Medievalism

Musical Medievalism: From Stage to screen

How have the sounds, narratives, images, and ideologies of the Middle Ages retrospectively been employed and reinterpreted over time and across media, through opera, symphonic and choral repertoire, popular song, film, and videogames? This course examines musical “medievalism” in Richard Wagner’s music dramas, Viking Metal, folk, rock, Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana, Ingmar Bergman, Disney, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and more. What tropes are associated with a “medieval” soundscape? Musical “medievalism” will be examined through lenses of nationalism, nostalgia, religion, gender, neomedievalism, the historically-informed performance movement, the Gothic, spiritualism, and romanticism.

Seminar format with weekly assigned readings, listening, viewing, presentations, and final paper. No prerequisite.