Module MUSI3581: RUSSIAN AND SOVIET MUSIC OF THE 19TH AND 20TH CENTURIES

Department: Music

MUSI3581: RUSSIAN AND SOVIET MUSIC OF THE 19TH AND 20TH CENTURIES

Prerequisites

• A-Level Music

Corequisites

• None.

Excluded Combination of Modules

• None.

Aims

• To provide a broad overview of musical life in Russia/Soviet Union between 1830 and 1960.
• To assist students to become familiar with the creative achievements of significant composers during this period.
• To deepen understanding of the relationship between musical creativity and the wider currents of artistic and intellectual life during this period, as well as the contemporary social and political context.

Content

• The course will survey significant developments in Russian/Soviet music between 1830 and 1960, covering topics such as:
• The seminal contribution of Mikhail Glinka as the 'founding father' of an indigenous school of nationalist composition;
• The subsequent influence of cultural/political nationalism on the development of Russian art music.
• The formation of a distinctive 'Russian style' in the works of The Five and of Tchaikovsky;
• Composers of the late-Romantic period: Rachmaninov, Scriabin and Medtner;
• Stravinsky and the Ballets Russes;
• Musical life after the Russian Revolution: the emergence of a musical avant-garde;
• Musical life in the Stalinist era: music and Socialist Realism.

Learning Outcomes

• Students will be provided with the opportunity to acquire an enhanced understanding of the distinctive features of Russian/Soviet composition in relation to social/cultural matrix from which it emerged, as well as to deepen their knowledge of mainstream repertoire.

• Students will learn to apply appropriate methods of assessment from a broad range of critical standpoints, notably the historical, cultural and political, drawing especially on hermeneutic methodologies which seek to elucidate the relationships between artworks and their social/cultural context. They will also familiar with standard historical accounts of the period covered.

• The ability to identify and conceptualise key issues in the study of music from this repertoire, situate ideas in context, engage in critically informed argument and apply appropriate analytical methodologies.

Modes of Teaching, Learning and Assessment and how these contribute to the learning outcomes of the module

• Lectures
• Seminars, with scope for student formative class presentations
• Tutorials
• Directed reading

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

Summative Assessment

Formative Assessment:

Formative class presentations, plus formative feedback on first summative essay.

■ Attendance at all activities marked with this symbol will be monitored. Students who fail to attend these activities, or to complete the summative or formative assessment specified above, will be subject to the procedures defined in the University's General Regulation V, and may be required to leave the University