(Note: all outside events subject to confirmation)
W, September 3, 2:55 PM:
Introduction
Topic: The Middle Ages
Listening: Gregorian chant, organum, estampie, mass
Poetry reading: “Sir Patrick Spens” (Anonymous, 13th century)
Viewing: Medieval European paintings
Assignment: go to the Metropolitan museum, pick one painting from the 13th or 14th century, and write a poem in a medieval style describing what you see and feel. Post paintings and poems on our website. Also: pick a favorite passage from a Shakespeare play, at least 25 words, memorize, and be prepared to recite in class next week.
W, September 10, 2:55 PM:
Read medieval style student poems and Shakespeare passages aloud
Topic: The Renaissance
Listening: motet, mass, madrigal
Viewing: Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael
Assignment: read pp. 19-53 of Looking at Art by Alice Elizabeth Chase (Chapter 3: The Artist Looks at the View and Chapter 4: The Artist Looks at People and Space). Write a 2-3 page summary for next week. Post on website.
W, September 17, 2:55 PM:
Topic: The Baroque Period
Listening: concerto grosso, fugue, baroque opera
Poetry reading: “Sound and Sense” by Alexander Pope, 1711, “”Adam Posed” by Anne Finch, 1713.
Viewing: El Greco, Caravaggio, Rembrandt
Topic: The transition from Baroque to Classical
Assignment: Read pp. 227-268 (“The Great Operas”) from The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus
Mozart, selected and edited by Hans Mersmann.Write a 2-3 pagedescription ofMozart’s character and ability to relate to others, as suggested by his letters. Post on website.
Topic: The transition from Baroque to Classical
Listening: sonata, symphony, classical opera
Poetry reading: The Sick Rose by William Blake, 1794, “A Red, Red Rose” by Robert Burns, 1796
Viewing: Watteau, Fragonard, Boucher
Assignment: read pp.69-74 (“A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful” by Edmund Burke, 1757) and pp. 150-156 (“An Essay on Poetry and Music as they affect the Mind” by James Beattie, 1776), both articles from Music and Aesthetics in the Eighteenth and Early-Nineteenth Centuries, edited by Peter le Huray and James Day. Start to write formal paper #1, 6-7 pages, on the progression of the arts from the Middle Ages through the end of the 18th century, and how the aesthetic perceptions of artists evolved during those years.
EVENT (confirmed):
Saturday, September 20, 11:00 AM
Macaulay at BAC
Conversation between Mikhail Baryshnikov and Sarah Arison
Baryshnikov Arts Center
450 W. 37th St.
(I cannot attend this with you as I teach a Saturday morning class at Hunter.)
EVENT (confirmed):
Tuesday, September 30 at 7:00 pm
The Money Shot
MCC Theater, 121 Christopher Street
W, October 1, 2:55 PM:
Topic: The transition from Classical to Romantic
Listening: Beethoven: sonatas, symphonies, extension of forms
Poetry reading: “She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways.” by William Wordsworth, 1800,
“On the Grasshopper and the Cricket” by John Keats, 1816
Viewing: Jacques Louis David, Francisco Goya, Theodore Gericault
Assignment: finish formal paper #1 for next week
W, October 8, 2:55 PM:
Formal paper #1 due today – hard copy (please do not submit electronically).
Topic: Romanticism
Listening: art song, program music, piano miniature
Poetry Reading: “To George Sand” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 1844 and “The Wind begun to knead the Grass-“ by Emily Dickinson
Viewing: Delacroix, Friedrich, Turner
Assignment: Go to the Metropolitan Museum, pick an early 19th-century painting (once in the Great Hall, you must walk through the narrow corridor of Drawings, Prints and Photographs to get to 19th-century paintings), pick one painting and write a 2-3 page short story based on you being pulled inside the painting and the world you discover there. Post painting and story on website.
EVENT (TBC):
Friday, October 10, 8 PM
Fall for Dance
CityCenter, 131 W. 55th Street (btwn 6th and 7th Avenues)
W, October 15, 2:55 PM:
Students show romantic paintings on projector and read their short stories aloud in class
Topic: Impressionism (whole tone scales, nonfunctional chords) and symbolist poetry
Listening: Debussy: Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, and assorted piano pieces
Poetry Reading: “Afternoon of a Faun” by Stephane Mallarme, 1876
Viewing: Monet, Renoir, Degas, Cassatt
Assignment: Read pp. 198-208 (letters of Claude Debussy) from Composers on Music, edited by Josiah Fisk. Then create your own character – an impressionist painter or musician – and write a 2-3 page letter as though you were that artist living in Paris and writing to a friend in America.
W, October 22, 2:55 PM:
Read student “letters” aloud
Topic: Twentieth Century trends (dissonance, polytonality, changing meter, primitivism, expressionism, twelve-tone)
Listening: Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring and Schoenberg’s A Survivor from Warsaw
Poetry Reading: “Cassandra” by Louise Bogan, 1929, “Buffalo Bill’s” by E. E. Cummings, 1923,
“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost, 1923
Viewing: van Gogh, Munch, Matisse, Picasso, Braque, Kandinsky
Assignment: Go to the Museum of Modern Art, select two works painted 1910 or after, and write a 2-3 page comparison of each artist’s use of color, light and form. Post on the website.
EVENT (TBC):
Tuesday, October 28, 7:30 PM
Carmen
The Metropolitan Opera House, Lincoln Center Plaza
W, October 29, 2:55 PM:
Topic: Twentieth century trends
Listening: minimalism, chance music, electronic music, jazz
Poetry reading: “A Supermarket in California” by Allen Ginsberg, 1955, “Other” by Dorothy Livesay, 1955
Viewing: Chagall, Dali, Miro
Begin writing formal paper #2. Select three individual works of art representing three different art forms. Compare and contrast the way the artists use dissonance and consonance, tension and relaxation, conflict and resolution to generate movement and excitement in their work.
W, November 5, 2:55 PM:
Topic: American contribution
Listening: Broadway, rock and roll, folk
Poetry reading: “The Leap” by James Dickey, 1967, “Marks” by Linda Pastan, 1978
Viewing: Pollock, Lichtenstein, Warhol
W, November 12, 2:55 PM:
Poetry reading: “Parsley” by Rita Dove, 1983
Work on musical
EVENT (confirmed):
Tuesday, November 18 at 8 PM
Mutter Virtuosi
Carnegie Hall, 881 Seventh Avenue at 57th Street
W, November 19, 2:55 PM:
Formal paper #2 due – hard copies please. Do not post electronically.
Work on Musical
W, November 26, 2:55 PM:
Musical – dress rehearsal
W, December 3, 2:55 PM:
Perform, videotape musical
W, December 10, 2:55 PM
Last class – watch videotape – reflections
