Music
143 Elm, 432.2985
www.yale.edu/yalemus/
M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D.
Chair
Daniel Harrison
Director of Graduate Studies
Richard Cohn (143 Elm, 432.2985, dgs.music@yale.edu)
Professors
Richard Cohn, Margot Fassler, Michael Friedmann (Adjunct), Daniel Harrison, James Hepokoski, Richard Lalli (Adjunct), Patrick McCreless, Ellen Rosand, Craig Wright
Associate Professors
Kathryn Alexander (Adjunct), Norman Carey (Visiting [F]), Michael Veal
Assistant Professors
Seth Brodsky, Michael Klingbeil (Adjunct), Gundula Kreuzer, Ian Quinn, Sarah Weiss
Lecturer
David Clampitt
Fields of Study
Fields include music theory and music history. (Students interested in performance or composition should apply to the Yale School of Music.)
Special Admissions Requirements
Previous training in music theory or music history is required. Samples of the applicant’s previous work such as extended papers, advanced exercises, and analyses must be submitted. The GRE General Test is required by the Graduate School. Applicants whose native language is not English must take the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL).
Special Requirements for the Ph.D. Degree
Two years of course work, comprising fourteen courses, are normally required, twelve of which must be graduate seminars offered within the Department of Music. With permission of the DGS, two may be in other departments or schools within the University, as long as they are either graduate seminars or non-introductory undergraduate courses. In the spring term of the second year, students will take MUSI 997b: Readings for Qualifying Examination. Students must pass examinations in two foreign languages: German and either French or Italian. Language examinations, with dictionary, are administered at the beginning of each term. A musicianship exam (ear training, keyboard, and basic theory and analysis) is given to all entering students. Admission to candidacy for the Ph.D. must occur before the end of the third year of study. It is granted if the student has received a grade of Honors in four department seminars, has passed the language and qualifying examinations, and has submitted an acceptable dissertation prospectus. The departmental qualifying examination is given near the beginning of the third year. Students attend a weekly prospectus/dissertation seminar during the third year of study. Before the end of that year, the student must submit a dissertation prospectus for faculty approval.
The faculty considers teaching to be essential to the professional preparation of graduate students in Music. Students in Music participate in the Teaching Fellows Program in their third and fourth years.
Combined Ph.D. Program: Music and Renaissance Studies
The Department of Music also offers, in conjunction with the Renaissance Studies program, a combined Ph.D. in Music and Renaissance Studies. For further details, see Renaissance Studies.
Master’s Degrees
M.Phil. See Degree Requirements.
M.A. (en route to the PH.D.). Students enrolled in the Ph.D. program qualify for the M.A. degree upon the successful completion of eight courses, at least six of which are seminars given in the department, along with the passing of an examination in one foreign language. Of the six departmental seminars, at least two grades must be Honors; the remaining six grades must average High Pass.
Master’s Degree Program. The department offers admission to a small number of students in a terminal M.A. program. Candidates must pass eight term courses achieving an average of High Pass and at least one Honors, complete a special project, and pass an examination in one foreign language.
Program materials are available upon request to the Director of Graduate Studies, Department of Music, Yale University, PO Box 208310, New Haven CT 06520-8310.
Courses
MUSI 701a, Theory and Aesthetics: Pre-1600. Craig Wright.
F 9.25–11.15
An investigation of the writings of the principal Western music theorists from Greek antiquity to 1600—Aristoxenus, Boethius, Guido, Franco, Philippe de Vitry, Tinctoris, Gaffurius, Glareanus, Zarlino, and Morely among them. Issues of modality, scalar structures, chromatic inflections, counterpoint, and voice leading are discussed, as well as aesthetic questions concerning the meaning of music and its function in society. Wherever possible, relevant musical compositions are analyzed to exemplify the theoretical principles.
MUSI 702b, Theory and Aesthetics: 1600–1800. Robert Holzer.
Th 9.25–11.15
A survey of major writings on music from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and the scholarly literature about them. Special emphasis is placed on the relationship between musical thought and practice of the period.
MUSI 712a, Singing Community: A Cappella at Yale and the Practice of Music Ethnography. Sarah Weiss.
Th 1.30–3.20
An intensive, practical introduction to ethnomusicological fieldwork. Students learn interview and other data collection techniques in the field, observing auditions and performances of Yale a cappella groups and documenting tap night. Theoretical readings on identity, place, and music by Mark Slobin, Martin Stokes, and others inform analysis of the music communities observed and the interconnections between community formation, musical/vocal performance, and identity. Readings drawn from music ethnographies on multiple singing traditions introduce students to diverse music cultures and the historical arc of the development of ethnomusicology as a discipline.
MUSI 807a, The Madrigals of Monteverdi. Ellen Rosand.
