740-409 Early Music Theory and Practice

A study of selected theoretical sources of Western music prior to 1750 including music philosophy, the inherited theory of Classical Antiquity, Medieval and Renaissance counterpoint, performance practices of the period, and the relation between the practical and theoretical intellectual life of the period.

On completion of this course, students should have a working knowledge of selected sources of music theory of the period to 1750, and the development of theoretical thought in both philosophical and applied areas of music. Students will develop critical skills and a sense of the polemic nature of change concerning the intellectual paradigms of music, and will be expected to develop the necessary analytical and communicative skills to evaluate and debate the substance of the areas covered.

Regular practical assignments (60%); 2000-word assignment (40%).

• Mark Everist, Models of Musical Analysis: Music before 1600. Blackwells, Oxford, 1992.