Division of Music History, Theory, and Ethnomusicology

Margaret Notley

Spring 2001

This seminar takes as a premise basic differences in Austro-German musical culture of the first and second halves of the nineteenth century, the revolutionary activity and accompanying split of musical worlds creating the division. Innovative ideas about music’s purpose led to the development of new genres; genres that had been in place since the late eighteenth century also persisted. This course will cover works in a variety of types cultivated by Brahms, focusing on the aesthetic and technical problems that each genre posed in the cultural climate of the mid- and late-nineteenth century, while attempting to make connections between the composer, the significance of each genre, and the broader social and musical context.