1. What is the relationship between Gustav Mahler's orchestral
songs and his symphonies?
2. Name four of Mahler's orchestral song cycles? What is an orchetral
song?
3. What is the nickname given to Mahler's Symphony of a Thousand,
and why?
4. How does Mahler's setting reflect and intensify the central
poetic ideas in each of the three strophes of "Rückert's
poem "I Am Lost to the World" (Ich bin der Welt abhanden
gekommen)?
5. If you had to sum up the central aesthetic effect of "Ich
bin der Welt abhanden gekommen" in a phrase, would it be:
haughty pride and disdain for the world; world weariness; or fear
of death?
6. Compare Mahler's treatment of instruments in the orchestra
to Debussy's orchestration in "Prelude to the Afternoon of
a Faun."
7. What were the primary causes of the "anxiety and disjunction"
that Wright finds in much music of the first half of the 20th
century?
8. Is there a percievable mainstream to music in the 20th century?
What movements have enjoyed some measure of popularity?
9. Summarize general qualities that are usually attributed to
20th century: melody, harmony, rhythm, and tone color?
10. What are octave displacement; ninth and eleventh chords; polychords;
polyrhythms; polymeters?
11. According to Wright, what was the most challenging harmonic
issue facing composers of the 20th century?
1. What types of composition brought Stravinsky his earliest
international recognition?
2. What name is often given to the creative period in Stravinsky's
life between roughly 1910 and 1920? The
1920-1951 period? 1951-71?
3. What (big 3) ballets did Stravinsky write for Diaghilev's Ballets
russes between 1910 and 1913?
4. Describe the public reception of the premiere of Stravinsky's
"The Rite of Spring" (1913)
5. List and explain each of the six features that Wright lists
as being particularly important to the structure of "The
Rite of Spring." Be able to hear these features as you listen
to the work.
6. What is an ostinato?
7. What is the plot line to the ballet for which the music of
"The Rite of Spring" was intended?
1. What three composers are known, collectively, as the "Second
Viennese School"?
2. What names are generally given to Schoenberg's 3 creative periods.
Name a work from each period.
3. What elements of tonal music did Arnold Schoenberg reject or
renounce in his free atonal works?
4. Briefly describe several similarities or analogies between
atonality and expressionist art.
5. What is Sprechstimme? In what piece did Schoenberg use this
technique extensively?
6. What ancient form did Schoenberg use in "Madonna"
and "The Sick Moon" from Pierrot Lunaire?
7. How was the music of the Second Viennese School received by
the Nazis?
8. Describe the basic materials and techniques of Schoenberg's
twelve-tone compositional method. Explain why you think this technique
exerted such appeal over so long a time for so many composers.
9. What is serial music?
10. Contrast the music of Béla Bártok to that of
Arnold Schoenberg. What was Bártok's relationship to folk
musics and how did his interest in folk music color his aesthetic
view?
1. Sum up in a sentence or two what Wright sees as the primary
contributions of : Ives, Cage, and Varèse.
2. What is a prepared piano? Who pioneered its use?
3. Define musique concrète.
4. For each of the following give a brief summary of the musical
style, aesthetic outlook, and at least one representative composer
and composition: minimalism, total serialism, computer and electronic
music, post-modernism, aeleatory/chance music.