Syllabus
1) Czech culture between East and West - Central Europe and cultural identity
2) Anatomy of a folk song - Folk music as a part of local culture and a border crossing phenomenon.
3) Between high and low - Folk culture as inspiration for classical music - Smetana, Dvořák, Janáček, Martinů…
4) Folk music and politics - folklore revival movement, communism and folk traditions ofter the WW II.
5) Aristocracy and Czech culture - Aristocratic families as sponsors and taste-makers of the musical culture
6) Czech popular music in the course of the 20th century - arrival of jazz, popular music during the WWII and the communism.
7) Czech classical music during the second half of the 20th century.
8) Music in Czech films
Annotation
This course aims to show, how music is an important part of our lives and how through music we can connect not only geographically distant places but also the past with the present. During this course we shall cross several borders – geographical, historical, between musical genres, and between music and other art forms.
Music will be the main part of our focus, but we will use the music to learn about other things and about the ways the music is connected to other arts, politics, technology, and the society in general. We shall talk mainly about
Czech music and culture, but we shall see how it has always been connected to the neighboring countries and how the music traveled across the borders.
Therefore, when we will be talking about Leoš Janáček, we shall not so much analyze the notes, but we shall look how his music connected contemporary trends in classical music with the folk culture he was researching.
Similarly we shall see how the aristocracy served as an important factor influencing musical forms, how the relation between local musicians and internationally connected nobility worked. We shall discuss the tension between artistic freedom and ideology during the communism and how those tensions manifested in rock music, jazz, or in films.
Although it is focused on music, the course does not require any previous knowledge of music history or theory.