Final Exam Review - Music 1202

Genres
- Overture - An introductory movement by orchestra intended to
introduce themes to be heard later in the composition
- Prelude - An instrumental composition intended to introduce a larger
composition
- Concerto - A composition that shows off a specific instrument with the
orchestra as an accompaniment
- String Quartet - 4 String Players - usually 2 violins, 1 viola, and a cello
- Aria - Vocal song typically without accompaniment and two contrasted
parts
- Recitative - Narrative song in opera that describes an action, thought,
or emotion
- Character Piece - start of programmatic music - these pieces became
representative of character, or something beyond musical
o Nocturnes - In the mould of Debussy, it was a 3 movement
piece consisting of Clouds, Festivals, and Sirens. Not in the usual
form of a ‘nocturne’, but rather it is a combination of all the
various impressions and special effects that the word suggests.
- Program vs Absolute music - Absolute music has no literary, dramatic,
or pictorial programs. It’s sufficient without any text, etc. Represents
pure music. Program music is opposite.
- Gesamtkunstwerk - Integration of all arts into a single dramatic
expression. Used by Wagner to describe his later operas
- Song Cycle - Group of songs that share a common theme or central
idea that are designed to be presented as a cohesive unit
- Symphonic Poem - 1 Movement orchestral genre, that develops an
idea, scene or mood
- Ballet, Modern Dance - Theatrical representation of a story by dances
and music
- Ballets Russes - Ballet company based in PARIS (never actually
performed in Russia). Very influential by promoting ground-breaking
artistic collaborations among young choreographers such as
Stravinsky, Debussy, Prokofiev, etc.

Forms
- Binary - AB Form
- Rounded Binary - ABA’ Form
- Minuet and Trio (Scherzo) - ABA Form
- Sonata Form - Exposition, Development, Recapitulation (ABAB)
- Rondo - ABA, ABABA, ABACA
- Theme & Variations - Similar to Rondo Form
 - Ballade - A characteristic piece typically dealing with courtly love or a
story of some sort. Typically a piano solo piece (Chopin)
- Strophic Form - Song structure where every verse is sung to the same
musical tune
- Through-Composition - Song without any repetition of any major
sections, each verse has its own melody.

Technical and Stylistic Terms

- Texture - Refers to vertical structure of a piece. How many voices are
there, how do voices interact, how does the music blend, etc.
- Tonic - First note of a scale or a key. Central note.
- Idee Fixe - A fixed idea, a recurring theme throughout the piece that
serves to set structural foundation of the piece
- Parody/Pastiche - Humorous or satirical composition which exaggerates
features of other composition. A Pastiche is a parody work.
- Canon- strict counterpoint where each voice exactly repeats the
previous voice at a fixed distance
- Psalm Setting - A sacred song or hymn
- Ostinato - repeated musical pattern throughout the composition (in
short or long term segments)
- Celesta - Keyboard instrument that looks somewhat like an upright
piano. Sounds like a music box.
- Gamelan - Traditional Indonesian orchestra consisting of gongs,
metallophones, and other instruments
- Marimba - percussion instrument where you take mallets and hit
wooden bars to make tones
- Whole-tone Scale - Scale built with only whole-tone notes (whole
steps). Predominantly used in impressionism music.
- Pentatonic Scale - Scale consisting of 5 notes. Predominantly used in
African, Far Eastern, and Native American music. Also used in 20th
century compositions.
- Sprechstimme - A vocal style where the melody is spoken at
approximate pitches rather than being sung at exact pitches.
- The Blues & Blues Notes - Special category of African American folk
music related to loneliness, trouble, and depression. Influenced Jazz
heavily.
- Jazz Inflections in Classical Music - Drop, Fall, Doit, Rip, Bend,
Scoop, Turn, Shake - Rhapsody in Blue, Gershwin Preludes,
Firebird, Creation du Monde
- Folk Music Influences or Quotations - Stravinsky, Ravel, Bartok, Ives,
Copland
- Hymn - a song written for adoration of beauty or a deity
- Suite (3 Meanings) - Set of Dances.
- Elegy - Funeral Song
 - Vaudeville - Comedies with songs and lyrics thrown in. Usually
consists of separate and unrelated all tied under 1 common theme.
- Tin Pan Alley - name given to collection of NYC music publishers and
song writers who dominated popular music of America from early 19th
to 20th century.
- What makes a song a “standard” - considered to be in the standard
repertoire of one or several genres. Extensively quoted by other works
and commonly serve as basis for improvisation. In classical music,
standard repertoire consists of what are considered to be “teaching
canon”.
- “The Great American Songbook” - canon of the most important
and influential American popular songs and jazz standards from early
20th century. Consists of songs by Gershwin, Porter, Berlin, Kern, Arlen,
etc.
- Polyrhythm - using several patterns or meters simultaneously
- Musique Concrete - recording natural or artificial sounds and treating
them electronically to perform music
- Phase Piece - Popularized by Steve Reich, where two identical
phrases of music are played at the same time but at different tempos,
and perhaps on different instruments.
- NEA - National Endowment for the Arts

