Love and death are the central issues in human life as well as in music; after all, music is also a way of making sense of life. With examples of music from Mozart to Schumann, that is, from the Classical to the Romantic, this “lightest” of all art will assist us to (re)think about these most serious questions. Complemented by readings in philosophy and literature, we’re also reenacting the aspiration for the meaning of life since the Enlightenment and its 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 with understanding to the basic formal conventions of European art music, and be sensitive and critical to the meanings constructed therein.
2. To appraise music’s charm (and possible harm!) and connect them with our own life 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 Western notation, 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. Lecture will be given in Mandarin (with Hong Kong accent!), but the readings are in English. 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。閱讀材料多為英文，講授則以（香港腔!）中文為主。如有疑問請與我聯絡。
   Please don't sign up this course if you already know that you cannot participate in the Screening Test on 2/22, the Reading/Listening Papers on 4/12, 5/24, 6/21 and the NSO Concert on 5/31. Unforeseeable absence must be excused properly.
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 4 hours weekly for off-class work (listening, reading etc.).
5. Students are encouraged to make good use of the weekly Office Hour.
6. Masterpiece is wonderful; modest work, as an exercise of your own thinking, is invaluable too. But plagiarism? It’s worthless (zero mark!), don’t fool yourself (and me).

• Haydn, The Creation
• Mozart, The Marriage of Figaro
• Mozart, Don Giovanni
• Beethoven, To the Distant Beloved, op. 98
• Beethoven, Symphony no. 9, op. 125
• Beethoven, Bagatelles, op. 126
• Beethoven, Late Quartets, op. 127 ff.
• Schumann, Fantasy in C Major, op. 17
• Schubert/Mahler, Death and the Maiden
• Wagner, Tristan and Isolde

• Adorno, Theodor W. Beethoven: The Philosophy of Music (1934-1966).
  Translated by Edmund Jephcott. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998.
  ML410.B4 A48613z 1998


• _____. Philosophy of New Music (1949). Translated by Robert
  Hullot-Kentor. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2006.
  ML197 A313 2006


• Cook, Nicholas. Beethoven: Symphony no. 9. Cambridge: Cambridge
  University Press, 1993.
  ML410.B42 C66 1993


• Daverio, John. Crossing Paths: Schubert, Schumann, and Brahms.Oxford:
  Oxford University Press, 2002.
  ML390 D335 2002


• Dostoyevsky, Fyodor. Notes from Underground (1864). An authoritative
  translation, backgrounds and sources, responses, criticism. Translated by
  Michael R. Katz. 2nd ed. New York: Norton, 2001.
  PG3326 Z4 1981


• Goehr, Lydia, and Daniel Alan Herwitz, eds. The Don Giovanni Moment:
  Essays on the Legacy of an Opera. New York: Columbia University Press, 2006.
  ML410.M9 D63 2006


• Kierkegaard, Soren. Either/or (1843). Translated by Howard V. Hong
  and Edna H. Hong. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987.
  PT8142.E57 E5 1987 pt.1


• Lewis, C. S. The Four Loves. London: Geoffrey Bles, 1960.
  BV4639 L45 1960a


• Schoenberg, Arnold. Fundamentals of Musical Composition. London:
  Faber & Faber, 1967.
  MT40.S33 F8


• Žižek, Slavoj. "'Ode to Joy,' Followed by Chaos and Despair." The New
  York Times, 24 December 2007.
  http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/24/opinion/24zizek.html