Love and death are the central issues in human life, as well as in music, for music is after all a way of making sense of life. With examples of music from Mozart to Mahler, that is, from the classical to the late-Romantics, this "lightest" of all arts will assist us to (re)think about these most serious questions. Accompanied by readings in philosophy and literature, we're also tracking the pursue of the meaning of life since the Enlightenment and its alleged failure. By thinking with music, we learn to be a more sensitive and critical listener of music and of ourselves. This is a course for those who not only enjoy music, but also like to think about/with it. 

1. To listen to the basic formal conventions of classical, romantic and late romantic music, and understand the meanings constructed therein.
2. To appraise both music's charm and (possible) harm, and connect them with our own experience here and now.
3. To talk and write about our listening and reading clearly and critically.

1. Essential prerequisites are reading skills in English and music, including basic knowledge of form and harmony. There'll be a screening test in the first session, absentees will not be admitted to the course. Please contact me if in doubt.
   需具備基本讀譜能力以及曲式與和聲概念；開學第一週有檢定小考以調配教與學的程度，缺席者將不能選課。教材多為英文，講授則以漢語為主。如有疑問請與我聯絡。
2. Passion, punctuality, sense and sensitivity--so sleep more, but before the class!
3. Be friendly, fair, and open-minded, especially in the group work. You'll enjoy it.
4. Please reserve an average of 3-hour weekly for off-class work.
5. Masterpiece is wonderful; modest work, as an exercise of your own thinking, is invaluable too. But plagiarism? It's worthless (=0 mark!), don't fool yourself (and me).

Basic Reading:

• Cook, Nicholas. Beethoven Symphony no. 9. Cambridge: CUP, 1993.


• Goehr, Lydia, and Daniel Herwitz, ed. The Don Giovanni Moment: Essays on the Legacy of an
  Opera. New York: Columbia UP, 2006.


• Hefling, Stephen E. Mahler, Das Lied von der Erde. Cambridge: CUP, 2000.


• Kerman, Joseph, and Gary Tomlinson. Listen., 6th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2008.


• Rushton, Julian. W.A. Mozart, Don Giovanni. Cambridge: CUP, 1981.


• Temperley, Nicholas. Haydn, The Creation. Cambridge: CUP, 1991.


• Youens, Susan. Schubert, Die schone Mullerin. Cambridge:CUP, 1992.


• ______. Retracing a Winter's Journey: Schubert's Winterreise. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1991.

Further Reading:

• Adorno, Theodor W. Mahler: A Musical Physiognomy. Transl. Edmund Jephcott. Chicago:
  University of Chicago Press, 1992.


• ______. Beethoven: The Philosophy of Music. Transl. Edmund Jephcott. Stanford, CA: SUP,
  1998.


• Dostoyevsky, Fyodor. Notes from Underground. Trans. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky.
  New York: Knopf, 2004.


• Eagleton, Terry.The Meaning of Life. Oxford: OUP, 2008.


• Kierkegaard, Soren. Either/Or. Ed., transl. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Princeton: PUP,
  1987.


• Lewis, C. S. The Four Loves. London: HarperCollins, 2002.


• Nussbaum, Martha C. Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions. Cambridge:
  CUP, 2001


• Schoenberg, Arnold. Fundamentals of Musical Composition. London: Faber & Faber,
  1999.


• Taylor, Charles. Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity. Cambridge, Mass.:
  Harvard UP, 1989.


• Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Culture and Value. Transl. Peter Winch. Ed. G. H. von Wright, Heikki Nyman
  and Alois Pichler. Rev. 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell, 1998.