French Melodie

Catalog description

This course is designed as a survey of the song literature of France. Students examine works for voice and piano/instruments by Berlioz, Gounod, Saint-Saëns, Bizet, Faure, Duparc, Chausson, Debussy, Ravel, Messaien, Milhaud, Poulenc, and others, analyzing their relationship to larger stylistic, social, and musicological trends. Investigation will include matters of prosody, scansion, and compositional organization, with particular attention given to matters of text setting and poetic treatment. Special emphasis will be placed on important French language poets whose literary works serve as the basis for this material. Poets will include Baudelaire, Verlaine, Hugo, Rimbaud, Mallarmé, LaForgue, Maeterlinck, and others. Poetic history and form will be covered as well as important composer/poet partnerships. Class sessions will involve a balance of lecture and discussion. Works by both well-known and lesser-known composers will be included.