Vienna

This course will examine the music and culture of Vienna, Austria, focusing on a single, central questions, namely "Why is Vienna Europe's Musical City?" Towards answering this question, students will be exposed to a variety of Vienna's Key musical offerings and institutions - from opera to symphony concerts to chamber music concerts to operetta - and will place Viennese music and musicians into appropriate historic, social and cultural contexts.

The course examines some of the major Viennese composers from the 18^th to 20^th centuries, including Mozart, Hayden, Beethoven, Schubert, J.Strauss, Mahler, Brahms, Schoenberg, Webern, and Berg. The relationships between music and art, music and politics, and music and society will be explored, and students will not only attend a selection of musical performances, but will also attend lectures, visit art galleries, museums, archives, the Vienna Central Cemetery (to see how Viennese composers are monumentalized) and other historical sites.

There will also be excursions to site of musical-cultural interest outside of Vienna, including Salzburg, Moedling, Mürzzuschlag and Eisenstadt (and maybe Prague!).