First-Year Seminar: Piano Love

Catalog description

This seminar is a vibrant exploration of piano music, history, and culture. We aim to cultivate a strong learning community founded on a shared love of the instrument, fostered through deep listening, critical study, and (optional) active music-making. We begin by discussing the keyboard precursors to the instrument before its invention, exploring repertoire for the harpsichord from 16th- and 17th-century masters. We then delve into the Classical era, examining the evolutions and crystallizations of musical language and form in Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven. Following this, the course explores the 19th century and the dominance of the Romantic canon, a golden age for the piano that produced the virtuosic and deeply personal works such as those by Chopin, the Schumanns, Brahms, and the Mendelssohns. Venturing into the modern era, we chart impressionist trends through Debussy and Ravel before navigating the post-tonal idioms and diverse composer identities in the 20th century, with pioneers like Bartók, Stravinsky, and Schoenberg alongside groundbreaking American composers such as Ives, Cowell, Beach, Price, Nancarrow, and Crumb. We also highlight important works by jazz composers such as Bill Evans and Keith Jarrett; in African pianism; and from current scenes. More than a historical survey, we engage debates shaping the field of music studies. We ask critical questions: How is the musical canon constructed, and how can we expand it? How do historical sources influence performance practice? What links identity and expression? We reflect on both the instrument’s possibilities and its potential limits in realizing imagination in sound. Toward such inquiry, we develop crucial analytical skills, placing recordings, historical documents, and scholarly literature in meaningful dialogue, and connecting performance, scholarship, and listening. Requirements include two class…