History of Music
Description Details
Discipline Business
Assignment type : Essay
Description
The research essay is 5 pages. You can either look to the political, historical, and social context of a given composer or individual piece of music OR you can develop a comparison between two composers across a distance in time based on their music and contextual difference. Consider the following prompts for your second essay:
How does the rise of popular music through recording technologies change musical style and form? You may choose to compare works from the final two weeks of the course to any earlier works, whether they are symphonic, sacred, or chamber music.
Led Zeppelin gives us the “newest” music in the course but open their song with a nostalgia for musical forms more like those we hear from the Medieval or Renaissance periods. How does this combination of newness and nostalgia reflect the social or political context of their time period?
How has nationalism worked in relation to musical compositions across the course? You may choose one or more works to consider, but Beethoven, Wagner, Sibelius, or Verdi may be particularly useful.
Music has become progressively more and more secular as the course proceeded. How would you contrast the “feminism” (if this is even the most suitable term) of Hildegard von Bingen against Bessie Smith, or how does the eroticism of Monteverdi differ from Smith? Alternatively, does Led Zeppelin call back to the sacred music with which the course opened, and if so, what does this mean? You might choose to compare or contrast other musical figures or works.
Is music ever truly revolutionary? Consider how music used for politically radical purposes differs musically from other works we have heard.
When we entered the 20th Century, music changed a great deal. Some became atonal and complex while others became ever more mainstream. Are both of these reactions viable in the interbellum or Cold War context, or is one more honest or more real?
For all questions, your essay should rely on both research and critical listening skills for the work(s) you select. You should draw on secondary critical sources, and those cited in the Study Guide may be particularly helpful. There is a minimum of three critical secondary sources, meaning a research source (not a tertiary source such as an encyclopedia) through Ebrary, JSTOR, or SAGE may be particularly helpful. You do not need to agreed with the critical sources you use, nor must they directly discuss the works you consider, but you should develop your study in relation to existing scholarship.
Format MLA
Academic Level: –
Volume of 2 pages (550 words)
Type of service: Custom writing
