This seminar takes a broad view of spectral music, and begins with works that remain a continuing source of inspiration for composers concerned with expanding the pitch and timbral resources of contemporary music. We will study works by Debussy, Messiaen, Giacinto Scelsi, György Ligeti and Claude Vivier before moving to those composers most strongly identified with spectralism as a “school”: Gérard Grisey and Tristan Murail and their French students and contemporaries. We will also investigate the music of Romanian (Horatiu Radulescu), Austrian (Georg Friedrich Haas) and Estonian (Helena Tulve) composers affiliated with this tradition, as well as music of the American composer/improvisor Steve Lehman. I hope to schedule a guest lecture or two this quarter, TBA. Rather than dwell on the mathematical basis of spectral technique, the seminar emphasizes score study, in tandem with discussions of the historical and philosophical foundations of the movement. Full syllabus available here.