Course Details in 2025/26 Session

Module Title	LH Classical Composition
School	Lan, Cult, Art Hist & Music
Department	Music
Module Code	10 30764
Module Lead	Matthew Riley
Level	Honours Level
Credits	20
Semester	Semester 2
Pre-requisites	LI Analysis of Music - (09 25658)
Co-requisites
Restrictions	None
Contact Hours	Seminar-16 hours Tutorial-2 hours Guided independent study-182 hours Total: 200 hours
Exclusions
Description	The familiar ‘Viennese Classical style’ of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven is grounded in the common language and the compositional schemata of the ‘galant style’, which, as recent research in music theory has shown, was generated by means of standard ‘rules of thumb’, applied in a wide variety of ways and encoded in manuscript ‘partimento’ exercises rather than published treatises. Robert O. Gjerdingen, Music in the Galant Style (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007); Giorgio Sanguinetti, The Art of Partimento: History, Theory and Practice (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012). This style, originally taught at the Neapolitan conservatories, modelled the styles of Francesco Durante and Leonardo Leo and dominated musical taste and practice at the fashionable courts of Europe for most of the eighteenth century. Students will learn to recognize the schemata as realized in eighteenth-century compositions and to apply such rules themselves in order to create pieces in eighteenth-century styles. Building on the functional approach of William E. Caplin, students will combine these techniques with an understanding of eighteenth-century forms such as binary, rounded binary, minuet and sonata form in order to create late eighteenth-century (‘Classical’) instrumental pieces. William E. Caplin, Classical Form: a Theory of Formal Functions for the Instrumental Music of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998).
Learning Outcomes	By the end of the module students should be able to: recognize with reliable precision the schemata of the galant style as realized in eighteenth-century compositions realize a partimento-type exercise in the galant style with significant stylistic understanding compose a convincing eighteenth-century-style minuet using galant schemata compose a late-eighteenth-century-style sonata-allegro movement of considerable ambition and scope
Assessment	30764-01 : Exercise 1 : Coursework (20%) 30764-02 : Exercise 2 : Coursework (20%) 30764-03 : Exercise 3 : Coursework (20%) 30764-04 : Exercise 4 : Coursework (40%)
Assessment Methods & Exceptions	Assessment: Exercise 1 - schemata recognition (20%); Exercise 2 - figured-bass realization (20%); Exercise 3 - minuet (20%); Exercise 4 - sonata movement (40%). Reassessment: No resits are permitted in final year. If students miss the assessed task owing to extenuating circumstances, the failed task would be rescheduled at a later date.
Other
Reading List