This lecture discusses melody and aesthetics; Professor Wright raises the question of what makes a melody beautiful, and uses excerpts from Puccini's Gianni Schicchi, Wagner's Tristan and Isolde and Mozart's Marriage of Figaro to explore this issue. Throughout the discussion, the foundations of classical phrase-structure and harmonic progressions are used to explain some of the choices these three composers made. 00:00 - Chapter 1. What Makes a Melody Beautiful? 05:39 - Chapter 2. Puccini's Gianni Schicchi: Cadences and Sequences 13:27 - Chapter 3. Wagner's Tristan and Isolde: Exploring Melodic Ascents and Descents 32:17 - Chapter 4. Mozart's Marriage of Figaro: Melodic Sequence Analysis

1. Introduction
2. Introduction to Instruments and Musical Genres
3. Rhythm: Fundamentals
4. Rhythm: Jazz, Pop and Classical
5. Melody: Notes, Scales, Nuts and Bolts
6. Melody: Mozart and Wagner
7. Harmony: Chords and How to Build Them
8. Bass Patterns: Blues and Rock
9. Sonata-Allegro Form: Mozart and Beethoven
10. Sonata-Allegro and Theme and Variations
11. Form: Rondo, Sonata-Allegro and Theme and Variations (cont.)
12. Guest Conductor: Saybrook Orchestra
13. Fugue: Bach, Bizet and Bernstein
14. Ostinato Form in the Music of Purcell, Pachelbel, Elton John and Vitamin C
15. Gregorian Chant and Music in the Sistine Chapel
16. Baroque Music: The Vocal Music of Johann Sebastian Bach
17. Mozart and His Operas
18. Piano Music of Mozart and Beethoven
19. Romantic Opera: Verdi's La Traviata, Bocelli, Pavarotti and Domingo
20. The Colossal Symphony: Beethoven, Berlioz, Mahler and Shostakovich
21. Musical Impressionism and Exoticism: Debussy, Ravel and Monet
22. Modernism and Mahler
23. Review of Musical Style

This course fosters the development of aural skills that lead to an understanding of Western music. The musical novice is introduced to the ways in which music is put together and is taught how to listen to a wide variety of musical styles, from Bach and Mozart, to Gregorian chant, to the blues.