322 The Baroque Sonata 1600-1740
This course will address the fundamental issues surrounding the early development of the sonata in the Baroque era. Students will learn music that few of them are likely to know, and analyze in depth music that may be more familiar. The first half of the semester will be devoted to the sonata in seventeenth-century Italy; the second half will follow the sonata as it spreads through Europe. Each week we will hear a sonata and discuss the questions it raises, which will include the following: 1) the relationship between the sonata and canzona, 2) the relationship between the sonata and the suite, 3) social settings of the sonata, 4) texture and instrumentation, 5) virtuosic techniques and 6) form.