Course content

The transition to the 20th century brought radical changes to Western art music. Established principles of tonality were abandoned, which in turn challenged a conception of musical form that had largely been oriented around the conventions of tension and release in functional harmony.

In the void, a wide range of harmonic and formal strategies emerged, for example freer forms of tonality, atonality, and modality. Other composers emphasized rhythm, texture, or timbre as form-bearing parameters. All these tendencies point forward toward the score-based music of today.

This course provides an introduction to selected composition techniques in Western art music of the 20th and 21st centuries. Throughout the course, the same compositional and formal phenomena will be explored through aural analysis, score study, analytical theory, and individual creative work. The aim is to gain insight into the driving forces behind different kinds of music from early modernism—with composers such as Bartók, Stravinsky, and L. Boulanger—to late modernism, including composers like Gubaidulina, and further into our own time, including examples from Norwegian contemporary music. The musical examples and analyses form the basis for the students’ own compositions and compositional exercises.

Learning outcome

Knowledge:

Candidates who complete MUSV3151

• has knowledge of selected compositional techniques, formal strategies, and instrumentation techniques from the 20th and 21st centuries
• has knowledge of selected analytical methods
• has general knowledge of the compositional and musicological academic traditions relevant to the course

Skills:

Candidates who complete MUSV3151

• can creatively apply selected compositional, orchestration, formal, and notation techniques from the 20th and 21st centuries
• can carry out independent musical analyses and present them convincingly in both written and oral form
• can use relevant analytical theory when working with musical analysis

Learning methods and activities

Lectures, seminars, assigned readings, repertoire studies, written assignments, and practical exercises.

In order to take the final exam, submission of up to 5 written assignments is required.

Compulsory assignments

• Written assignments

Specific conditions

Required previous knowledge

Passed MUSV2010, MUSP4163 or MUSK4420.