English 583 / Music 608
Charles Bernstein and Jeffrey Stadelman
Poetry, Music, Performance
Thursdays at 12:30
Spring 2000

Required Books at Talking Leaves:
Close Listening: Poetry and the Performed Word, ed. Charles Bernstein
Sounds States: Innovative Poetics and Acoustic Technologies, ed. Adelaide Morris
What Makes Sound Patterns Expressive by Reuven Tsur
Christian Bök, Crystallography

Required Recordings at University Bookstore:
Luciano Berio, Visage and Thema: Omaggio a Joyce
Elliott Carter, Syringa

Requirements: Weekly short response plus seminar paper or project. Each participant will be asked to be a "respondent" on two readings or listenings; this means leading a discussion, or giving a short report, on that work in the appropriate seminar (about five minutes).

Key: Lockwood Reserve (L), Music Library reserve (MLR), Talking Leaves (TL), Xerox handout (X)

1. (Jan. 20): Introduction
Bernstein: Introductory Remarks
Stadelman: Hearing Musical Structure / Interpreting Musical Notation

2. (Jan. 27): Structure/Notation II / Musical Images
(Broad introduction to 'the linguistic analogy' (Sprachaehnlichkeit), music and vocal utterance as material sound, border breakdowns between supposedly fast categories of music and text)
Recorded Music
"Qui sedes" from Gregorian chant: the complete 1930 French HMV Recordings of the monastic choir of the Abbey of Saint Pierre de Solesmes
"Strange Fruit" from The Complete Billie Holiday on Verve, 1945-1959
Gyorgi Ligeti, Lux Aeterna and Aventures (excerpts only)
Steve Reich, The Cave (excerpts)
Franz Joseph Haydn, Symphony No. 46, movement no. 1 (reserve cassette)
Examples of classical vocal styles and genres (reserve cassette)
Readings
Jander and Pleasants, "Singing," entry from Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians (X)
Mark Evan Bonds, Wordless Rhetoric (excerpts) (X)
Robert Cogan, New Images of Musical Sound (excerpts) (X)
Handout to accompany vocal cassette (X)
Steve Reich, Writings about Music (excerpts) (X)

3. (Feb. 3): Roots of Lyric
Andrew Welsh, Roots of Lyric (L and X)
Stephen Ratcliffe, Campion, On Song (X)
Richard Bauman (L), secs. on Oratory, Oral Poetry, Riddle, Ethnomusicology, Music, Music Performance, Song
Recorded Music
Thomas Campion, "Shall I come, sweet love, to thee?", and "If thou long'st so much to learn"
Paul Lansky, Six Fantasies on a Poem of Thomas Campion
Recommended:
Sound States: Mackey and Moten
Close Listening: Tedlock and Howe
Further reading:
Prosody bibliography
Tedlock, Dennis Tedlock, The Spoken Word and the Work of Interpretation,
esp. Intro, prologue, & chaps. 1, 3, 7, 10, and 16

4. (Feb. 10): Christian Bök visit / Sound and Performance Poetry
Bök, Crystallography
Schwitters, "Merz Sonata" full score Rothenberg and Joris, tr., Poems, Performance Pieces, Proses, Plays, Poetics " (L)
John Cage, "Lecture for Nothing" (X)
David Antin, "What It Means to be Avant Garde"(X)
Steve McCaffery in Sound States and Close Listening
Recorded Poetry
Audiotape (reserve) of sound and performance poetry provided by Bök

5. (Feb. 17) Opera Cage
(Opera, seen through lenses of Cage, Feldman and Schoenberg works. Different types of 'vocal production,' coaching of performances. Possible visit by Jan Williams.)
Recorded Music
John Cage, Hymns and Variations: for Twelve Amplified Voices [reserve cassette]
John Cage, Europeras 3 & 4 (excerpts)
Morton Feldman, Three Voices
Morton Feldman, Neither
Arnold Schoenberg, Moses und Aron, Act I
Readings and Scores
William Brooks, "John Cage and History: Hymns and Variations," Perspectives of New Music Vol. 31, No. 2 (Summer 1993) article (X)
William Pritchett, The Music of John Cage (excerpts) (MLR)
Morton Feldman materials from Chris Villars' website: <http://www.cnvill.demon.co.uk/mftexts.htm> especially numbers 3, 4 and 15
Morton Feldman, "The Anxiety of Art," "Darmstadt Lecture," and other selections from Morton FeldmanEssays (MLR)
Theodor Adorno, "Sacred Fragment: Schoenberg's Moses und Aron" (X)
John Cage, Hymns and Variations: for Twelve Amplified Voices (MLR)

