CMUS 105 - Musical Snobbery

FC ARHU WINT

4 credits
How do we know good music when we hear it? How do we defend our taste? Can we spot a person who is cultured? Is there such thing as inherently good music? We will analyze the ways in which writers and musicians have answered such questions, as well as explore the ideologies that have underlain their responses. Our reading, which will span the late-eighteenth century to the twentieth century, will traverse a variety of disciplines, featuring works by Arnold Schoenberg, Milton Babbit, Hector Berlioz, Pierre Bourdieu, Terrance McNally, Robert Schumann, and Virginia Woolf. Students will be evaluated on frequent short writing assignments and presentations.