MUSI 006E. Music and Childhood

Childhood has long been an object of fascination in the arts. This course explores how the joys and anxieties surrounding childhood have been depicted in Western classical music over the centuries: from the childlike enchantment of Mozart’s Magic Flute and Ravel’s Mother Goose Suite to Schubert’s terrifying, panic-filled Elf King and the nightmarish depictions of Engelbert Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel, abandoned and lost in forest darkness. The course also explores the cinematic nostalgia for youth in contemporary film scores such as Harry Potter and E.T. Throughout, we will ask why the sonic representations of innocence, nature, and a longed-for past have proven so endlessly compelling to the musical imagination, and what they reveal about the societies that produced them.
Spring 2027. Staff.
Catalog chapter: Music
Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/music

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