W 9.25–11.15
A consideration of Monteverdi’s eight books of madrigals (1592–1638) within a number of overlapping contexts: as the culmination of a century-long fascination among generations of composers with the setting of Italian poetry; in relationship to the madrigals of some of his near contemporaries, such as Wert, Marenzio, and Luzzaschi, whose attitudes toward text expression, like Monteverdi’s, could be characterized as exemplifying the so-called seconda prattica; and, finally, within the composer’s own long career as a workshop for his evolution as an opera composer, first, of Orfeo (1607), then of Il ritorno d’Ulisse (1640).
MUSI 814a, Directed Studies in the History of Music.
By arrangement with faculty.
MUSI 814b, Directed Studies in the History of Music.
By arrangement with faculty.
MUSI 828b, Late Beethoven. James Hepokoski.
M 1.30–3.20
Overviews of several compositions from 1815 to 1827 (the piano sonatas, the string quartets, the Diabelli Variations, the Missa solemnis, the Ninth Symphony, and others). The seminar samples both some classic approaches to Beethoven’s “late style” (Marx, Adorno, Dahlhaus, Tovey, Kerman, Rosen, Lockwood, Kropfinger, Küster, Kinderman, Cooper) and some new, divergent interpretations, analyses, and challenges that have emerged within English language musicology and music theory in the past two decades (Hatten, Knittel, Chua, Rumph, Spitzer).
MUSI 836a, Cold Utopias: Musical Avant-Gardes from Zero Hour to Wall-Fall. Seth Brodsky.
T 3.30–5.20
An exploration of the problematic life of radical musical projects from 1945 to 1989, examining movements, repertoires, and institutions in the United States, Europe, and the Soviet Union. Considering age-old tensions of the avant-garde—autonomy vs. critique, entrenchment vs. subversion, isolation vs. attack, forefront vs. margins—the seminar brings these tensions into dialogue with the notable postwar forces emanating from the Cold War and “Culture Industry,” which challenge the meaning and existence of musical avant-gardes in unprecedented ways. Music to be explored includes that produced by institutional avant-gardes (Babbitt at Columbia and Princeton, Boulez at Darmstadt and IRCAM), radical fringe groups (Ligeti and Fluxus, Cardew’s Scratch Orchestra), fluid and non-hierarchical “scenes” (Gann’s “Downtown Music,” American and European microtonalists), Soviet dissidents (Schnittke, Pärt, Silvestrov, Volkonsky, et al.) and “loners” (Ustolvskaya in St. Petersburg, Scelsi in Rome). Readings include both music-centered and cross-disciplinary texts.
MUSI 843b, Music and Identity in the USA. Margot Fassler.
W 9.25–11.15
An examination of the new scholarship on music and identity in the context of a survey of American repertories—mostly popular, congregational, and communal. Student work focuses on primary source materials for the study of American music and culture, especially as found in the Beinecke and other Yale and New Haven collections, including the Historical Sound Archive, the Collection of Musical Instruments, and various film archives.
MUSI 901a, Schenkerian Analysis. Norman Carey.
M 1.30–3.20
An introduction to concepts, graphic representations, and analytical interpretations derived from the work of Heinrich Schenker.
MUSI 914a, Directed Studies in the Theory of Music.
By arrangement with faculty.
MUSI 914b, Directed Studies in the Theory of Music.
By arrangement with faculty.
MUSI 935b, Analysis of Nineteenth-Century Music. Richard Cohn.
W 1.30–3.20
Chromatic harmony is studied first by adapting concepts and representational modes from 7-gamut diatonic repertories (fundamental bass, Schenkerian/linear, and Riemann/functional) and then by crafting new approaches that respond to the evolving 12-gamut environment (equal divisions, dissonant prolongation, and neo-Riemannian approaches to triadic chromaticism). Other topics include Lewinian phenomenology, metric dissonance, and large-scale formal strategies.
MUSI 942a, Theory and Analysis of Contemporary Tonality. Daniel Harrison.
W 2.30–4.20
Engagement with music-theoretical issues and problems posed by tonal music written after the “emancipation of the dissonance.” Previous theories and modes of explanation are examined, critiqued, and engaged experimentally in musical analysis involving the works of composers such as Hindemith, Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Martinu˚, Vaughan Williams, Britten, Barber, and Copland. Creative adaptation and modification of previous theory is welcome—as is new construction—in order to accommodate conditions of tonality after the common-practice era.
MUSI 983b, Scale Theory, Transformational Theory, Tonality. David Clampitt.
T 1.30–3.20
An introduction to scale theory and transformational theory, with an emphasis on implications for tonal theory and applications to tonal analysis. Mathematical groundwork is laid for reading the work of Lewin, Clough, and their successors. Repertoire includes both common-practice examples and tonally extended music of the twentieth century.
MUSI 997b, Readings for Qualifying Examination. Richard Cohn.
M 4–5.15
MUSI 998a, Prospectus Workshop. Richard Cohn.
M 4–5.15
MUSI 999b, Dissertation Colloquium. Richard Cohn.
M 4–5.15
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