ONLINE SYLLABUS: Fall 2019 Vocal Literature

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ONLINE SYLLABUS: Fall 2019 Vocal Literature
Professor Bonnie Hoke-Scedrov
Rowan University
Friday: 3:30—5:30 pm, Room #105

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Welcome to Vocal Literature! This course is designed to give you a thorough and functional knowledge of the rich body of classical solo song repertoire (artsong) available to you as a trained classical singer. Here is a breakdown of how the course will be organized:

TEXTBOOK:

Song: A Guide to Art Song Style and Literature
by, Carol Kimball. Copyright 2005. Publisher: Hal Leonard Corporation, Milwaukee, WI.

GRADE:

Attendance: 5%
Homework: 30%
Midterm examination: 25%
Final examination: 20%
Final project: 20%

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ATTENDANCE (5%):

Since classroom participation is an essential part of this course, you will be graded on attendance (that means your grade will go down if you have missed classes). Do all you can to attend every single class or you risk falling behind.

HOMEWORK (30%):

Download “STYLESHEET HOMEWORK TEMPLATE”

STYLESHEET-HOMEWORK-TEMPLATE.docx – Downloaded 1696 times – 116.13 KB

Please observe the STYLESHEET HOMEWORK TEMPLATE button above. There you will be able to download a PDF for completing your listening homework. You will be assigned a great deal of listening for this course and will use this listening guide to complete your required listening each week.

To assist you, I have placed all of the required listening for this course on my professional blog, http://singerstickynotes.com/vocal-literature/.

On this blog page there is an alphabetical list of composers, each hypertexted to a destination page containing YouTube performances of that composer’s songs for study. I will determine after each class which songs will be assigned for the next class as well as which pages of the textbook to read before the next class. I will be sure to send you an email confirming that next assignment by the end of the same day of each class.

Here is my strategy for the classroom experience:

There will be an average of 60—110 songs which every student must listen to before each class: That’s a lot of listening! After listening to the required song repertoire, each student will be assigned 10 songs from that set to “review” by creating a stylesheet of your impressions of each song. That means your stylesheet-assignment will be unique from the other students in the class.

The stylesheets must be emailed to me by 8:00 PM the WEDNESDAY before each class (please mail to bonniehs@gmail.com). Please do not use hard copy; only emailed! That means the homework is due TWO DAYS before the Friday class. Stylesheets sent later than 8:00 PM Wednesday will be marked late and your grade may suffer.

The stylesheets will form the basis of the classroom discussion. The stylesheets will also serve as research material for completion of the final project (see below). Please note that homework counts for 30% of your grade! It is absolutely vital that you do not fall behind in doing this homework. Your stylesheets will be an essential part of classroom discussion for the next class—your classmates are depending on you! Attendance is consequently quite important (5%). Please do not miss class! 

MIDTERM EXAM (25%):

The midterm exam will consist primarily of definitions and terms necessary for understanding style, and which are constantly referred to in the stylesheets you will be submitting as homework each week. All of these terms have been drawn from “PART I STYLE” (pages 1-37) of the textbook. To assist you in your study, you can access the Vocal Literature Midterm Study Guide (http://singerstickynotes.com/artsong-stylesheet/) where all the required terms from the textbook are hyper-texted to the definitions you will need to memorize for the midterm exam. This post serves as “flash cards” for study (especially effective when studied while using a phone).

Additionally, the midterm will cover the reading assignments of classes #1-#7. Please refer to the STUDY GUIDE FOR TEXTBOOK FACTS Vocal Literature Fall 2019 to help you with your study of these core facts principally about Vocal literature of the German and French artsong traditions.The midterm exam will take place during Class #8 scheduled for October 25, 2019.

FINAL EXAM (20%):

The material for the final exam will more closely focus on individual composers and their output. Your reading, listening, stylesheets, and notes from the stylesheet-analyses of your classmates will constitute a lot of what you will find on the final exam. To assist you in your study, I have included crucial information for the final exam at the beginning blog posts for each of the composers. Simply click on the composer’s name and a few nuggets of crucial information will appear at the beginning of the post. You might begin studying for the final exam by reviewing these bits of information on a regular basis throughout the course. It’s a lot of material because there are so many composers, but it’s manageable. (Trust me: it’s not as hard as it looks!)

