91 terms

listening to music 2

How is "verismo" different from "realistic opera"?
e. Aside from the term, there is no difference.
2. What is rarely seen in realistic opera?
d. a happy ending
3 Which artist or author did not reflect the traits of realism in his or her work?
c. Jane Austen
4 Which composition is the first important realistic opera?
e. Bizet, Carmen
5 In which opera does the soprano live into a happy old age with her lover?
e. Are you kidding? This is Romantic opera; they all die.
6 What is "flamenco"?
a. A genre of Spanish song and dance, with guitar accompaniment, that originated in southern-most Spain and exhibits non-Western, possibly Arab-influenced, scales.
7 Which composer wrote verismo operas?
a. Puccini
8. In which country did the habanera originate? (Clue: The name is similar to that of the country's capital city.)
e. Cuba
9 Which statement about Puccini's La bohème is wrong?
b. Puccini adapted Wagner's principles of Gesamtkunstwerk in writing this opera.
10 Which answer correctly describes the type of scale sung by the soprano in the listening example?
c. a chromatic scale
11 Bizet spent his short life entirely in Paris, and his masterpiece, now probably the world's most popular opera, was a flop because Parisian audiences thought the subject matter too degrading; ninety days after the premiere he suffered a fatal heart attack.
12 Which statement about Puccini is wrong?
a. During the middle years of his career he traveled throughout Europe, residing in Paris whenever he was not supervising a production of one of his operas.
13 Identify the incorrect statement about Carmen.
d. Bizet based his famous Habanera on a well-known tango melody.
1.Musical nationalism was expressed through:
e. All of these.
2.What did NOT typically convey national color in music?
major and minor scales
3.Which country was the first to develop its own national style of art music that was distinct from European tradition?
4.The traditions of ________ orchestral music dominated instrumental composition during the nineteenth century.
5.Who was the most original composer of the Russian Five?
6.What is the purpose of the "Promenade" theme in Pictures at an Exhibition?
e.All of these.
7.What is a pentatonic scale?
a five-note scale
8.Identify the statement that does NOT apply to Musorgsky.
c.A freelance violist and organist, he earned money by played in dance bands and opera orchestras while composing almost continuously
9. The English horn solo in the Largo (second movement) of Antonín Dvorák's ninth symphony, "From the New World," is built around a pentatonic scale.
10. Identify the statement about Dvorák that is WRONG.
c. he began teaching in his father's school, but found the profession so tedious and demanding that he quit, devoting his time entirely to music
1. What type of music did Johannes Brahms compose?
c. absolute music
2. Identify the correct definition of "absolute music."
b. Instrumental music free of a text or any pre-existing program.
3. Identify the phrase that does NOT apply to the biography of Brahms?
d. Because he was less than five feet tall and his poor eyesight required that he wear glasses, he was excused from military service.
4. Which statement about Brahms is INCORRECT?
a. Because a wealthy, music-loving widow granted him a steady income he was able to travel extensively in Europe and America.
5. Identify the statement about Brahms that is WRONG.
e. Because of his career as a conductor he was only able to compose during the summer months.
6. Which statement does NOT apply to Mahler?
a. Born into a wealthy family living in Berlin, Germany, his parents hired an orchestra for him to conduct weekly concerts in their home.
7. Which statement does NOT describe Mahler's music?
a. While he could write beautiful Romantic melodies, he emphasized contrapuntal development of themes.
8. Brahms is considered the last in the line of great German symphony composers.
9. Identify the INCORRECT statement about Mahler.
e. The intense experience of rejected love provided the stimulus for his most famous composition; he wrote a program that attempted to explain the meaning of the music.
10. Which composer was considered the heir to the symphonic tradition of Beethoven?
a. Brahms
11. Mahler's Fourth Symphony is the only instance in which Mahler chose to incorporate vocal music into
his symphonies. False
This refrain demonstrates Brahms's use of which technical "trick" for a violinist?
c. double stops
Identify the response that best describes the melodic character of Impressionist music.
a. Chromatic, whole-tone, and pentatonic melodies often twist and turn rapidly
2Which answer accurately describes the harmonic style of Impressionism?
c. Triad is extended to form seventh and ninth chords, and these frequently move in parallel motion.
3The rhythmic style of Impressionist music is best described as:
d. usually free and flexible with irregular accents, often making it difficult to determine the meter.
4Which trait best describes the color (timbre) of Impressionist music?
a. Greater emphasis on woodwinds and brasses and less on the violins as primary carriers of melody.
5Which response most accurately describes the texture of Impressionist music?
a. Orchestral sound can vary from thin and airy to heavy and dense, while the sustaining pedal of the piano often creates a wash of sound.
6Identify the statement that describes the manner in which Impressionist composers treated form.
a. Traditional forms involving clear-cut repetitions rarely used and composers try to develop a form unique and particular to each new musical work.
7Identify the group of Impressionist composers.
c. Debussy, Ravel, Fauré
8Which genre was not prominent during the Impressionist period?
e. concerto
9Which statement accurately describes "Impressionism"?
b. A movement that arose in opposition to German Romanticism and the use of precise formal or representational musical structures.
