Walter Frisch

Frisch is nice, approachable, and he honestly expects his students to be interested in learning about music history. Do not take his class unless you REALLY care about the content music hum. He uses “Music in the Western World: A History in Documents instead of the normal textbook. This book is essentially the bastard child of the CC and Music Hum texts; it’s incredibly boring and expensive. Frisch rarely goes over the assigned readings in class, but he expects students to identify and analyze the passages. Instead he spends the ‘extra’ time (30+ minutes) showing scenes from operas. This wouldn’t be a problem, except for the fact that it was almost the end of the semester and we hadn’t covered American music yet. Also, he sings; it’s terrible and hilariously awkward. He has forced the class to sing on two different occasions, despite the fact that everyone was clearly uncomfortable and half of us did not know the words to the song.

I was pleasantly surprised to see the music department offer a class validating musical theater as a serious discipline worthy of study. Based on our class size, it should be offered every semester. Sadly, the class was intent on focusing on some rather obscure composers and works at the expense of iconic creators. There was no mention of Jule Styne, Marvin Hamlisch, Cy Coleman, or Comden and Green, for example. Masterpieces like "Annie Get Your Gun," "Gypsy," and "A Chorus Line" were negated for shows like "Lady in the Dark," and "The Cradle Will Rock." Moreover, our class was blessed with outstanding pianists, composers, and performers, some of which were actual working professionals. Accordingly, we would have been better served having such students provide musical examples rather than suffering through Frische's piano playing. Although Frische is amusing and charming, he lacks the "it" factor. In short, he does not possess the star quality of the performers or creators that he references in class. It is that quality that defines the American Musical Theater. I still enjoyed this class especially the guest speakers, but the American Musical is rather like a mediocre Broadway show. Novices or out of towners may enjoy it, but hard core students may want to attend something more theatrical.

Frisch is a class-act. A very devoted teacher with a very sound grasp of the material. There are two types of professors in the music department at Columbia: those with a bubbly, quirky sense of humor; and those with a more dry and witty disposition. Frisch surely falls into the latter category, which, in my opinion, is preferred. He was available outside of class and very approachable. The time period we studied in this class was a very rich one in the history of music, and Frisch did a great job of navigating through the terrain. Highly recommended.

I have a much richer relationship with the music of Wagner than I did before the class. I also feel I have a better understanding of what went into the creation of his operatic masterpieces. The writings were all completely new for me!

Frisch knows his stuff - although the same just can't be said of his TA however. His class is generally enlightening, but not enough to keep everyone awake in the dreadful 9:10am slot (someone is always asleep in the class, but he doesn't really care). If you stay awake for the most part and take notes, you won't need to do any assigned readings. He is a very busy person and although he cares greatly about the subject topic, he does not have that much time to deal with the details of the class. As a result, the writing assignments are graded lightly - as long as you focus on the topics that he covered in class. If you can manage to drag yourself to his class every other day, then take him! There are no "required readings", no quizzes, no responses that other Music Hum sections are required to do. In fact, if you got him, you have lucked out (besides the 9:10 part). Midterm and Final were both the same structure, both very fair. Just know your listening, terms and you should be fine.

I'm not sure why Frisch teaches this class. He is not a scholar in the area by any means; he seems to just have a mild interest in musical theatre, and perhaps a deeper interest in one or two composers. I'm also not sure why Music Hum is even a prereq for the class; the material one learns in MH was referenced once or twice, and the depth of the class was about the same. Content-wise, it's probably not worth your time. I would guess that the class as a whole already knew most of the material he covered. The main draw is the guest speakers, all of whom were far more interesting than WF could ever hope to be. Sadly, neither Kander nor Sondheim could make it this semester, but the men Frisch did get to come were quite entertaining and informative. Lastly, you would be hard pressed to find a more boring individual than Walter Frisch. He does seem to have a sense of humor, but it very rarely comes to class with him. And his speaking voice is rather reminiscent of Marlon Brando, but not in a good way by any means.

The course spans a wide range of time and there is not a lot of time devoted to each big composer ( a week for Mozart, Beethoven, and Wagner each). He is not an exciting lecturer, but tries to touch on the main points and key works. Take good notes because the tests are pretty much straight from them. Grading is really picky. Answer the questions with the EXACT same words he uses in class. Offers students to perform the works that we study in class. Reading did not seem necessary in retrospect, but required listening is. Nice guy at heart, but a little flakey. Approachable outside of class. I found it all relatively enjoyable.

Walter Frisch is obviously a brilliant scholar and a wonderful teacher; I'm not sure why these people complained about the class so much. In itself, the class wasn't too difficult, but I at least found that I learned a lot about many periods of music. Since he is a musicologist, he focused on the history and culture of various musics and how that influenced the finished product. The only thing, frankly, that seemed to hold back the class was that the vast majority of students never did the reading or listening in a serious way and struggled throughout the semester with the technical vocabulary required to have interesting discussions about music. When people can't talk about the significance of bitonality in Stravinsky or serialism in the Second Vienna School, its hard to get into the nitty-gritty of musical analysis. I didn't find that he was particularly nit-picky about grammar and thought on the contrary that he was rather generous (at the very least, fair) in his grading of papers. I suppose that grammatically incoherent papers should be downgraded if only because it makes understanding them more difficult.

Unfortunately, I have to diagree with the review below. Perhaps Professor Frisch is a better teacher for classes on Brahms, Music History, and other musicologist based courses, but he is certainly not qualified to teach a class on musical theatre. Everything in this class was approached from a musicologist's standpoint and not from that of a lover of musical theatre. Frisch even admitted to not having seen many of the classic shows that we talked about. And, with the course being called "The American Musical" you would think that we would have discussed American shows that made some kind of impact on theatre as an art form. We didn't discuss A Chorus Line, Dreamgirls, Gypsy, or many of the other classics of theatre. While the class was incredibly easy, it was a huge bore for anyone who already had any knowledge of musical theatre. The one class that the TA, Daniel, conducted was much more exciting and passionate. He should teach the class in the future. I would recommend this class to anyone under the assumption that Frisch didn't teach it again.

midterm, 8-10 page paper, final. (pretty light.)