"Music and Jewish Identity" - Selected Topics in Musicology

Instructors

• Jesse Rosenberg - 847/467-2033 - j-rosenberg1@northwestern.edu

Meeting Info

• Music Administration Bldg 229 - Tu 2:00PM - 4:50PM

• Overview of class

  Issues of Jewish identity in Music 1800-1950
  
  This graduate level seminar will explore a number of issues concerning Jewish identity in Western art music from the beginning of the 19th-century through the middle of the 20th. Among the topics we will investigate are the musical and dramatic representation of Jewish characters in selected operas by Rossini, Halévy, Mascagni, and Richard Strauss; Wagner's anti-semitism and his attack on Meyerbeer, the complexities of identity in the case of music by Jewish-born converts to Christianity such as Felix Mendelssohn, Ferdinand Hiller, and Gustav Mahler; the Jewish-inspired works of Swiss composer Ernest Bloch, Arnold Schoenberg's Jewish musical legacy, the ramifications of anti-Semitism in the musical policies of totalitarian states, and the peculiar position of assimilated Jewish composers in the United States.

• Evaluation Method

  A final presentation and research paper will be required of all students.

Current as of 06/15/13 01:41:06 AM

2013 Northwestern University Full Site