Upcoming Graham School Classes: Some Suggested Preparation

By April 1, syllabi will be available for Tuesday’s Baroque, Wednesday’s Beethoven, and Thursday’s Dvorak class, on this site. I regret that I do not get these syllabi up earlier, but I prepare up to the very last minute and things don’t come fully into focus until the 11th hour…partially because I never use old syllabi, formats, or readings, but re-think every class I give, even standard “Life and Works” classes that I’ve taught many times. For some, my lack of rigid adherence to a given syllabus is problematical, but others prefer spontaneity and flexibility; probably it is best to steer something like a middle course.

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Preparation for My Winter Thursday Course

The idea for the class, “Music in Cultural History: Aesthetics and Idealogy” to be offered Thursday mornings, was originally a plan to examine composers and their works in the regimes of Stalin and the Soviets and also the Third Reich, and was to be an examination of the artist in a condition of aesthetic tyranny.

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