Music
143 Elm, 432.2985
M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D.
Chair
Patrick McCreless
Director of Graduate Studies
Daniel Harrison (143 Elm, 432.2992, daniel.harrison@yale.edu)
Professors
Margot Fassler, Michael Friedmann (Adjunct), Daniel Harrison, James Hepokoski, Patrick McCreless, Robert Morgan, Leon Plantinga, Ellen Rosand, Craig Wright
Associate Professors
Kathryn Alexander, David Clampitt, John Halle, Richard Lalli (Adjunct), Kristina Muxfeldt
Assistant Professors
Ian Quinn, Michael Veal
Lecturer
Robert Holzer
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, 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 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 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 702a, Theory and Aesthetics: 1600–1800. Robert Holzer.
F 10–12
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 704b, Theory and Aesthetics: The Twentieth Century. Robert Morgan.
Th 1.30–3.30
Examination of writings by prominent twentieth-century figures who have addressed musical issues: composers, theorists, historians, philosophers, social critics, cultural theorists, and others. The course is organized by topic, with class time devoted to discussion of the week's reading and presentation of papers.
MUSI 710a, Theory and Practice of Ethnomusicology. Michael Veal.
T 1.30–3.30
A reading-based survey of the historical development of the field of ethnomusicology and the major issues with which it has been concerned Also AFAM 843a.
MUSI 715a, Music in Medieval Britain: The Use of Sarum. History, Sources, Modern Survivals. Margot Fassler.
F 3.15–5.15
Various aspects of the Sarum Use, including study of the rites it supplanted after the destruction of Anglo-Saxon culture by the Anglo-Normans. Studies of both liturgical and musical sources, with attention to the ways in which major historical changes are supported and redefined through the liturgy and its music. Knowledge of Latin and ability to read music not required. The class reconstructs an office from the Sarum rite, with attention to music, language, gesture, and liturgical vestments. This evening class closes each day with the singing of Compline from the Sarum sources. Also MDVL 551a.
MUSI 721b, Cycles, Returns, and Memory in Early Romantic Music. Kristina Muxfeldt.
F 10–12
An investigation of the Romantic concept of cycle and its manifestations, principally in the songs and instrumental music of Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn, and Schumann. The seminar addresses a range of matters, from formal and analytic issues to inquiries into usages of the concept of cycle in music, literature, and art histories, including the role of the fragment as a Romantic critical category. How and when did the concept of “return” come to be associated with cycle? How have returns been understood in relation to memory or other cognitive processes? Interdisciplinary approaches to the study of memory in the arts and sciences. Where relevant, we also take up implications of the compositional process, revisions at publication, and matters of reception history.
MUSI 801b, An Introduction to the Chant and Liturgy of the Western Church.
Craig Wright.
Th 10–12
An introduction to the chant and liturgy of the Western (Latin) Church. The central task is to gain a familiarity with the Mass and office of the monastic rite (Benedictine at St. Gall) and of the cathedral (secular usage at Chartres and Paris). Toward the end of the course, attention turns briefly to the incorporation of chant in sacred polyphony of the Renaissance and, finally, to a representative work of Mozart.
MUSI 808a, Petrarch and the Italian Madrigal. Ellen Rosand.
W 1.30–3.30
More than any single poet, Petrarch remained a constant focus for composers of secular music of the Italian renaissance. The stylistic development of the Italian madrigal, from its birth in the early sixteenth century to its demise some hundred years later, can be measured through the changing interpretation of Petrarch's poetry, in particular, with respect to the exploration of the poet's conception of the self. Using Petrarch as a lens, the seminar considers a variety of settings, ranging from popular music of the fifteenth century for solo voice with lute accompaniment, to the more substantial polyphonic styles for three to six voices developed in the major musical centers of Italy.
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 832a, Schubert's Goethe Songs. Leon Plantinga.
Th 1.30–3.30
A study of the seventy-odd songs of Schubert composed to texts of Goethe. Topics include a consideration of various subgenres in Goethe's poetry (“folksong”; ballad and poetic narrative; soliloquy and dramatic monologue; lyrical poems) and the composer's distinctive responses to these types. There is also some reflection on the history of the Lied, its social status and uses, and Schubert's unique place in the growth of this genre.
MUSI 845b, Methodological Issues in Music History and Analysis. James Hepokoski.
W 1–4
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 902a, Post-Tonal Analysis I. Michael Friedmann.
T 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, Bartók, Varèse, and others.
MUSI 902b, Post-Tonal Analysis II. Ian Quinn.
T 10–12
Continuation of MUSI 902a. Further study of contemporary music-theoretic formulations, with analytical applications to a broad range of twentieth-century music.
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. The Analysis of Chromatic Music. Patrick McCreless.
M 1–4
A study of the use of chromaticism in selected tonal repertoires from C.P.E. Bach to the early twentieth century. Although the seminar focuses more on analytical practice than on mastery of theoretical systems, it also engages the work of a number of theorists, both historical (Hugo Riemann, Ernst Kurth, Heinrich Schenker) and more recent (Gregory Proctor, Richard Cohn, Daniel Harrison, Fred Lerdahl).
MUSI 942a, Tonality after the Common Practice. Daniel Harrison.
Th 10–12
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. Creative adaptation and modification of previous theory is welcome—as is new construction—in order to accommodate to the conditions of tonality after the common-practice era.
MUSI 998a, Prospectus Workshop. Robert Morgan.
T 4–5.30
MUSI 999b, Dissertation Colloquium. Robert Morgan.
T 4–5.30
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