MASTER
IN MUSICOLOGY (M.Mus) DEGREE
The MMus is a one-year programme leading to an MMus degree in either Historical Musicology or in Ethnomusicology. In both programme versions, students take core and option modules based on the research interests of the School. They also participate in three visiting seminars in Musicology, Ethnomusicology and Analysis. These seminars offer an opportunity to hear some of the best musicologists at work today: recent speakers have included Philip Bohlman, Anthony Seeger, Iain Fenlon and Reinhard Strohm. MMus students also participate in a research colloquium and write a dissertation based on this presentation. A strong emphasis on research is a core element of the MMus programme; MMus students have contributed regularly to the School’s annual periodical The Musicology Review and have often pursued PhD studies based on their Master’s dissertations.
The School organizes a field trip each year in which the Master’s Class (in both programmes) and members of Staff travel to Europe for three or four days in the Second Semester. Destinations have recently included Vienna, Prague, Berlin and Paris.
The requirements of the programme can be summarized as follows.
Core module 10 credits
Three option modules 10 credits each
Graduate Colloquium 5 credits
Dissertation 45 credits
Total 90 credits
In the academic year 2007/8 the following modules will be offered.
M.Mus in Historical Musicology
- Research Methods in Musicology (core)
- Music in Nineteenth Century Ireland: History, Culture and Politics (option)
- Bruckner as Symphonist (option)
- The Representation of Death in Music and Other Meda (option)
- Music in Medieval Ireland, 1100-1400: Church and Society (option)
- Graduate Colloquium (core)
- Dissertation (core)
Students opting for the MMus in Historical Musicology are required to take the core module in this subject area. Further core modules are the Graduate Colloquium and the Minor Dissertation (ca. 10-15,000 words). As optional modules, students have to choose two further modules in Historical Musicology. Finally, they have to take one further module in Historical Musicology or one in Ethnomusicology (see below).
- Research Methods in Musicology - Prof White & Dr Horton
This course provides a survey of the principal transatlantic strands of musicological and music-analytical scholarship since the Second-World War. It seeks to provide grounding in key methodologies, including philological method, models of historiography, analytical techniques and their transmission, and crucial recent developments, including approaches to performance practice and concepts of authenticity, musicological engagements with postmodernism and the claims of the 'new' musicology.
- Music in Nienteenth Century Ireland: History, Culture and Politics - Prof White
A survey of music in Ireland during the `long¿ nineteenth century which will identify the political and cultural issues that governed and in some cases hindered the reception and development of music; a scrutiny of the impact of German and English romanticism on the development of a distinctive identity for Irish music. The formation of two distinctive musical cultures in Ireland in the same period, based on recent research and in particular on Music in Nineteenth-Century Ireland, ed. Michael Murphy and Jan Smaczny (Irish Musical Studies, Vol. 9, Dublin: 2007).
- Bruckner as Symphonist - Dr Horton
This course offers a detailed study of the musicological, historical and analytical issues surrounding the symphonies of Anton Bruckner. It deals with the problem of the editions and versions, the historical circumstances of the symphonies in late nineteenth-century Vienna, their critical reception in a variety of contexts (including the Third Reich) and issues in the analysis of form, harmony, tonality and thematic process.
- The Representation of Death in Music and Other Media - Dr Marx
Death is one of the most important subjects of the arts as well as philosophy and religion; in music, some of the most moving compositions of all times are related to it.
After an introductional discussion of philosophical and theological concepts of death and afterlife, this module will focus on the representation of death in music from ca. 1750 until today. At first we shall look at the depiction of death in sacred music (namely the requiem mass), followed by death in opera, in song and in instrumental music. Yet music cannot be analysed on its own; particularly in the 19th and 20th centuries it virtually always interacts with other media like literature (in the case of vocal music) or painting (in programme music; a famous example are compositions based on Arnold Böcklin¿s painting The Isle of the Dead); in the case of opera acting and staging also come into play.
The module is designed for students registered for the Master in Musicology programme as well as for students enrolled for the History of the Media programme. While being able to read music is advantageous, the module can be taken by students without prior knowledge of music.
- Music in Medieval Ireland, 1100-1400: Church and Society - Frank Lawrence
This survey of the music of the Medieval Irish Church examines some of the major questions and concerns of Medieval Musicology in an Irish context and focuses on surviving manuscript sources. The course engages with questions of oral transmission and memory, improvised polyphony and the transition to written record, the relationship between notated and unnotated musical sources and repertorial reception and transmission issues in the wider context of the British Isles and Europe. Key political and cultural issues that impacted on the development of plainchant and polyphony will be identified, including the Anglo-Norman invasion and its musical repercussions. In particular, the shift from an eclectic Eurocentric to a restricted Anglocentric repertory will be discussed in the light of the broader social, cultural and political context. The course will include a library visit which will offer the opportunity to engage directly with medieval manuscript sources.
- History of Ethnomusicological Thought (core)
- Vernacular Musics of North America (core)
- Field Theory and Methodology (core)
- Graduate Colloquium (core)
- Dissertation (core)
The MMus in Ethnomusicology comprises six modules, including seminars, a graduate colloquium and research papers or examinations; and a dissertation of 10,000-15,000 words, offering original research (based on fieldwork or archival research into an ethnomusicological topic). In the graduate colloquium, students present a paper that will generally form the basis or outline of their minor dissertation.
Students opting for the MMus in Ethnomusicology are required to take all modules in Ethnomusicology (nos. 1-3). They have to take one further module in Historical Musicology (see above, nos. 1-4). They also have to participate in the Graduate Colloquium. The set of core modules is completed by the Dissertation.
A formal paper is required at the end of each module (except the Graduate Colloquium). Examination papers may be set in the case of some modules (one of five taught modules in the academic year 2006-7).
- History of Ethnomusicology Thought - Dr Smith
This course is designed to introduce the student to the discipline of Ethnomusicology through an analysis of the development of the field and its history of ideas, an introduction to contemporary ethnomusicological thought, and a consideration of contemporary issues in the field.
The course may consider selected music traditions in the context of these topics, based on the premise that music is a reflection of cultural systems and values. This is intended not only to introduce the student to different kinds of music, but to different ways of thinking about music.
- Vernacular Music of North America - Dr Smith
This course is designed to introduce the student to vernacular musics of the (primarily North) American continent. A selected number of musical cultures and styles will be examined and contextualised, based on the premise that music is a reflection of social and cultural systems. The course is designed to introduce the student to American music, not as a monolithic entity, but as a tapestry of sometimes interwoven, yet independent musical constructs.
- Field Theory and Methodology - Jamie Jones
Through an analysis of texts describing techniques and methodologies of fieldwork, and their relationship to field theory, and through consideration of contemporary ethnomusicologist’s descriptions of experiences in the field, students will formulate a plan for a field project and begin to pursue it in the field. This initial field project may form the basis for the dissertation.