Approaches to Analysis

Harvard FAS

This course takes on music theory’s obsession with musical form. This overriding goal means two distinct things: it “takes on”—grapples with—the powerful tradition of musical formalism by exploring how musical forms are successfully analyzed, and at the same time it critically interrogates why music theory is so preoccupied with this aspect of music over all others. Traditionally, musical form in general has meant sonata form in particular. But this tacit equation—and the entire formalist…