6. (Feb. 24) Sound Theory/Theory of Sound (Phonology)
Reuven Tsur, What Makes Sound Patterns Expressive (TL, L)
Reuven Tsur, Poetic Rhythm: Structure and Performance (see also related sound files at Tsur site)
Roman Jakobson, "Quest for the Essence of Language" (X)
George Lakoff sound symbolism notes (X)
Roland Barthes, "Listening" (X)
Recommended:
Roman Jakobson and Linda Waugh, The Sound Shape of Language (L)
Jakobson, Language in Literature (L)
Recommended:
Reuven Tsur on the web

Note: March 1 - Aaron Williamson Weds@4 performance. See X handout plus:
Williamson texts

7. (March 2) Sound Theory/Theory of Sound (2)
Walter Benjamin, "Doctrine of the Similar" and "Language as Such and the Language of Man" (X)
Close Listening: Bernstein, Stewart, Andrews, and Piombino
Sound States: Morris's introduction and essay and Stewart
Garrett Stewart, Reading Voices (X, L)
Prynne, J.H., "Stars, Tigers, and The Shape of Words" (X)
"Sound" and "Performance" in the new Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics (X)
Recommended:
Benjamin, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction"
 

8. (March 16) Electronic and Computer Processing of Vocal Sound
(A dose of acoustics, as well as show-and-tell demonstration of gear and processing. The question of how to analyze computer/vocal music will be addressed.)
Erik Ona, Guest Presenter on Computer Music Applications
Recorded Music
Luciano Berio, Thema: Omaggio a Joyce, & Visage; Sinfonia
Paul Lansky, Just More Idle Chatter
Paul Lansky, Not Just More Idle Chatter
Readings
Luciano Berio, with Umberto Eco, "Eco in Ascolto" (X)
David Osmond-Smith, Berio (excerpts) (MLR)
David Osmond-Smith, Playing on Words, a guide to Luciano Berio's Sinfonia (MLR)
Online Lansky materials: <http://silvertone.princeton.edu/~paul> Also, a linked interview at: <http://www.electronicmusic.com/features/interview/paullansky.html>

9. (March 23) Carter/Ashbery - Babbitt/Babbitt
(Kramer article on Carter/Ashbery collaboration is the focus, as well as the issue of synthetic language that comes up in Phonemena. The Babbitt material provides reasonable segue into the topics of class 11.)
Recorded Music
Elliott Carter, Syringa
Milton Babbitt, Phonemena
Milton Babbitt, A Solo Requiem
Readings and Scores
Lawrence Kramer, Music and Poetry: The Nineteenth Century and After, "Introduction" and "Song as Insight--John Ashbery, Elliott Carter, and Orpheus" (chapters 1 and 7) (X)
David Schiff, The Music of Elliott Carter (excerpts) (X); also recommended is the introductory material found on pages 13-70 (MLR)
Andrew Mead, An Introduction to the Music of Milton Babbitt (excerpts) (X)
Joseph Dubiel, Three Essays on Milton Babbitt (Part 2) (X)
Elliott Carter, Syringa
Milton Babbitt, Phonemena

10. (March 30) The Poetry Reading
Close Listening: Perelman, Quartermain, Rasula, Middleton, Thomas, Damon, Schultz, Silliman
Sound States: Perloff, Conner, Miller & McHoul, Hayles, Davidson, Rasula

11. (April 6) Music Theory / Theoretical Music
(About music theory: a) (speculative) compositional theory, as in Cage's and Babbitt's charts, Ferneyhough, etc; b) analytical theory, as in the assigned reading by Lewin; c) the linguistically-based music theory of Fred Lerdahl; and d) the more broadly framed music theorizing of Theodor Adorno.)
Recorded Music
Pierre Boulez, le marteau sans maitre
Arnold Schoenberg, Book of the Hanging Gardens
Arnold Schoenberg, Pierrot Lunaire and Herzgewaechse
Readings
Theodor Adorno, "vers une musique informelle" (X)
Bruce Andrews, "Praxis: A Political Economy of Noise and Information," in Close Listening
Fred Lerdahl, "Cognitive Constraints on Compositional Systems" (X)
David Lewin, "Vocal Meter in Schoenberg's Atonal Music, with a Note on a Serial Hauptstimme" (X)

12. (April 13) Applied Listening
Pick one or more poetry performances and do a close or comparative listening of the audiotext.