Historical & Cultural Concepts

- Classicism, Romanticism, Modernism, Impressionism, Expressionism
(Extreme Romanticism - the tail end spectrum of emotions).
- Avant-Garde - Radical new forms of art/music never tested before.
- Neoclassicism - 20th century composers returning to use forms and
themes of Classical Era of music
- Minimalism - Aimed at reducing range of composition material through
repetition and static harmony
- Serialism - various music elements are put in order according to a fixed
series
o Twelve-Tone Row - music produced by compositional procedure,
based on all 12 tones, without a central tonic
- Heiligenstadt Testament - Document written by Beethoven,
reflecting over his despair over his increasing deafness and his desire
to overcome physical and emotional ailments to complete his artistic
destiny.
- Number Opera - An opera consisting of smaller pieces of music
(numbers), that can be extracted from the larger work. Wagner hated
the Number Opera.
- Tristan Chord - FBD#G#, but can be applied to any chord with same
intervals (Base Note, Augmented 4th, Augmented 6th, Augmented 9th)

Discussion Questions
- the distinctions between program music and absolute music
and the territory in between, with reference to pertinent
pieces

Program Music is a type of art music that attempts to incorporate an

additional narrative to the music, ie by telling a story or in the form of
program notes. An example of this would be Berlioz’ Symphony
Fantastique, as he attempts to explain the sensations of a man on
drugs/infatuated in love through different movements (Reveries, Ball,
Scene in the Fields, March to the Scaffold, Dream of the Night of the
Sabbath). A detailed program explaining each of the movements was
handed to all people attending the Symphony.

Absolute Music is music is not explicitly about anything - simply non-

representational. A very famous example of absolute music is
Beethoven’s 9th Symphony. A musical masterpiece in its own right - but
no stories or any non-musical references within it whatsoever.

- different approaches to writing symphonies, 18th-20th

centuries

The approaches of writing Symphonies changed dramatically over

time. In the 18th century, the Viennese Classical Form of symphonies
were very popular, consisting of 4 movements (Sonata-Allego, Slow
Movement, Minuet/Trio, Allegro/Rondo returning to the Initial theme).
An example of a symphony we studied in this form would be Mozart’s
40th Symphony in G Minor.

Near the early 19th century, evolutions to symphony writing emerged.

Beethoven made notable advancements - such as increasing the size
of the orchestra, adding more Brass instrumentation (trombones, etc.),
directly transitioning between movements without pause (3rd to 4th
movement in the 5th symphony), and incorporating voices along with
orchestrations in the 9th symphony.

In addition, in the 19th century, programmatic works for Symphonies

became popular - a prime example being Berlioz’ Symphony
Fantastique. Many composers began to divert away from the classical
4 movement symphonies (for example, Symphony Fantastique
contained 5 movements), and even singular movement orchestration
pieces representing a specific topic as Symphonic Poems became
popular.

By the 20th century, it became common to have lengthy and incredibly

large scale Symphonies. For example, Mahler’s 2nd symphony was
 known as the “Symphony of a 1000” because of its length and the
sheer size of the vocal/instrumentation needed for a performance. By
this point, the original ‘4 movement’ symphony was simply a possibility
- many chose to disregard it, and wrote symphonies with varying
number of movements. An example would be Sibelius’ 7th - which
consists of a single movement. It’s worthy noting that this piece is
different from the “symphonic poems” of the 19th century, in that its
more absolute than programmatic (doesn’t really refer to anything),
and it contains many differing tempo and dynamics (as if the
Symphony consists of many movements) - but it is all packaged into 1.

- comparison in how composers have written for the human

voice, with examples from different times and places

Human voice is arguably the oldest type of music known to man - and
as similar to symphonies and orchestration, the many different types
of music have been written to accommodate for it.

