Lecture 1. Musical phonology (104 min.) : Beginning/introduction -- Musical grammar -- Overview of linguistics -- A common origin -- Heightened speech -- The harmonic series -- Tempered tones -- Universals -- Musical monogenesis -- The golden age -- Diatonic containment -- Mozart's symphony no. 40 in g minor, K.550. Molto allegro -- Andante -- Menuetto: allegretto-trio -- Allegro assai -- Conclusion.
Lecture 2. Musical syntax (95 min.) : Beginning/introduction -- Chromsky's universal grammar -- Verbal and musical correspondences -- Interdisciplinary terms -- Transformational grammar -- Musical analogies -- Poetry: a true parallel with music -- Musical prose -- Surface structure -- Mozart's symphony no. 40 in g minor K.550 performed for 21 bars showing the "surface structure" -- Deep structure -- Symmetry -- Bar-by-bar accentuation -- Structural ambiguities -- Review of entire first movement of Mozart's symphony no. 40 in g minor K.550 -- Conclusion.
Lecture 3. Musical semantics (104 min.) : Beginning/introduction -- Semantic ambiguity -- Musical metaphor -- Musical semantics -- What does music mean? -- Musical equivalent for figures of speech -- Repetition -- Analysis of Beethoven's Pastorale Symphony -- Transforming repetition into metaphor -- Varied repetitions -- Beethoven symphony no. 6 in F major. I. Allegro ma non troppo -- II. Andante molto mosso -- III. Allegro, IV. Allegro, V. Allegretto -- Conclusion.
Lecture 4. The delights and dangers of ambiguity (142 min.) : Beginning/introduction -- Defining ambiguity -- Beethoven and the increase of ambiguity -- Ambiguity and the Romantic revolution -- Chromaticism -- Chromatic ambiguity -- Berlioz: Romeo alone: festivities in Capulet's palace from Romeo and Juliet -- Berlioz and Wagner -- The growth of tonal language -- Wagner: prelude and Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde -- The brink of radical change -- Toward total ambiguity -- Debussy: prelude a l'apres midi d'un faune -- Conclusion.
Lecture 5. The twentieth century crisis (133 min.) : Beginning/introduction -- Ravel: Rapsodie Espagnole, Mvt. 4 (Feria) -- The crisis in musical semantics -- The renunciation of tonality -- Ives' The unanswered question -- The dilemma of the new century -- The twelve tone method -- Atonality and tonality -- Is music ultimately tonal? -- Negative and positive ambiguity -- Berg: Violin concerto -- excerpt -- Mahler's prophetic visions -- Mahler's farewell -- Mahler: Symphony no. 9 in D major, mvt. 4.
Lecture 6. The poetry of Earth (177 min.) : Beginning/ introduction -- Art and artificiality -- Objectivity and expression -- New tonal dissonances -- Stravinsky's asymmetrical structures -- Old and new vernaculars -- Stravinsky's neoclassicism -- Neoclassicism in poetry -- Abstract semantics -- The sense of the absurd -- Analysis of Oedipus Rex -- Stravinsky: Oedipus Rex -- Conclusion.
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