Music 70
History of Music I
Unit 1 Exam
- Listen to the opening minute of the first movement of Stravinsky’s “Dumbarton Oaks” Concerto (1938).
Describe two features of its musical style or design that, in your view, prompted some commentators at the time to describe pieces of this kind as “neoclassical” [2 pts]?
- Read this excerpt from an essay by the philosopher and cultural critic Theodor Adorno. For the new twentieth-century fans of Bach, such as Igor Stravinsky, Bach’s musical importance, writes Adorno, is represented only by its “formula and
In a short paragraph – three or four sentences— describe Adorno’s criticisms of Bach “devotees” such as Stravinsky your own words. What does Adorno mean when he says that Bach has become “a neutralized cultural monument”? [5 pts].
- Read this excerpt from an essay by the jazz historian Scott DeVeaux.
In a short paragraph (three or four sentences), describe in your own words the two contrasting positions in the debate over jazz history that DeVeaux is summarizing. Name two things about Marsalis’s approach to jazz that led some critics to describe him as “neoclassicist” [6 pts].
- Below are two pictures related to the reception of George Frideric Handel after his death, in the later eighteenth century. Write a sentence about each institution or event represented by each picture, and the connection between them and the preservation of Handel’s music as “classic” [4 pts].
Picture a: Picture b:
- Listen to this short dance by Mozart.
In which city was he when he composed it [1 pt]?
Name two aspects of its musical style or design that seem to respond to the place of its composition, and particularly the musician who had once been the main church musician there [2 pt]?
- Describe two ways in which the baron Gottfried van Swieten helped to revive an appreciation for older music, especially choral music by Handel, in late eighteenth-century Vienna [2 pts].
- In bullet points or full sentences, describe (that is: name them, and say what they were) two early nineteenth-century musical institutions through which Felix Mendelssohn helped to revive the choral music of J. S. Bach in the early nineteenth century [4 pts].
- Listen to the opening minute of the Overture to the 1846 oratorio Elijah by Mendelssohn.
Now listen to the opening minute or so of J. S. Bach’s 1727 St. Matthew Passion, in an 1841 arrangement by Mendelssohn.
Referring to the mood and musical design of the openings of these compositions, write a short paragraph – three or four sentences – about what, in your view, Mendelssohn, as a Romantic, valued about the much older music of J. S. Bach [3 pts].
- Listen to this famous passage from Haydn’s 1797 oratorio The Creation.
What biblical moment does this startling passage depict [1 pt]?
Write a couple of sentences describing how this passage in particular may have prompted Haydn’s contemporaries to think of him as a heroic “genius” [2 pts]?
- Haydn advertised the 1799 publication of his oratorio The Creation like this:
the work is to appear in three or four months . . . with German and English texts; and in full score, so that, on the one hand, the public may have the work in its entirety, and so that the connoisseur may see it in toto and thus better judge it; while on the other, it will be easier to prepare the parts, should one wish to perform the work anywhere.
Write a short paragraph describing three ways in which this advertisement seems to represent the (new) values of the musical Work Concept [3 pts].
- Listen to the opening minute or so of this movement from Beethoven’s String Quartet in A minor op. 132, known as the Heiliger Dankgesang or “holy song of thanks.” Beethoven announced on the score that the piece was composed “in the Lydian mode.”
What composer, and what genre of music, is it likely that Beethoven was emulating in this movement [1 pt]?
Aside from Beethoven’s (supposed) use of the Lydian mode, describe one feature of the music’s style or design that supports this view [1 pt].
- Below is part of an 1841 concert program from the Leipzig Gewandhaus featuring the pianist Clara Wieck (Schumann). The program includes an unnamed “sacred piece,” an aria by Gluck, and parts of a Chopin concerto, as well as solo piano music by Robert Schumann, Mendelssohn, and Scarlatti. Describe three ways in which the early piano recital, in the 1830s and 1840s, would have been different from the piano recitals that many people attend today [3 pts].
