Unresolved Dissonance: Analyzing Classical Music’s Most Memorable Moments

3 Credits.

Strict rules about resolving dissonances dominated Western classical music theory and composition across the Common Practice Period, thereby codifying a precise framework of expectations for how music “should” work. Yet what could arguably be described as some of the most expressive moments in music from this time occur precisely when those established rules are subverted. This 3-credit graduate seminar invites students to enter into the mindset of composers and initial audiences of selected music and to examine such issues as 1) when–and under what conditions–subversion of the rules was indeed considered subversive; 2) what it meant for music to exert clear—even visceral—power over audiences in such moments; and 3) how the irregular treatment of dissonance has been almost an idée fixe within the Common Practice Period, a function whose expressive potential has been endlessly reimagined.