2015-16 Catalog

Opera exploded onto the cultural scene around the year 1600 and quickly became the most popular, expensive, and lavish spectacle in all of Europe. The course will trace the history of the genre examining masterpieces by Monteverdi, Handel, Mozart, Rossini, Verdi, Wagner, Strauss, Berg, and Britten, and will sample a host of newer works, including< Einstein on the Beach, The Death of Klinghoffer, and The Ghosts of Versailles. Not offered 2015-16.

To be coordinated with Caltech's spring chamber music performances; enrollment limited to students preparing performances of chamber music during the term. The course will survey the history of chamber music and will offer more in-depth exploration of works in preparation for performance. Not offered 2015-16.

This course will examine the history of jazz in America from its roots in the unique confluence of racial and ethnic groups in New Orleans around 1900 to the present. The lives and music of major figures such as Robert Johnson, Jelly Roll Morton, Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonius Monk, Miles Davis and others will be explored. Not offered 2015-16.

This course will explore Mozart's music within the context of his life and times, including the early works composed as a child prodigy and touring artist; the first masterpieces he composed, and finally the masterworks written during his meteoric rise and his equally amazing fall from grace. Not offered 2015-16.

The course will examine the exuberant works of Beethoven's youth, the series of grand, heroic masterpieces of the early 1800s, and the puzzling and mysterious works of his final decade. Not offered 2015-16.

The course traces the history of music from ancient Greece to the time of Bach and Handel. A survey of the contributions by composers such as Machaut, Josquin, and Palestrina will lead to a more in-depth look at the music of Monteverdi, Purcell, Corelli, Vivaldi, and the two most important composers of the high baroque, Bach and Handel. Not offered 2015-16.

This survey course will trace the symphony orchestra from its generally acknowledged beginnings with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra under Felix Mendelssohn to the present day. Special emphasis will be given to the great orchestras of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, their conductors, and the core orchestral repertoire. Making use of historic audio and video recordings from the twentieth century, along with more recent documentary recordings, students will be exposed to the cultural history of modern Europe and America through the medium of classical music. Not offered 2015-16.