Studies in Baroque Music

Catalog description

Seminar on selected topics in the music of the Baroque period. The seminar explores musical genres (madrigal, opera, cantata, etc.) using poetic texts in Italian (primarily), French, and German, which circulated mainly in Europe in both private and public settings during the 17th and early 18th centuries. Issues of reception and performance/staging during the 20th and 21st centuries are also investigated. Each instance of the seminar has a focus, e.g.: Monteverdi’s madrigals, opera in seventeenth-century Venice and Paris, Guarini and Marino in music, histories of the madrigal, Petrarchism and music, the ”Baroque” in theory and practice, Handel’s operas, staging Baroque opera today, historically informed performance practice, etc. Please see department website https://music.sas.upenn.edu/course-list/ for current term course descriptions.