MUSIC 3250

Music & Monarchy in the 18th Century: Paris, Berlin, & Vienna

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2014-2015.

A musical enthusiast traveling in eighteenth-century Europe would have found that listening experiences varied a great deal depending on the city one visited. Eighteenth-century monarchs and their courts often acted as nuclei around which musical talent gathered, creating distinctive musical "scenes" in a variety of European cities. But how did the ideologies endorsed by both despots and "Enlightened" despots affect musical happenings in the cities in which they resided? And how did the consumption of certain types of music in certain spaces help delineate boundaries between social strata? This course explores the kinds of musical culture-courtly, sacred, public, and private-available to the listener in the communities surrounding Louis XIV and XV of France, Frederick II of Prussia, and Maria Theresa and Joseph II of Austria-Hungary. Our investigation into the ways in which power dynamics, royal patronage, and religious practices shaped drastically different musical scenes will allow us to explore music of the renowned "greats" (such as Rameau, C. P. E. Bach, and Mozart) as well as music by composers who achieved great success in their day, but who are now often left out of the historical narrative. We will likewise have the chance to explore alternate perspectives from which this music may be (and has been) approached, including those of the monarch him/herself, the contemporary music critic, the composer as royal employee or "freelancer," the musical historian, and of course, the modern-day listener.

When Offered Fall.

Breadth Requirement (HB)
Distribution Category (HA-AS)

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