Laboratory V 3106-PRAC-V

Launched in 2018 by the University of Chicago Press, the New Material Histories of Music publishing series aims to publish research that touches on the material aspects of music and sound practices, linking ephemeral sounds to the more tangible ecological and social conditions of the activities that produce them.

Series lead editors Nicholas Mathew and James Q. Davies of the University of California, Berkeley, who specialize in 18th- and 19th-century music history, provide an excellent example of this kind of
research attitude in their own research.

Nicholas Mathew's book “The Haydn Economy” situates Joseph Haydn's work in the context of the economic transformation of the major musical centers of Europe at the time - Vienna and
London, reflecting on notions that do not lend themselves to easy translation, linking aesthetics and economics: commerce, interest, objects, work, value.

In Romantic Anatomies of Performance, James Davies considers the corporeal dimensions of key musical phenomena of the first half of the 19th century, focusing attention on pianists' hands and singers' voices. In addition to discussing the subsequent chapters of the two books, class participants will also be tasked with writing two in-depth reviews of music albums with recordings of performances of the repertoire interpreted by the two musicologists.

During the summer semester, the workshop sessions will focus on exploring books at the intersection of musicology, philosophy of music, and the history of ideas. Students will engage with key excerpts from two of Karol Berger's latest books (Bach's Cycle, Mozart's Arrow: An Essay on the Origins of Musical Modernity; Beyond Reason: Wagner contra Nietzsche). These readings will introduce Enlightenment and Romantic ideas that have shaped modernity (Reason, History, Nation, Will).
Additionally, students will study research analyzing how Polish and Lithuanian composers responded to the fall of communism and the introduction of democracy, based on Małgorzata Janicka-Słysz’s Music of Change. The primary focus of the semester will be reading Lydia Goehr’s groundbreaking book The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works, which combines philosophical and historical methodologies.
Student Responsibilities: participate in discussions on the assigned readings, lead discussions during selected sessions, write two album reviews as part of their individual assignments.

James Q. Davies, "Romantic Anatomies of Performance", Berkeley, London: University of California Press 2016. 
Nicholas Mathew, "The Haydn economy. Music, aesthetics, and commerce in the late eighteenth century", Chicago: Chicago University Press 2022.

Karol Berger, Bach’s Cycle, Mozart’s Arrow: An Essay on the Origins of Musical Modernity, Berkeley–Los Angeles–London, 2008.
Karol Berger, Beyond Reason: Wagner Contra Nietzsche, Oakland, 2017.
Lydia Goehr, Dzieła muzyczne w muzeum wyobraźni. Esej z filozofii muzyki, Kraków, 2022.
Małgorzata Janicka-Słysz (ed.), Music of Change: Expression of Liberation in Polish and Lithuanian Music Before and After 1989, Kraków, 2023.

Learning outcomes:
Knowledge: The student is familiar with new English-language publications belonging to the stream of cultural musicology. The student knows selected research strategies and methods of new musicology.

Skills: The student speaks in a discussion about the text read. The student formulates questions to the read text. The student analyzes the read text in terms of the methods and research strategies used. The student creates his/her own critical text using the tools of cultural musicology.

Attitudes: The student is interested in new publications within musicology. The student takes a critical stance towards the texts he/she has read. The student shapes his/her practice of listening to music with the help of musicological literature.

Assessment methods and criteria:
Activity: participation in class discussion, preparation of short papers over the semester in the form of introduction to the discussion of readings Written work: two papers in the form of an in-depth review of a music album, using the
knowledge acquired in class, the evaluation is subject to the content and language side of the text

Range of topics:
- Philosophical sources of the sciences of art and economics
- Key concepts at the intersection of aesthetics and economics: commerce, interest, objects, work, value
- Joseph Haydn's London symphonies
- Twilight of the age of castrati, famous female (Sontag, Malibran) and male voices (Nourrit, Donzelli)
- Virtuoso pianists (Chopin, Thalberg, Liszt)
- Physiology of music: voice and touch

Didactic methods:
discussion, review, work with text, work with music recording

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