10Select the answer that fits the term "parallel motion."
d. All the parts move together in the same direction; the antithesis of counterpoint.
11Who were the "Symbolists"?
d. Poets who created verse that suggested ideas by the sound of words and associations rather than through literal meaning.
12Identify the correct definition of "whole-tone scale."
c. A six-note scale in which each pitch is a whole tone away from the next.
13Which composition, based on a poem by Stéphane Mallarmé, suggests the summer dreams of a mythological creature?
d. Prelude to The Afternoon of a Faun
14Identify the incorrect statement regarding Claude Debussy.
b. The Rite of Spring, composed at the age of thirty-two, was his first masterpiece; later compositions met with less initial favor.
15Debussy's approach to composition--replacing the centrality of melody with color and texture--was adopted by the revolutionary figures of twentieth-century music.
16 Identify this composition by its most famous theme.
a. Prelude to The Afternoon of a Faun
1Identify the response that best describes the melodic character of modern music.
a. Wide-ranging, disjunct lines are often chromatic and dissonant with an angularity accentuated by octave displacement.
2Which answer accurately describes the harmonic style of modern music?
b. Dissonance no longer has to move to consonance; sometimes there is no audible tonal center.
3Identify the group that is limited to modern composers.
d. Copland, Ives, Bartók, Zwilich
4 Identify the genre that was not important during the modern era.
c. symphonic poem
5What is a tone cluster?
c. A dissonant sounding of several pitches in a densely packed chord.
6Some modern composers sought to shake listeners out a state of complacency by distorting traditional musical practice.
7 Identify the response that applies to Cubism.
b. Fractures and dislocates formal reality into geometrical blocks and planes.
8What do composers achieve by using "octave displacement"?
c. angular themes
9The triad has been the building block of Western music since:
e. the Middle Ages.
10What is the result of adding more thirds to the basic triad?
b. more dissonance
11What weakened the traditional role of tonality in music?
d. All of these.
12Modern period composers tended to emphasize the instruments of the ________ family.
e. percussion
13What is possibly the most significant development in the history of modern music?
c. separating musical color from melodic function
1. Identify the two musical innovations introduced by Schoenberg.
a. Twelve-tone composition and Sprechstimme.
2. Sergei Diaghilev was the legendary ________ of the Ballets russes.
c. impresario
3. This Expressionist composition features Sprechstimme, avoids melodic repetition, and emphasizes dissonant harmony.
b. Pierrot lunaire
4. Which trait is not shared by the three famous early ballets by Stravinsky?
c. All were turned into famous films.
5. Which trait best describes the rhythmic style of Le Sacre du Printemps?
e. All of these.
7. What is polymeter?
b. Two or more meters sounding simultaneously.
8. "Atonal music" is best described as:
e. music without a key center.
9. What is a polychord?
a. The stacking of one triad or seventh chord on another so they sound simultaneously.
13. Which musical style or artistic movement is not associated with the Second Viennese School?
b. Nationalism
14. Identify the correct definition of polyrhythm.
d. Two or more rhythms sounding simultaneously
15. Which sentence is not applicable to Stravinsky's life and music?
d. He eventually stopped using conventional acoustical instruments in his compositions, experimenting instead with musique concrete.
16. Which statement about Le Sacre du Printemps is wrong?
d. The music is influenced by the ancient religious rituals of Eastern and Western Christian traditions.
17. Identify the statement regarding Arnold Schoenberg that is wrong.
e. He studied music theory and composition at the Leipzig Conservatory.
18. Which definition applies to Expressionism?
b. A German-Austrian style that expressed the innermost feelings, anxieties, and fears that an object generated in the artist.
19. Which famous ballet was performed by the Ballets russes?
b. Le Sacre du Printemps
22. Serial music is best defined as:
e. music in which some important component--pitch, dynamics, rhythm--comes in a continually repeating series.
23. What is "twelve-tone composition"?
e. A method of composing music that has each note of the chromatic scale sound in a fixed, regularly recurring order.
24. Which work is a twelve-tone composition?
b. Suite for Piano by Schoenberg
1. The Russian Revolution, while significant in Russia, had relatively little impact on Western civilization.
2. What term did Communist authorities use to describe avant-garde music they felt was subversive and antidemocratic?
3. What is not a trait of Neo-classicism?
a.Rejected the large orchestra and emotionalism of Romanticism.
4. Identify the incorrect statement about Sergey Prokofiev.
c.He formed, along with Schoenberg and Stravinsky, what has since become known as the Second Viennese School.
5. Shostakovich's fifth symphony resembles the symphonies of ________.
7. Identify the statement about Shostakovich that is WRONG.
e. Profoundly influenced by folk music, he traveled throughout Russia using Edison's newly invented recording machine to capture peasant music.
8. Identify the erroneous statement about Bartók.
b. Incarcerated by the Nazis in a concentration camp, he died just a few weeks before the end of the Second World War.
9. A movement that is in a light style and intended to separate and break the mood of two serious surrounding movements is called:
an intermezzo
10.Unlike Prokofiev and Shostakovich, Bartók, who had immigrated to the United States, was able to enjoy a happy and successful end to his productive career.