Music 15, Fall 2021
Paper Outline Prompt – Genius and the Canon
Due: Tuesday, November 2nd, 8:00pm PST
Listening:
Corelli, Concerto Grosso in D major op. 6, no. 4 (1714)
Ludwig van Beethoven
Symphony No. 9 (1822-1824)
Movement 4, Presto, allegro assai
Johannes Brahms
Symphony No. 4 (1884)
Movement 4, Allegro energico e passionate
Amy Beach
Gaelic Symphony (1894)
Movement 2, alla siciliana
Igor Stravinsky
Symphony in C (1940)
Movement 1, Moderato alla breve
Alex Temple
The Man Who Hated Everything (2015)
Reading:
Frisch, Music in the Nineteenth Century
Concert Culture and the “Great” Symphony, 174-178
The Romantic Imagination, 13-22
Music and the Age of Metternich, 32-37
Franz Schubert, 42-45
The Opera Industry, 52-60
Robert Schumann and the Lied, 109-111
Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel and the Musical Salon, 85-87
Clara Wieck Schumann and the Keyboard, 87-90
Goehr, The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works
“After 1800: The Beethoven Paradigm,” excerpts, 205-208
Burkholder, “Museum Pieces: The Historicist Mainstream in Music of the Last Hundred
Years,” 115-134
Amy Beach, 753-755
Spitzer and Zaslow, The Birth of the Orchestra.
“Corelli’s Orchestra,” 105-106
“Corelli’s Career,” 115-117
“Venues and Performances, 118-123”
Tick, “Passed Away is the Piano Girl: Changes in American Musical Life, 1870-1900”
325-345
Temple, “Composers, Performers, and Consent” (primary source)
Upton, Woman in Music, 15-32 (primary source)
(NOTE: You need not, and in fact SHOULD NOT, use all of these sources – they are
simply the sources available to you. Use whichever best suit the tack you take for this
paper)
Assignment Description:
Academic writing is a process with more steps than simply “writing the paper.” College-level
papers that demonstrate critical thinking and engagement with course materials need to be
carefully planned and thought out before any actual prose are written.
This assignment is meant to help you practice these planning steps before you submit the full
paper. Because of the importance of the planning stages of the paper, fully written papers at
this stage will not be accepted and will receive a zero.
While there are certain minimum requirements a detailed outline will need to fulfill, you are
encouraged to try different outline formats to find what works best for you.
Your outline must include, but is not limited to, the following:
 Drafts of your full introduction paragraph, including thesis statement
 Proposed bibliography
 Topic sentences (or one-sentence summaries) of each paragraph (should be 5-7 such
paragraphs), with bullet point enumerations of support for that summary that include,
over the course of the outline:
o At least 2 in-text citations with full footnote citation and bibliographic entries.
o Reference to at least one musical example and musical details
 Your addressing of all parts of the prompt given below.
Your outline should show a clear flow of ideas and general sense of cohesion that is based on
your thesis. You are not required to use complete sentences in the bullet point enumerations.
(Most outlines use bullet points, but if you would like to try a different format, please check in
with your TA.)
The full paper will be 3-4 pages, so your outline should be no more than two pages (and likely
closer to 1 – 1.5 pages) single spaced and must be submitted as a word document.
Prompt:
J. Peter Burkholder argues that “Once the concert hall became a museum, the only works
appropriate to be performed there were museum pieces—either pieces which were already old
and revered or pieces which served exactly the same function, as musical works of lasting value
which proclaimed a distinctive musical personality, which rewarded study, and which became
loved as they became familiar.” The idea of the concert hall as a sort of “musical museum” that
preserves the work of long-dead composers, as well as the repercussions of this notion for living
composers, forms the basis of your first paper.
Your paper will will explore two areas:
1. The emergence of the musical canon, focusing on the music and reception of Ludwig
van Beethoven.
2. How the canon and “musical museum” have affected the music produced after
Beethoven and the ways in which later composers contend with its existence.
Your paper should have a clear thesis statement that uses the above readings and music to make
a clear statement about (2). Your framing and background from (1) will serve as important
context.
There are a number of different directions you could go with this paper. Here are some questions
you might consider*:
– How did the idea of writing music, especially symphonies, change as a result of the “musical
museum?”
– How did the existence of the canon affect the works of Johannes Brahms (a late-19th century
composer), Igor Stravinsky (a 20th century composer), and 21st century composers like Alex
Temple? How are their ideas and works reactions to the existence of a traditional canon of
musical masterworks?
– How might the idea of genius and the musical museum affect the relationship between
composers and the musicians that play their works?
– How did pervasive societal attitudes towards expectations of gender roles affect opportunity
for admittance into the canon?
*You will not be able to thoroughly consider all of these ideas in 3-4 pages, and will have to
choose the tack you take.
You must back up your argument by citing sources from the reading above. Use no other
sources.
Format:
Typed, 12-pt. Times New Roman, single spaced Word document, standard 1” margins, bullet
points accepted
You must use proper Chicago-style citation formatting.