13. (April 20) Ferneyhough
Recorded Music
Brian Ferneyhough, String Quartet No. 4
Brian Ferneyhough, On Stellar Magnitudes
Readings and Scores
Brian Ferneyhough, "Leaps and Circuits to Trail: A Conversation on the Texts and Music with Jeffrey Stadelman" (X)
Brian Ferneyhough, "String Quartet No. 4" (X)
Brian Ferneyhough, "Il tempo della figura" (MLR)
Brian Ferneyhough, "Responses to a Questionnaire on 'Complexity" (MLR)
Brian Ferneyhough, On Stellar Magnitudes (MLR)
Brian Ferneyhough, String Quartet No. 4 (MLR)

14. (April 27) Last Class
 

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND DISCOGRAPHY

Lockwood Reserve (3 day)
Jacques Attali, Noise: The Political Economy of Music
Richard Bauman, ed., Folklore, Cultural Performances, and Popular Entertainments : A Communications-Centered Handbook GR35 .F64 1992
Roman Jakobson, The Sound Shape of Language P217.J33 1979b
Language in Literature PN54.J35 1987
Kurt Schwitters, Poems, performance pieces, proses, plays, poetics; edited & translated by Jerome Rothenberg & Pierre Joris PT2638.W896 A27 1993
Garrett Stewart, Reading Voices PR21.S7 1990
Reuven Tsur, What Makes Sound Patterns Expressive P119.T78 1992
Andrew Welsh, Roots of the Lyric PN1042.W44
James Anderson Winn, A History of the Relations between Poetry and Music ML3849W58

Musical Materials
Recordings (all MLR)
Examples of classical vocal styles and genres (reserve cassette)
"Qui sedes" from Gregorian chant: the complete 1930 French HMV Recordings of the monastic choir of the Abbey of Saint Pierre de Solesmes [ECS7656]
"Strange Fruit" from The Complete Billie Holiday on Verve, 1945-1959 [CD X991/1000]
Milton Babbitt, Phonemena, from To the Verge [ECA 7169]
Milton Babbitt, A Solo Requiem [LP 12830]
Luciano Berio, Sequenza III, for female voice from To the Verge [ECA 7169]
Luciano Berio, Thema: Omaggio a Joyce, & Visage [CD 3128]; Sinfonia [CD 1942]
Christian Bök, compliation tape of sound and performance poetry (reserve cassette)
Pierre Boulez, le marteau sans maitre from Musique de notre temps: reperes 1945/1975 [CD 781/84]
John Cage, Hymns and Variations: for Twelve Amplified Voices [reserve cassette]
John Cage, Europeras 3 & 4 (excerpts) [ECS7547]
Thomas Campion, "Shall I come, sweet love, to thee?", and "If thou long'st so much to learn," from English ayres and duets [EAM6217]
Elliott Carter, Syringa [LP 13116; C98 (cassette); and/or CD 1470]
Morton Feldman, Three Voices [CD 879]
Morton Feldman, Neither [CD 4002]
Brian Ferneyhough, String Quartet No. 4 [CD 3726]
Brian Ferneyhough, On Stellar Magnitudes [CD 3796]
Franz Joseph Haydn, Symphony No. 46, movement no. 1 [reserve cassette]
Paul Lansky, Six Fantasies on a Poem of Thomas Campion [CD 2831]
Paul Lansky, Just More Idle Chatter, from Inner Voices [CD 2642]
Paul Lansky, Not Just More Idle Chatter, from False Phonemes [ECY 5882 ]
Gyorgi Ligeti, Lux Aeterna and Aventures from Chamber concerto; Ramifications; II. String quartet; Aventures; Lux aeterna [CD 892]
Steve Reich, The Cave [CD 3162/63]
Arnold Schoenberg, Moses und Aron, Act I [CD 2876/77]
Arnold Schoenberg, Book of the Hanging Gardens [CD 1166/68]
Arnold Schoenberg, Pierrot Lunaire and Herzgewaechse [CD 2003]

