Latin/ Music

Latin and music is a degree that brings together one of the oldest literary languages of the Western tradition and the art form that has accompanied human life across virtually every culture and historical period. Latin is the language of an extraordinary body of literature, philosophy, law, history and science that shaped European culture for two millennia and continues to be read, studied and valued in scholarship, education and the church. Music at degree level combines the study of music history and theory with performance and analysis, engaging with a tradition that spans from ancient Greece to contemporary composition.

At Glasgow, this four-year MA programme includes a year abroad, giving you the opportunity to study Latin and music in a different academic environment and encounter both disciplines in an international context. You will read Virgil, Ovid and other Latin poets, Roman drama, oratory, historians, biographers and philosophical texts, developing your ability to read Latin with fluency and to engage with the cultural, political and intellectual world of Rome. In music, you will study theory, history and performance, developing your analytical engagement with the Western musical tradition alongside your practical skills.

The combination is unusual and produces graduates with a distinctive intellectual formation, deep in two very different but equally serious disciplines. The skills developed, including close reading, analytical argument, historical understanding and musical literacy, are widely transferable.

Graduates of classical languages and music programmes move into music performance, music education, scholarship, publishing, arts administration, the civil service, law and a range of other careers where the intellectual formation of the humanities is valued. Further study in classics, music, musicology or related fields is a natural option.