How to Listen to and Understand Great Music, 3rd Edition

Introducing themes, concepts and terminology that will be used throughout the series.

Introducing the ancient world as a 4,000-year period of extraordinary cultural richness.

Focusing on the changing role of music in the medieval world.

Examining the impact of ancient Greek and Roman culture on Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries.

Introducing the mass as the most important compositional genre of the renaissance.

Focusing on the madrigal, the most important genre of Italian secular music of the late renaissance.

Comparing the measured elegance of renaissance music with the extravagant emotionalism of baroque music.

Building listening skills and a descriptive vocabulary and discussing style and features of baroque music.

Describing the rise of German music during the baroque.

Introducing the parts of a fugue, including the exposition, subject restatements and episodes.

Discussing the evolution of opera from the late renaissance through the early baroque.

Continuing with the evolution of opera from the late renaissance through the early baroque.

Exploring the oratorio and Lutheran church cantata, as well as the baroque mass, sacred motet and more.

Focusing on the Lutheran church cantata, which evolves as a musical commentary on a bible reading.

Exploring the processes that organize musical materials into recognizable structures without words.

Focusing now on ritornello form and the Baroque concerto.

Introducing the Age of Enlightenment and its impact on musical style.

Building listening skills and vocabulary regarding cadence, or musical punctuation.

Examining an adaptation of baroque variations to the musical needs of the classical era.

Investigating baroque minuet and trio form, the antecedent of classical minuet and trio form.

Examining the highly stylized minuet and trios of the classical era.

Discussing the antecedents of rondo form, the French rondeau and the baroque ritornello form.

Discussing the many meanings and uses of the word sonata.

Analyzing and discussing the fourth movement of Mozart's symphony in G minor, K. 550.

Analyzing and discussing two additional sonata-allegro form movements.

Exploring the classical symphony as both an orchestral genre and a social phenomenon.

Discussing the perfection of the violin family and the invention of the piano during the baroque era.

Exploring the ideal operatic genre for the classical era's plots, music and characters.

Discussing the operas of Mozart with special attention to Don Giovanni.

Discussing Ludwig van Beethoven's life and the revolutionary era he experiences.

Discussing Beethoven's four compositional periods and exploring his significant compositional innovations.

Describing Beethoven's mature compositional innovations and artistic beliefs.

Examining four romantic trends studied in detail over the next few lectures.

Exploring a paradox faced by early romantic composers.

Exploring the initial of two great romantic originals, Hector Berlioz.

Hector Berlioz combines his four great loves in Symphonie fantastique.

Examining early 19th-century Italian opera as a popular art.

Hearing and discussing the final scene from Verdi's opera Aida.

Examining the rise of German literature and musical theater in the works of Goethe and Mozart.

Exploring the overture and Act I of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde.

Considering the major genres of 19th-century orchestral program music.

Discussing major genres of 19th-century orchestral program music.

Examining the trend of folkloric musical nationalism during the second half of the 19th century.

Discussing and illustrating the music and ideas of the Russian five.

Surveying musical and expressive trends from the baroque Era through the late 19th century.

Exploring early 20th-century modernism by examining the life and music of Claude Debussy.

Exploring early 20th-century modernism with a discussion of Igor Stravinsky.

Exploring early 20th-century modernism with Arnold Schönberg.