Words and Music: from the Middle Ages to the Present

This course examines different approaches to word-music relationships in a broad range of periods and genres. Combining text (whether sung or implied) and music adds another layer to both elements reinforcing meaning and feeling. Students will explore some of these rich interactions in such diverse and chronologically disparate genres as the troubadour song, the Renaissance erotic madrigal, the German Lied, the program symphony, as well as modern combinations of words and music. We will consider how the elements of the text (syntax, rhyme, form, alliterations, etc.) dictate particular musical decisions, but also how the music underlines, attenuates, or even subverts the meaning of the words. Concepts to investigate include irony, musical rhetoric, intertextuality, and, even, “silence.”