Final Paper Guidelines
In an essay of at least three pages, double-spaced with a 12-point font, present and defend a clearly
articulated thesis regarding the cultural significance and meaning of a musical work in the classical tradition.
The essay should examine one of the following works:
1. W. A. Mozart – Don Giovanni
2. Schubert, “Die Erlkönig” (the Erlking)
3. Ludwig van Beethoven – Symphony No. 5 in C minor
4. Aaron Copland – Appalachian Spring
5. Igor Stravinsky – The Rite of Spring
Additional research about the work and its composer outside of the textbook will be necessary to complete this
assignment.
The essay should be organized around a central thesis that is clearly stated in the introduction. The essay should
integrate the following issues and material into the development of this thesis:
1. Identify a cultural theme or value exemplified by the work you have chosen, and link this theme or value to
the sociopolitical context in which the work was produced. Why is this theme or value of relevance to the
production of this work?
2. Who composed the work? Describe at least three important aspects of this composer’s social and cultural
environment that shaped his or her professional life.
3. To what period in music history does this work belong? Define at least three important aspects of the musical
style of this period. In broad terms, how does this work reflect the cultural, aesthetic, and/or political values of
this period?
4. What is the genre of the work (i.e. opera, cantata, program symphony, etc.)? What are the basic
characteristics and historical background of this genre? What kinds of expectations might audience members
have had when encountering a new work in this genre?
5. Select at least one movement or extended section of the work and describe its distinctive stylistic, dramatic,
and/or formal aspects as they relate to the cultural and aesthetic values of the period.
The paper should be organized clearly by stating and developing a central thesis across the essay, supported by
detailed description and examples. It should be proofread carefully and have no significant errors in grammar,
syntax, and spelling. The essay should be at least three pages in length and should indicate any sources
consulted in a bibliography.
I think a helpful way to approach a thesis statement in music appreciation is to think about the paper as
explaining one of two things:
1. What does this piece of music tell us about the time and place it was created?
2. How does understanding the time and place this music was created help us understand the music itself better?
Now, what would that thesis statement look like? Here’s an example of approach #1 above:
Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique demonstrates several innovations in its form and content in the symphonic
genre that are indicative of the changing concerns of the early Romantic period. Berlioz is interested in using
the symphony as a narrative form to tell an extra-musical story, or program. This is consistent with an interest,
shared by many composers of his era, in drawing connections between music and other art forms such as theatre
and literature. In order to achieve these effects, Berlioz takes full advantage of the expanding palette of sounds
available to an orchestral composer of his era, including relying on newly available technologies. Berlioz also
reflects the Romantic notions that a composer’s creations ought to reflect an individual subjectivity or
personality, not merely the formal order and intelligibility of the Classical era.
How about approach #2? I think an effective rhetorical strategy to take with this is to pose the reader the idea
that there are kinds of musical meaning that are confusing, or not necessarily obvious, if one doesn’t understand
the context in which they’re made. The effect is essentially to structure an argument thus: While at first glance,
it may seem that the artist is doing X, a closer analysis reveals that Y.
For example, here’s how I might set up an intro paragraph. Thesis statement in boldface:
Schoenberg’s Op. 25 is a piece that Schoenberg composed using his newly developed serialist technique. A
causal or first-time listener to this piece may be confused by a piece that seems deliberately dissonant and even
off-putting, and devoid of structure. Upon closer analysis, however, the piece reveals itself to be the product of
a carefully designed process in which conventional notions of harmony and tonality are deliberately discarded.
This process is not merely a formal invention, however. Rather, Schoenberg’s desire to break from tonality is
the result of his understanding of his own role as heir to and protagonist in a history of musical
development in which increasing freedom from tonality and consonance are synonymous with progress
and modernism. Schoenberg’s embrace of dissonance and serialism makes good sense, when one understands
it in the context in which it was created: it was an attempt to reaffirm the centrality of German harmonic
innovation as the principal modernizing influence in European concert music.
In terms of specific guidance, in addition to our textbook, there are two general reference works that are a really
good choice for your main resource as you begin working on this paper: the New Grove Dictionary of Music
and Musicians and Richard Taruskin’s Oxford History of Western Music. Use the Grove both to look up
biographical entries for the composer in question and their works, but also to look up subject entries that are
called out in those (serialism, opera, Romanticism, program music, musique concrète, etc as the case may be)
You are also free to use whatever resource materials you care to use, including online sources.
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