Guidelines for Composer Reports

 

Each student will select one composer from each of the five designated periods of Music History and write a brief report.  Due dates are provided on the syllabus.  The composer you choose must be one who has a musical example listed in the syllabus or covered in class. 

 

●  Reports must be typed and double-spaced with one-inch margins on all sides using a standard 12-point font.  Length must be at least two full pages and no more than three full pages.  Do not include photos or diagrams in your report.

● Your title page should include the composer’s name, your name, and the date completed centered at the top of the first page.  Be sure to staple the pages together or put them in an inexpensive report binder.

● In terms of content, your essay should include:  when and where they were born, when and where they died, nationality, personal life (family, health, personality), career (significant places, people, employers or patrons, means of earning a living, financial situation), and music (style of composition, general characteristics, types of compositions they wrote).

● Your report needs to have at least three sources. Online e-Books or articles from a library database (other than Wiki) are considered credible. You may also use books from the school/public library.

● Late reports will automatically drop one letter grade.  NO reports will be accepted that are more than two weeks late.  Reports may be submitted in any class session or via email but NO reports will be accepted after the Final Exam.

 

These websites can give you some basic tips to writing better biographies.

Approved Composers for Reports

 

Middle Ages / Renaissance
Hildegard of Bingen                                                                          Guillaume de Machaut
Josquin Desprez                                                                                 Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina
Claudio Giovanni Antonio Monteverdi

 

Baroque Period
Henry Purcell                                                                                      Claudio Monteverdi
Arcangelo Corelli                                                                                Antonio Vivaldi
Johann Sebastian Bach                                                                     George Frederic Handel

 

Classical Period
C. P. E. Bach                                                                                         Franz Joseph Haydn
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart                                                              Ludwig van Beethoven

 

Romantic Period
Franz Schubert                                                                                    Robert Schumann
Clara Wieck Schumann                                                                      Frederic Chopin
Franz Liszt                                                                                            Felix Mendelssohn
Hector Berlioz                                                                                     Bedrich Smetana
Antonin Dvorak                                                                                  Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Johannes Brahms                                                                              Giuseppe Verdi
Giacomo Puccini                                                                                Richard Wagner

 

Twentieth Century
Claude Debussy                                                                                 Igor Stravinsky
Arnold Schoenberg                                                                           Alban Berg
Anton Webern                                                                                   Bela Bartok
Charles Ives                                                                                        George Gershwin
William Grant Still                                                                              Aaron Copland
Leonard Bernstein