This module examines the music and musical culture of late Victorian and Edwardian Britain, a time of wide-ranging and intensive activity. In art music this was the period of the so-called ‘British Music Renaissance’, evidenced in the works of composers such as Stanford, Parry, Elgar, Holst and Vaughan Williams, while in popular music operetta, dominated by Gilbert & Sullivan, was a hugely successful form of mass entertainment. We shall put this music, and that of other composers (who may include Coleridge Taylor, Smyth, Lehmann, Stainer, Boughton, MacCunn and Butterworth) in its wider social and cultural context, considering such activities as choral societies, music festivals, amateur and domestic music-making, music education, theatres and opera houses and the development of professional orchestras, whilst also considering what the British valued in music by examining attitudes to foreign music and music’s social and moral purpose.
Learning Outcomes
By the end of the module students should be able to:
Produce nuanced and wide-ranging discussions relating to music and musical activity produced in Britain between 1870 and 1914 with reference to its social and cultural context;
Identify and analyse significant topoi and themes which influenced British composers of this period;
Display a sophisticated knowledge of relevant recent scholarly literature.
Assessment: 10% Weekly reading responses (500 words); 40% Essay 1 (2000 words) OR PowerPoint presentation with recorded narration, up to 16 minutes in duration (plus audio and/or video examples as appropriate up to an additional 5 minutes); 50% Essay 2 (2500 words) OR PowerPoint presentation with recorded narration, up to 20 minutes in duration (plus audio and/or video examples as appropriate up to an additional 5 minutes).
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.