultural critique; - Identify and describe the inter-relationship between art, society, and the future; - Contextualise avant-garde music as both a historical tradition and a philosophy. 2. Skills By the end of the study-unit the student will be able to: - Read and interpret modern scores and notational systems (graphic notation, decoupled notation, mediated scores, etc); - Be able to craft critical arguments and analyses of musical practices, their aims, and their relation to modern society; - Be able to summarise complex information in reflective writing; - Time management in completing assessment tasks. Main texts: - Artaud, Antonin (1938). The Theatre and Its Double. Ed. Victor Corti. (London: Calder). - Benjamin, Walter (1999). Illuminations. Ed. Hannah Arendt, trans. Harry Zohn. (New York: Schocken). - Bürger, Peter (1998). Theory of the Avant-Garde. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press). - Osborne, Peter. (2017). ‘The Terminology in Crisis: Postconceptual Art and New Music’. In The Postconceptual Condition: Critical Essays. (London: Verso), pp. 184–199. Suppementary texts: - Adorno, Theodor W. (1949). Philosophy of Modern Music. (London: Continuum). - Born, Georgina. (1995). Rationalizing Culture: IRCAM, Boulez, and the Institutionalization of the Musical Avant-Garde. (Berkeley: University of California Press). - Iddon, Martin. (2013). New Music at Darmstadt: Nono, Stockhausen, Cage, and Boulez. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). |
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| STUDY-UNIT TYPE | Lecture and Seminar | ||||||||||||
| METHOD OF ASSESSMENT |
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| LECTURER/S | Gabriella Sultana Max Erwin |
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The University makes every effort to ensure that the published Courses Plans, Programmes of Study and Study-Unit information are complete and up-to-date at the time of publication. The University reserves the right to make changes in case errors are detected after publication.
The availability of optional units may be subject to timetabling constraints. Units not attracting a sufficient number of registrations may be withdrawn without notice. It should be noted that all the information in the description above applies to study-units available during the academic year 2024/5. It may be subject to change in subsequent years. |
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