B031425 - ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION OF MUSICAL TEXTS

Italian

The course will deal with the notion of musical text, both in a broad sense (any codification of musical thoughts and/or performance acts) and in the narrow sense related to musical notation. The relationship between analysis, understood as a technical investigation of the "grammatical" characteristics of a musical text, and interpretation, understood in the philosophical sense of "attribution of meaning", will then be addressed. Finally, specific case studies will be discusse

For the general part (lectures):
Cesare Segre, “Avviamento all’analisi del testo letterario”, Torino, Einaudi, 1999/2, pp. 5-90.
Michela Garda, “Opera, testo, esecuzione nelle arti performative”, «Aisthesis» VI, 2013, pp. 5-20.
Ian Bent – William Drabkin, “Analisi musicale“ (1980), trad. it., Torino, EdT, 1990, pp. 1-6 e 46-97.
Umberto Eco, “I limiti dell’interpretazione” (1990), Milano, La nave di Teseo, 2016: Introduzione.

For the seminar part:
Lynn Laitman Siebert, “Kiss Me, Kate“, in “A Cole Porter Companion“, ed. by D. M. Randel a. o., Urbana etc., University of Illinois Press, 2016, pp. 286-304.
Jessie Ann Owens, “Marenzio and Wert Read Tasso: A Study in Contrasting Aesthetics”, «Early Music» 27/4, 1999, pp. 555-574.
Kofi Agawu, “Playing with Signs: A Semiotic Interpretation of Classic Music”, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1991, pp. 3-79.

The texts indicated for the seminar part will be dealt with together with the teacher. For the purposes of seminar preparation, it will be sufficient to read the following introductory texts:
1) "Kiss Me Kate" Wikipedia entry (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiss_Me,_Kate); it is recommended to use the English language entry, and only ch. 1, ch. 2.1, ch. 3.1, ch. 4 and ch. 5 are required.
2) "Il madrigale tra Cinque e Seicento", edited by Paolo Fabbri, Bologna, Il Mulino, 1988, pp. 9-35 (Introduction).
3) Marco Mangani, "Luigi Boccherini", Palermo, L'Epos, 2005, pp. 110-113 ('Due visioni dello stile classico') and 117-120 ('Oltre Ratner').

The course aims to provide students with a full understanding of the concept of "musical text" and the approaches relevant to it, with particular reference to the analysis and interpretation of texts in musical notation from the Western tradition.

A. Knowledge and Understanding:
1. The various meanings of the concept of musical text.
2. The notion of musical text in the Western written tradition.
3. The concept of music analysis.
4. The concept of text interpretation as applied to music.
5. The interactions between analysis and interpretation.

B. Ability to apply knowledge and understanding.
Through the achievement of discipline-specific skills, students will acquire the ability to:
1. Place a text in musical notation in its appropriate historical-stylistic context, based on the analysis of musical parameters.
2. Identify the general form, the textual conducts ("refrain", "title hook") and the main harmonic choices in a song of Tin Pan Alley's repertoire and understand their relationships with the content of the lyrics.
3. Identify the most evident aspects of the relationship between verbal text and music in a piece of secular vocal polyphony.
4. Recognize the formal sections of a movement in sonata-form of the classical age (late 18th century).
5. Identify, in a previously analysed movement in sonata-form, the main musical “topoi” and the ways in which they are concatenated in the context of the form.

C. Autonomy of judgment and communication skills.
The course aims to enable autonomy of judgment and communication skills with regard to the following procedures:
1. Evaluate the correctness and relevance of a musical analysis.
2. Evaluate whether a given interpretation (in a philosophical sense) of a musical text is within the limits of hermeneutical plausibility and historiographical relevance.
3. Carry out autonomously an analytical-interpretive operation on a musical text belonging to the typologies addressed by the course.
4. Communicate the results of a self-conducted analytical-interpretive operation, using simple language and with the minimum possible recourse to technical terms.
5. Explain, in simple language, the technical terms which may have been unavoidable.

The following are required: an awareness of the general problems of ethnomusicology; a good knowledge of the history of Western music; the ability to orient oneself (also with the help of listening) in reading a text in standard musical notation. A good ability to read English is also required.

Lectures and seminar-style classes.

The last three lessons, each dedicated to one of the three case studies, will have a seminar character: the students will be divided into three groups, and each group will have to expose the preliminary notions concerning the chosen case based on the bibliography.

A. Evaluation of the work done during the seminar-based classes.

B. Oral examination divided into two tests:
1. recognition, on the basis of analysis, of the historical-stylistic context of a musical text chosen by the teacher;
2. interview on the topics covered in the lectures, with two questions, one of which will focus on a topic chosen by the candidate and
the other will be at the discretion of the teacher.

- The notion of "text" and the concept of "intertextuality"
- The notion of "musical text" in its different meanings
- Text, performance, and the ontology of the musical work
- Music analysis in historical perspective
- The analysis of musical parameters
- The concept of "musical form"
- The open work and the limits of interpretation
- The attribution of meaning in vocal music
- The attribution of meaning in instrumental music
- Case studies:
a. The twentieth-century Popular Song: "Too Darn Hot" by Cole Porter
b. The sixteenth-century madrigal: Torquato Tasso's "Giunto a la tomba" in the settings of Giaches de Wert and Luca Marenzio
c. The Classical Viennese Symphony: 1st movement (Adagio - Allegro) from the Symphony in D major KV 504 "Prague" by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart