GRMUS 640H — Chopin and Liszt

This course will explore the lives, music, and cultural environment of Chopin and Liszt — contemporaries, friends, and, one might say, alter egos. The course investigates the composers’ lives as performers and the evolution of their musical styles against the backdrop of Parisian life and musical culture, and its cross currents with Romantic literature and poetry, in the 1830s and 1840s. Current scholarship and analytical studies on the music of the two composers will be considered, as well as their music’s reception history and its role in the musical culture of today.