Undergraduate Course: Special History in Music: Wagner - Music, Philosophy and Culture (MUSI10050)
Course Outline
| School | Edinburgh College of Art |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 3 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | This course provides an introduction to Richard Wagner's complex roles as philosopher, composer, revolutionary and cultural barometer in 19th and 20th Germany. Students will study selected music dramas by Wagner together with his polemical prose writings. They will place the composer in the context of 19th-century German culture and society, exploring among other things his connections with Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and German nationalism, and will consider aspects of his posthumous reception, in particular under the Nazi and communist regimes.
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| Course description |
This course will involve five fortnightly blocks, the first introducing nineteenth-century opera practices and Wagner's writings, and the remaining four focusing in turn on Tristan und Isolde, the RIng Cycle, the Meistersinger, and Parsifal. Over the course of the semester we will explore the music and libretti of Wagner's music dramas. We will contextualise his work in terms of nineteenth-century philosophy (Schopenhauer and Nietzsche), politics (utopian anti-capitalism, revolution, and nationalism), and socio-cultural issues (among them gender and anti-Semitism). Throughout the course we will also look at questions of staging, and Wagner's posthumous reception.
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Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | Visiting students should have at least three Music courses at grade B or above (or be predicted to obtain this). We will only consider University/College level courses.
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| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
| Not being delivered |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- demonstrate understanding of the musical language and libretti of Wagner¿s music dramas
- relate the music dramas to the wider socio-cultural currents of nineteenth-century Germany
- discuss the aesthetic philosophies of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche
- analyse staging practices of the music dramas in the twentieth century
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Reading List
| A reading/resource list is available via the course LEARN site. |
Additional Information
| Course URL |
http://www.music.ed.ac.uk |
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Not entered |
| Additional Class Delivery Information |
Seminars in Weeks 1-5 and 7-11. |
| Keywords | Wagner,Opera,Music |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Elaine Kelly
Tel: (0131 6)50 8248
Email: Elaine.Kelly@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Mr Hugh Black
Tel: (0131 6)51 5926
Email: hugh.black@ed.ac.uk |
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