HISTORY

For the adult student, PCM offers a series of music history classes exploring the various genres of Western music. Courses are either six or ten weeks in length. A total of six music history classes will be offered this year. All classes meet for 2 hours and 15 minutes. Below is a listing of classes. Please note that these adult history classes follow a calendar different from the school calendar.

20th Century Masters: Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Bartók and Shostakovich

September 22 - December 1 (10 weeks), Tuesday 10:00 am - 12:15 pm
Instructor: Priscilla Pawlicki
Quarterly Tuition: $275/250*

As composers sought new modes of expression in a changing world after 1900, musical styles became richer and more complex than at any time in Western music. Schoenberg's “emancipation of dissonance” and his development of the 12-tone system brought about a dramatic schism with the music of the past. Stravinsky's early ballets exploited rhythm in a new way - free from the “tyranny of the bar line” as he described the Rite of Spring. Bartók colored his unique style with the distinctive rhythms and melodic phrases of Eastern European folk music, while Shostakovich in his extraordinary cycles of string quartets and symphonies chronicled his experiences in contemporary Soviet society, declaring that “...art registers its firm protest against evil and oppression.” Explore the “classics” of contemporary music with these four composers in a course designed for the general listener and musician alike.

Chamber Music in Pasadena 2009-10: Camerata Pacifica, Coleman Chamber Music, Ensemble Green Pacific Serenades & Southwest Chamber Music

September 23 - December 2 (10 weeks), Wednesday 7:00 - 9:15 pm
January 6 - March 10 (10 weeks), Wednesday 7:00 - 9:15 pm
Instructor: Priscilla Pawlicki
Quarterly Tuition: $275/250*

Each season Pasadena's finest chamber music organizations present both world-renowned artists and award-winning local musicians in a remarkable array of chamber music concerts that feature works from Bach to cutting-edge contemporary composers. In this new 2-quarter course, upcoming repertoire from Camerata Pacifica, Coleman Chamber Music, Ensemble Green, Pacifica Serenades and Southwest Chamber Music will be discussed in class before the concerts with lectures, recordings and some live performances. Sharpen your listening skills, acquaint yourself with a remarkably varied body of works and enhance your concert-going experiences in a course designed for the general listener and musician alike.

The Beethoven Sonatas: The Path to Modernism

January 5 - March 9 (10 weeks), Tuesday 10:00 am - 12:15 pm
Instructor: Priscilla Pawlicki
Quarterly Tuition: $275/250&

Beethoven's 32 sonatas chronicle the evolution of the composer's style, from his early period with its roots in the Classical tradition to his late works characterized by profound expressiveness, new sonorities and a structural and harmonic freedom that paved the way for 19th-century Romanticism and beyond. Beethoven used the piano as a vehicle for experimentation. It was in these works that he presented his newest ideas and it is from the sonatas that we get the clearest view of his compositional process. Musical analysis of the sonatas, presented through lectures, recordings and live performance, will illuminate the transformation of the sonata in Beethoven's hands and provide a richer experience of the works for general listeners and musicians of all levels.

Great Concertos of the 20th Century

January 21 - February 25 (6 weeks), Thursday 10:00 am - 12:15 pm
Instructor: Carlos Rafael Rivera
Quarterly Tuition: $165/150*

This unique class will cover six of the great concertos composed in the 20th century by Joaquin Rodrigo (Concierto de Aranjuez), George Gershwin (Rhapsody in Blue), Aaron Copland (Concerto for Clarinet, Strings and Harp), Maurice Ravel (Piano Concerto in G Major), Igor Stravinsky (Violin Concerto) and Bela Bartók (Concerto for Orchestra). Each class will focus on the composer, his life, and an analysis of the work culminating with a recorded performance.

Romanticism--Early 19th Century Music after Beethoven: Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Berlioz, Chopin and Liszt

April 6 - June 8 (10 weeks), Tuesday 10:00 am - 12:15 pm
Instructor: Priscilla Pawlicki
Quarterly Tuition: $275/250*

One of the earliest references to Romanticism in music comes from composer and writer E.T.A. Hoffmann, who wrote in 1813: “Beethoven's music sets in motion the lever of fear, of awe, of horror, of suffering, and awakens just that infinite longing which is the essence of Romanticism.” In the half century after Beethoven, the ideals of Romanticism including originality, individuality, imagination, intuition, and spontaneity took hold in composers such as Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Berlioz, Chopin and Liszt. A new emphasis on expressive melodies, richer harmonies with growing chromaticism, and a freer treatment of form coincided with the rise of the German art song (lieder), the program symphony and increasingly elaborate and technically dazzling works for piano. Follow the first flowering of Romanticism in the first half of the nineteenth century through the works of these six great composers.

*Students concurrently enrolled in individual instruction at PCM pay the reduced fee.

• Theory Program
• Composition Program

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