FINAL PROJECT (20%):

For your final project, you will need to produce two contrasting and complete recital programs for your self, based upon the repertoire we have studied in this course. If all goes well, you will find this enjoyable and not very difficult. Here is where your stylesheets will really prove their worth. By the time you’re working on your final project, you will have a good idea of what repertoire is best for you professionally amongst this enormous body of repertoire available. The two recitals should each be 50 minutes worth of music, nicely grouped into appropriate and balanced groups, with an intermission. You should provide program notes appropriate for the repertoire chosen and, if possible, a title or theme for this recital. Ideally, these programs should be right for you and your voice NOW (not ten years from now when your voice is more mature). My hope is that you will be eager to perform what you create. The final project is due in HARDCOPY FORM at the beginning of Class #13, scheduled for Friday, December 6, 2019.

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There are thirteen 2-hour classes in this course. Here is the plan for which composers will be covered and when throughout the semester—a “rough draft,” if you will, of what will happen. The weekly email I will send you after each class will tell you more precisely which songs to listen to and what your specific assignment is. (It wouldn’t be a bad idea for you to begin the first reading assignment now . . .)

Good luck and enjoy!

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CLASS #1: STYLE & GERMAN
LISTENING: Haydn, Mozart, Loewe, Beethoven

CLASS #2: GERMAN
READING: pp.  1—69
LISTENING: Schubert (Die schöne Müllerin & Winterreise & extraneous songs)

CLASS #3: GERMAN
READING: pp. 70—126
LISTENING: Schumann & Wolf (Dichterliebe & Frauen Lieben und Leben & Mörike Lieder  & Goethe Lieder  & Italienisches Liederbuch & Spanisches Liederbuch & extraneous songs)

CLASS #4: GERMAN
READING: pp. 127—156
LISTENING: Mendelssohn, Fannie Mendelssohn, Clara Schumann, Liszt, Wagner, Robert Franz, Brahms, Mahler, Strauss, Pfitzner, Schoenberg, Marx, Berg, Korngold, Weill

CLASS #5: FRENCH
READING: pp. 157—189
LISTENING: Berlioz, Gounod, Viardot, Franck, Bizet, Chabrier, Duparc, Chausson, Fauré

CLASS #6: FRENCH
READING: pp. 190—218
LISTENING: Debussy, Chaminade, Satie, Roussel, Hahn, Ravel, Ibert

CLASS #7: FRENCH
READING: pp. 219—244
LISTENING: Milhaud, Boulanger, Poulenc, Leguerney 

CLASS #8: MIDTERM
The midterm exam will cover terms from Part I of Textbook (and used on the stylesheets) and German and French composers from the required reading and listening for classes #1–#7

CLASS #9: AMERICAN
READING: pp. 245—349
LISTENING: Foster, Burleigh, Beach, Farwell, Griffes, Thompson, Bacon, Duke, Chandler, Bowles, Persichetti, Hoiby, Faith, Hundley, Pasatieri , Zaimont, Paulus, Musto, Laitman, Hagen 

CLASS #10: AMERICAN
READING: pp. 245—350
LISTENING: Ives, Copland, Barber, Bernstein, Rorem, Argento, Bolcom, Larsen

CLASS #11: BRITISH
READING: pp. 351—406
LISTENING: Dowland, Campion, Purcell, Delius, Vaughan-Williams, Quilter, Ireland, Butterworth, Gurney, Clark, Orr, Warlock, Head, Finzi, Britten, Horder, Bush, Dring, Dickinson

CLASS #12: ITALIAN, SPANISH, & SOUTH AMERICAN
READING: pp. 407—446; pp. 495—530
LISTENING: Caccini, Monteverdi, Strozzi, Scarlatti, Vivaldi, Durante, Handel, Pergolesi, Gluck, Righini, Bellini, Rossini, Donizetti, Verdi, Tosti, Wolf-Ferrari, Respighi, Donaudy, Pizzetti, Santoliquido, Cimara, Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Anchieta, Torre, Morales, Mudarra, Mena, Granados, de Falla, Nin, Turina, Guridi, Mompou, Obradors, Rodrigo, Montsalvatge, Ginastera, Guastavino, Braga, Villa-Lobos,

CLASS #13: RUSSIAN, SCANDINAVIAN, & EASTERN EUROPEAN
READING: pp. 447—544
LISTENING: Glinka, Borodin, Cui, Musorgsky, Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Rachmaninov, Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Shostakovich, Grieg, Sibelius, Kilpinen, Stenhammar, Alvén, Rangström, Nielsen, Dvorák, Janaček, Enescu  

(Revised: 9/5/19)

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