In many pieces, the human voice was the central attraction. This is
commonly seen in many Italian Operas such as La Traviata or Rigoletto
by Verdi. The Italian Opera of the ‘Bel Canto’ school was composed
with the vocal music as the central focus, and orchestration as the
background to accommodate the voices. Vocal embellishments known
as coloratura was very common in these works.

On the other hand, there were operas were the human voice was not
the central attraction. In many of Wagner’s works, the orchestration
and human voice were equal. This was very demanding to the singers -
as it demanded the vocals to match the size and sonority of the
orchestration.

Besides opera, smaller pieces known as Lieder were commonly written

with the vocals as the centerpiece of the music with background
instrumentation. These Lieder can be roughly broken down into two
types - Strophic Form Lieder, where every verse is sang on the same
tune/melody (The Trout by Schubert is an example), and the other is
Through-Composition Form Lieder, where no repetition of melodies
occur throughout the song.

Lastly, as music evolved, so did vocal music. In Operas, and Lieder it

was universally common for vocalists to sing to a certain pitch in the
melody. However, in the late 19th, early 20th century, Schoenberg
developed a style of vocal music known as Sprechstimme - where the
vocalists did not sing to an absolute pitch but rather spoke words
within a range of pitches - to enhance musical effect (seen in Pierrot
Lunaire)
- grandiose compositions vs miniature compositions, with
examples of each in different genres and different eras

Symphonies vs Symphonic Poems

Operas vs Lieder
Development of Characteristic Pieces

- the various uses composers have made of music of previous

periods

2nd Viennese School

Neoclassicism and Stravinsky
Ravel (Le Toumbeu de Couperin - Baroque)
Prokofiev (Classical Symphony - loose imitation of Haydn & Mozart)
Berg (Wozzeck) - used suites, rondos, passacaglia as opening forms in
each scene
Schoenberg - Suite for Piano

- changes in writing for the orchestra from Haydn to Stucky

Constant growth in size. Similar answer to Q2 regarding symphonies. In

modern orchestras, even electric instrumentation are available to use.

- the place and use of percussion instruments from the 18th to

the 21st centuries

18th century starts out not as common. Near 20th-21st century, very
common. Celesta developed and became commonly used. Gamelan
and Marimba also developed near end of 20-21st centuries. Works such
as rite of spring incorporated percussion instruments such as drums to
keep the ‘ritual’ like environment of the piece consistent throughout.

As the size of orchestration grew from Baroque to Modern orchestra, so

did the size of percussion. Initially, it was only common to have 2
timpani. Now, the percussion section can consist of many varieties
such as drums, timpani, Gamelan, Marimba, etc.

- various styles of music in the years surrounding and during

World War I (developments in France, Austria, and the US)

Effectively ended Romanticism. Start of Neoclassicism (Stravinsky) or

Serialism (12-tone technique by Schoenberg). American music also
became very influential. Music at the time was also heavily oriented
 towards the wealthy, bourgeois, but now went to the masses. Became
popular to use music for propaganda. Nationalism in music became a
thing. 2nd Viennese school.

- the relationship between venues for performing music and the

music performed there (home, salon, concert halls, opera
houses, outdoors, movie theaters, etc.)

Symphonies - Concert Halls

Chamber Music - homes (led to smaller assemble of instrumentation)
Opera - Opera Houses
Post World War 1 - music became more accessible to masses/less
bourgeouis. Also, development of technology made music more
accessible in all kinds of places including outdoors (speakers,
amplification, etc.) Development of outdoor performance made it
possible for different means of music such as musicals, broadway etc.

- shifts in how composers earn their living, from private

patronage to American university music departments, with
other options in different times and places.

Patronage system - worked under as a staff of a royalty family. Haydn

and Esterhazy family (we even read his contract). Commission was not
a guarantee under this system, so the composers also had to compose
music that was to be performed in public.

Freelancing Composers such as Mozart - composing and performing for

concerts and trying to get his worked performed by the Emperor’s
court. Since Beethoven and Mendelssohn, public concert became a
true venue of making money. In addition, Opera houses would pay
composers for Opera.

When nationalism peaked, government would pay some composers to

write pieces as well.

Eventually, universities began to pay for music. Simultaneously

teaching while making money.

Extras
- Schaeffer - Etude aux chemins de fer
- Stockhausen - Kontakte
- Boulanger - Psalm 130 - du fond de lablime (out of the depths)
- Berlioz - Symphony Fantastique
o Reverie
o A Ball
o Scene in the Fields
o March to the Scaffold
o Dream of the Night of the Sabbath