Music 70
History of Music I
Unit 1 Exam
- Listen to the opening minute of the first movement of Stravinsky’s “Dumbarton Oaks” Concerto (1938).
Describe two features of its musical style or design that, in your view, prompted some commentators at the time to describe pieces of this kind as “neoclassical” [2 pts]?
- Read this excerpt from an essay by the philosopher and cultural critic Theodor Adorno. For the new twentieth-century fans of Bach, such as Igor Stravinsky, Bach’s musical importance, writes Adorno, is represented only by its “formula and
In a short paragraph – three or four sentences— describe Adorno’s criticisms of Bach “devotees” such as Stravinsky your own words. What does Adorno mean when he says that Bach has become “a neutralized cultural monument”? [5 pts].
- Read this excerpt from an essay by the jazz historian Scott DeVeaux.
In a short paragraph (three or four sentences), describe in your own words the two contrasting positions in the debate over jazz history that DeVeaux is summarizing. Name two things about Marsalis’s approach to jazz that led some critics to describe him as “neoclassicist” [6 pts].
- Below are two pictures related to the reception of George Frideric Handel after his death, in the later eighteenth century. Write a sentence about each institution or event represented by each picture, and the connection between them and the preservation of Handel’s music as “classic” [4 pts].
Picture a: Picture b:
- Listen to this short dance by Mozart.
In which city was he when he composed it [1 pt]?
Name two aspects of its musical style or design that seem to respond to the place of its composition, and particularly the musician who had once been the main church musician there [2 pt]?
- Describe two ways in which the baron Gottfried van Swieten helped to revive an appreciation for older music, especially choral music by Handel, in late eighteenth-century Vienna [2 pts].
- In bullet points or full sentences, describe (that is: name them, and say what they were) two early nineteenth-century musical institutions through which Felix Mendelssohn helped to revive the choral music of J. S. Bach in the early nineteenth century [4 pts].
- Listen to the opening minute of the Overture to the 1846 oratorio Elijah by Mendelssohn.
Now listen to the opening minute or so of J. S. Bach’s 1727 St. Matthew Passion, in an 1841 arrangement by Mendelssohn.
Referring to the mood and musical design of the openings of these compositions, write a short paragraph – three or four sentences – about what, in your view, Mendelssohn, as a Romantic, valued about the much older music of J. S. Bach [3 pts].
- Listen to this famous passage from Haydn’s 1797 oratorio The Creation.
What biblical moment does this startling passage depict [1 pt]?
Write a couple of sentences describing how this passage in particular may have prompted Haydn’s contemporaries to think of him as a heroic “genius” [2 pts]?
- Haydn advertised the 1799 publication of his oratorio The Creation like this:
the work is to appear in three or four months . . . with German and English texts; and in full score, so that, on the one hand, the public may have the work in its entirety, and so that the connoisseur may see it in toto and thus better judge it; while on the other, it will be easier to prepare the parts, should one wish to perform the work anywhere.
Write a short paragraph describing three ways in which this advertisement seems to represent the (new) values of the musical Work Concept [3 pts].
- Listen to the opening minute or so of this movement from Beethoven’s String Quartet in A minor op. 132, known as the Heiliger Dankgesang or “holy song of thanks.” Beethoven announced on the score that the piece was composed “in the Lydian mode.”
What composer, and what genre of music, is it likely that Beethoven was emulating in this movement [1 pt]?
Aside from Beethoven’s (supposed) use of the Lydian mode, describe one feature of the music’s style or design that supports this view [1 pt].
- Below is part of an 1841 concert program from the Leipzig Gewandhaus featuring the pianist Clara Wieck (Schumann). The program includes an unnamed “sacred piece,” an aria by Gluck, and parts of a Chopin concerto, as well as solo piano music by Robert Schumann, Mendelssohn, and Scarlatti. Describe three ways in which the early piano recital, in the 1830s and 1840s, would have been different from the piano recitals that many people attend today [3 pts].
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