This proposal for teaching innovation arises from the difficulties observed in the students of the Degree in History and Music Sciences at the University of Valladolid in handling musical analysis tools. The use of concepts from music theory and their practical application, both in score reading and listening, represents one of the main problems detected in said students, affecting various subjects. This deficiency is particularly noticeable in the subject “Music and Thought in the Enlightenment Century (18th century)”, which is taught in the first semester of the 2nd year of the degree. Its competencies include the analytical study of Central European tonal music and establishing its connection with the stylistic and philosophical currents of the time.
The subject covers a very extensive period in music history, known as the “long” 18th century, spanning from around 1680 to around 1790. This periodization is an adaptation of recent proposals by Webster (2004) and Keefe (2009), supplemented by the reevaluation of the Galant period between 1720 and 1780 (Heartz, 2003; Gjerdingen, 2007), consolidating a new trend in analyzing and understanding this era. Previously, and according to traditional periodization inherited from art studies (Wöfflin, 1888) and influenced by musical studies by Bukofzer (1947), this period was divided into two periods and designed into two subjects: History of Music in the Baroque – covering the first half of the century (up to 1750, a significant date with the death of J. S. Bach) and History of Music in the Classicism. With the new guidelines of the Bologna Process, the curriculum is modified, opting for a periodization more in line with current historiographical approaches. From the perspective of musical analysis, it is more coherent to study this century as a unit, in a single subject focusing on the analysis of tonal or common practice repertoire: from the beginning of the 18th century with Corelli’s innovations to the Viennese classical style (with Haydn and Mozart as paradigms and excluding Beethoven).
Furthermore, with the new plan for reforming the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), the subject now consists of 6 credits with a semester-long development. This situation has prompted the search for new methodological proposals to facilitate the coverage of a fairly extensive syllabus, which includes works by the great masters (Vivaldi, J. S. Bach, Handel, Mozart, and Haydn), while also incorporating recently recovered repertoires from the Galant period (Porpora, Hasse, Vinci).