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Course Description

Summary

Advanced seminar for music theory students will trace a path from Richard Wagner’s  “artwork of the future” to Hollywood. Analyzing directly from operatic and film soundtrack scores, we will explore how extended tonality, romantic orchestration and mimetic practices like the leitmotiv transfused from continental Europe into the bloodstream of U. S. moviegoers in the 1940s, ‘50s and ‘60s. If time, we will contrast this music of future past with rival threads, such as absolutist Brahms in the 19th c. and the wane of musical narrative with the rise of song soundtracks.