Stadelman Assigned Texts
Handout to accompany vocal cassette (X)
Bruce Andrews, "Praxis: A Political Economy of Noise and Information," in Close Listening
Theodor Adorno, "Sacred Fragment: Schoenberg's Moses und Aron," from Quasi una Fantasia: essays on modern music (X) [ML 423 A33A29 1992]
Theodor Adorno, "vers une musique informelle," from Quasi una fantasia: essays on modern music (X) [ML 423 A33A29 1992]
Luciano Berio with Umberto Eco, "Eco in Ascolto," Contemporary Music Review
Mark Evan Bonds, Wordless Rhetoric (excerpts) (X) [ML 3845 B6]
William Brooks, "John Cage and History: Hymns and Variations," Perspectives of New Music Vol. 31, No. 2 (Summer 1993) (X)
Robert Cogan, New Images of Musical Sound (excerpts) (X) [MT 6 C63N5]
Joseph Dubiel, Three Essays on Milton Babbitt (Part 2), Perspectives of New Music (X)
Morton Feldman materials from Chris Villars' website: <http://www.cnvill.demon.co.uk/mftexts.htm>, see especially numbers 3, 4 and 15
Morton Feldman, "The Anxiety of Art," "Darmstadt Lecture," and other selections from Morton FeldmanEssays [ML 410 F35A25 1985] (MLR)
Brian Ferneyhough, "Leaps and Circuits to Trail: A Conversation on the Texts and Music with Jeffrey Stadelman," from Collected Writings (X) [ML410 .F3736 A1 1995]
Brian Ferneyhough, "String Quartet No. 4," in Collected Writings (X)
Brian Ferneyhough, "Il tempo della figura," in Collected Writings (MLR)
Brian Ferneyhough, "Responses to a Questionnaire on 'Complexity'," in Collected Writings (MLR)
Lawrence Kramer, Music and Poetry: The Nineteenth Century and After, "Introduction" and "Song as Insight--John Ashbery, Elliott Carter, and Orpheus" (chapters 1 and 7) (X) [ML 3849 K7]
Online Paul Lansky materials: Interview with Alistair Riddell, "A Tuner of His World" in Context, no. 15/16 (1998), pp. 33-46; "I Thought I'd Write a Song or Two," to appear in Making Musics: Collaborations Between Poets and Composers, 1978-2000, ed Joseph Duemer and David Rakowski; "The Inner Voices of Simple Things: A Conversation With Paul Lansky" by Jeff Perry, from Perspectives of New Music, vol.34/2, pp. 40-61. All available at: <http://silvertone.princeton.edu/~paul> Also, a linked interview at: <http://www.electronicmusic.com/features/interview/paullansky.html>
Fred Lerdahl, "Cognitive Constraints on Compositional Systems," Contemporary Music Review (X)
David Lewin, "Vocal Meter in Schoenberg's Atonal Music, with a Note on a Serial Hauptstimme," In Theory Only Vol. 6, No. 4 (X)
Andrew Mead, An Introduction to the Music of Milton Babbitt (excerpts) (X) [ML 410 B07ZM4]
David Osmond-Smith, Berio (excerpts) (MLR) [ML 410 B488ZO69]
David Osmond-Smith, Playing on Words, a guide to Luciano Berio's Sinfonia (MLR) [ML410 B488ZO7]
Jander and Pleasants, "Singing," entry from Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians (X)
William Pritchett, The Music of John Cage (excerpts) (MLR) [ML 410 F35A25 1985]
Steve Reich, Writings about Music (excerpts) (X) [ML 410 R29A1]
David Schiff, The Music of Elliott Carter (excerpts) (X) (MLR) [ML 410 C3293ZS8 1998]

Scores (all MLR)
Milton Babbitt, Phonemena [M 71 B113 p]
John Cage, Hymns and Variations: for Twelve Amplified Voices [Oversize M 720 C117 h]
Elliott Carter, Syringa [M 7205 C245 s]
Brian Ferneyhough, On Stellar Magnitudes [M 7105 F395]
Brian Ferneyhough, String Quartet No. 4

Bernstein Xerox Checklist:
Andrew Welsh, Roots of Lyric (L and X)
Stephen Ratcliffe, Campion, On Song (X)
John Cage, "Lecture for Nothing" (X)
David Antin, "What It Means to be Avant Garde"(X)
Roman Jakobson, "Quest for the Essence of Language" (X)
George Lakoff sound symbolism notes (X)
Roland Barthes, "Listening" (X)
Garrett Stewart, Reading Voices (X, L)
Prynne, J.H., "Stars, Tigers, and The Shape of Words" (X)
"Sound" and "Performance" in the new Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics (X)
Walter Benjamin, "Doctrine of the Similar" and "Language as Such and the Language of Man" (X)