Music

143 Elm, 432.2985
M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D.

Chair
Patrick McCreless

Director of Graduate Studies
James Hepokoski (143 Elm, 432.2991, james.hepokoski@yale.edu)

Professors
Margot Fassler, Allen Forte, Michael Friedmann (Adjunct), James Hepokoski, Patrick McCreless, Robert Morgan, Leon Plantinga, Ellen Rosand, Craig Wright

Associate Professors
Kathryn Alexander, Daniel Harrison (Visiting [F]), Richard Lalli (Adjunct), Kristina Muxfeldt

Assistant Professors
David Clampitt, Eric Drott, John Halle, Robert Holzer, Michael Veal

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 including extended papers, compositions, 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 sixteen courses, are normally required. Students in the music theory program must pass examinations in two foreign languages: German and normally French, Latin, or Italian. For students in the music history program, German and two other languages are required. Language examinations, partly with dictionary and partly without, are administered at the beginning of each term. A practicum 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 two full-year courses or in four term courses, 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 and all language requirements must be satisfied by that time. 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 Graduate School 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 704b, Theory and Aesthetics: Eighteenth Century. Patrick McCreless. Th 10–12

MUSI 706a, Theory and Aesthetics: Twentieth Century. Robert Morgan. T 10–12

MUSI 819b, The Motives of (Musical) Eloquence: Approaches to Music and Text in the Seicento. Robert Holzer. M 1.30–3.20
A re-investigation of traditional notions of music and text in the seventeenth century. Following the lead of the rhetorician Richard Lanham, the alleged role of music as a means of textual expression is measured against a more complex reality, where display contends with decorum. A similar approach, charting the interaction of substance and sophism, is employed for music theory of the time.

MUSI 821a, Monteverdi's Late Operas in Context. Ellen Rosand. W 1.30–3.20
The seminar considers Il ritorno d'Ulisse and L'incoronazione di Poppea in two contexts: that of the composer's own madrigals (especially Books 7 and 8) and that of contemporary Venetian operas by Sacrati, Cavalli, and Ferrari, focusing on issues of style, sources, performance, and meaning.

MUSI 827b, Middle-Period Beethoven. Leon Plantinga. W 1.30–3.20
A study of selected compositions from ca. 1803 to 1816 in their historical contexts.

MUSI 845a, Methodological Issues in Music History and Analysis. James Hepokoski. T 1.30–3.20
Foundational concerns in confronting a piece of music and the context in which it is embedded. These include: the nature and status of the artwork as an object of interpretation; the existence of multiple voices and layers of implication within a single work; the role of the observer in producing aesthetic or cultural meanings; contending constructions of history into which the work might be interwoven. Carl Dahlhaus's Foundations of Music History serves as one of the texts from which we radiate outward to several issues: phenomenological hermeneutics, cultural materialism, structuralism and poststructuralism, postmodernism, claims of aesthetic autonomy and relative autonomy, objectivity and evidence, political interpretation and advocacy positions, and so on.

MUSI 848b, Music in Renaissance Paris and London. Craig Wright. Th 1.30–3.20
Although Paris and London were the two largest cities in Western Europe during the sixteenth century, they offer rather different views of musical culture. Paris flourished earlier in the century, and it was marked by a robust publishing business that specialized in the "Parisian" chanson, printed dance music, and keyboard music for the church. England continued its medieval ways until the forty-five-year reign of Elizabeth I (1558–1603), when the country, with London as its center, saw an outpouring of polymorphous religious music, instrumental music for solo lute, for viol consort, and for harpsichord, as well as secular vocal music (madrigal, consort song, and lute ayre). This seminar examines all of these musical genres as well as reading two theory treatises of the time, the Dodecachordon (1547) of Heinrich Glareanus (educated in Paris) and the Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practicall Musicke (1597) of Thomas Morley.

MUSI 902a, Post-Tonal Analysis I. Michael Friedmann. W 10–12
Introduction to a range of approaches to the analysis of post-tonal twentieth-century music. The theoretical core material is "set theory," which finds its primary application in analyzing pitch structures and transformational processes but also deals with rhythm and contour. Critical readings of theory and analysis are complemented by the study of works by Schoenberg, Webern, Stravinsky, Bartok, Varèse, and others.

MUSI 902b, Post-Tonal Analysis II. Allen Forte. T 9–11
Continuation of Music 902a. Further study of contemporary music-theoretic formulations, with analytical applications to a broad range of twentieth-century music.

MUSI 930a, Music of Sub-Saharan Africa. Michael Veal. M 1.30–3.20
An introduction to the music of Sub-Saharan Africa, through a focus on several regional, national, and/or local cultures. The seminar provides an overview of the musicological and critical issues fundamental to the study of African music and surveys several scholarly approaches to this music both within and outside of Africa. Also AFAM 789a, AFST 830a.

MUSI 941a, Theory and Analysis: Extended Tonal Techniques. Daniel Harrison. Th 10–12
Research seminar in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century music. Differing historical theories of tonal structure are examined and applied analytically, including those of Kurth, Riemann, Louis and Thuille, and Karg-Elert. Also studied are recent approaches, including neo-Riemannian theory and the ideas of Robert Bailey.

MUSI 945b, Liturgical Drama and Its Settings in the Latin Middle Ages and the Latin New World. Margot Fassler, Jaime Lara. M 1.30–3.20
Dramatic musical productions and their architectural and festive settings, from origins in the Carolingian period to the transplantation of these musical genres, liturgical practices, and architectural settings to the New World. Materials include study of filmed performances and staging of the Southern French Play of the Wise and Foolish Virgins. Students may join a study tour to Southern France and Spain in May, led by the Institute of Sacred Music. No prerequisites. Plays are studied in English, with Latin performances for listening.

MUSI 981b, Neo-Riemannian and Other Transformational Theories. David Clampitt. W 10–12
Neo-Riemannian theory and analysis, in the context of an introduction to Lewinian transformational theory in general. Late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century tonal music is the core repertoire. Extensions and generalizations of neo-Riemannian theory are also applied to post-tonal music. Readings include work of Cohn, Hyer, and Lewin, along with papers from the Buffalo Conferences of 1993, 1997, and 2001.

MUSI 998a, Prospectus Workshop. Ellen Rosand. T 4–5.30

MUSI 999b, Dissertation Colloquium. Ellen Rosand. T 4–5.30

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