Besides your personal research (contextual essay) on a topic of your choice we will cover in our lessons the following topics.

History

We return to (the beginning of) the nineteenth century and look from that perspective to twentieth century music.

Composers: Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Chopin, Brahms, Grieg; Wagner, Wolf, Bruckner, Strauss, Debussy.

Score analysis of Schubert (String Quintet) and Brahms (Symphony nr. 4 first movement)

AHWM chapters 25, 26, 29, 30 and the importance of  Wagner and Debussy for modern music (28, en 32).

With regard to harmony we are going to focus on romantic harmony in several forms:

• the use of chromaticism and enharmonicism (concentric, excentric): secondary/applied dominants (forms of V and VII); ascending an descending leading tones.
• typical (altered) chords, turns and modulations: #IV, A6-chords, bVI in major, Neapolitian (6), Moll-Dur
• de musical goals for which chromaticicsm and enharmonicism can be used, such as:
  obscuring tonality (Wagner, Wolf, Bruckner, Strauss) also called "floating" tonality
  colour in chord changes (Schubert, Grieg, Fauré)
  introduction modal elements (Fauré, Debussy)
  introduction "new" octave-patterns/scales (Debussy, Rimsky-Korsakov, early Stravinsky)
  
  

We are going to analyze typical fragments from the mentioned composers.

Score analysis of Schubert and Brahms.