Exercise 1
Here is a very generalized and simplified overview of music styles and music
history periods. Match the period in music history with its characteristic
features from the two lists below by writing the number in appropriate place
in the table.
A. The Middle Ages
B. The Renaissance
C. The Baroque
D. The Classical period
E. Romanticism
F. Modern period
FEATURES
1) The modal system changed slowly into tonal harmony.
2) It was the longest period in music history spanning around 10 centuries.
3) Composers preferred homophony rather than polyphony.
4) Composers tried to be very original and individual in their expression.
5) Music and learning were mostly connected with the church.
6) The tonal system was expanded to maximum and included very distant
relationships.
7) New technology was used: computer music, live electronics etc.
8) Composers wanted to be radical and different.
9) Composers broke musical traditions and conventions.
10) Music and musicians were sponsored by aristocracy.
11) A lot of ornamentation was used in all kinds of arts.
12) Composers focused on structural unity, symmetry, clarity, elegance and
balance.
13) The idea of figured bass was very important: numbers or symbols were placed
above the bassline telling the keyboard instrument players what notes to play.
14) The boundaries between various genres were blurred.
15) Artists combined together various arts (happening, instrumental theatre,
installations).
16) Instrumental music appeared but based strictly on choral works.
17) Composers started to write and develop keyboard music (fantasias, variations,
dance movements).
18) Modern orchestra was formed and developed.
19) The opera and first orchestras were born and developed in which the
Florentine Camerata and Claudio Monteverdi played a role.
20) The modern harmonic system based on the major and minor scales was
intensively developed.
21) Oratorio and cantata were very popular genres.
22) A cappella masses, motets, psalms and madrigals were the most popular
musical genres.
23) Some of the composers were: Ockeghem, Despres, Dufay, but the two greatest
were di Lasso and Palestrina who was famous for his masses.
24) It was the golden age of virtuosos.
25) Most of the authors of music remained anonymous.
26) The earliest secular music was composed. It was represented by troubadours
who traveled from place to place and performed such forms such as virelais
and ballades.
27) It was an era dominated by Catholic sacred music.
28) Plainsong and Gregorian chant dominated thorough most of that period.
29) There were very many experiments with form, sound and tonality.
30) The second voice was added to the melody; in this way organum was created
and those were the beginnings of harmony.
31) At the end of the period there was a development of polyphony and
counterpoint called Ars Nova period.
32) It was the golden age of vocal polyphony.
33) There was a great development of instruments, esp. the violin family.
34) The period saw a rise of instrumental music with such forms as concerto grosso
being very popular.
35) The three musical giants of that period were: Vivaldi, Haendel and Bach
36) It marked the end of aristocracy patronage. Instead there started to be public
concerts organized for middle class audience who paid for it.
37) A typical feature of music was extramusical inspiration.
38) There was a mixture of various styles: jazz, folk, rock, traditional, and various,
often opposing trends: serialism, sonorism, neoclassicism, postmodernism.
39) The era was dominated by such genres as: concerto, symphony, sonata, quartet
etc., the most popular instrumental form was the sonata form.
40) It was the era of the Viennese Classics: Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven.
41) Music expressed very intense feelings and emotions.
42) Many national schools of music were developed and national elements rose to
importance.
43) Two opposing type of music became important: programme vs absolute.
Discussion
Describe your favourite period in music history. Why do you prefer it over
the other styles?
 LISTENING

1. Match the words with their definitions. Think about Polish equivalents:

- people who go to concerts

- someone new and not yet known
- to correct something or make something right
- the situation in which two things become different
- difficult to deal with
- a mention or use of other styles or works in one’s composition
- to know who someone is or what something is, because you have seen them in the past
- to include something as part of something else
- to check and judge how people feel about something
- the way in which people think
- containing many substances that are needed for life and health
- saying that someone or something is bad or wrong / giving opinions and judgement
- the most important cook in a restaurant
- based on ideas and theories and not related to practical effects in real life
- to wave the stick used by the conductor
- to make the audience interested
- a composer who lives and writes music today
- containing a lot of matter in a small space
- easy to reach and understand
- difficult in an interesting or enjoyable way
- a person who is one of the first people to do something
- ideas and activities that are intended to get the support of ordinary people by giving them what they want

Wield the baton Challenging wymagające

To engage audience’s reaction Pioneer nowicjusz
Thought process Rectify
Nutritious Dense gęsty
Critical Accessible
Concert goers Living composer
Fresh face Divergence rozbieżność
Chef Thorny kolczasty
Academic References
Gauge the reaction ocenić reakcje Populism
Recognize rozpoznać Incorporate

2. You will hear an interview with a conductor and music director Teddy Abrams, who is talking about
his work, a concert that he conducted, the choice of repertoire and the audience’s reactions. While
listening try to answer the following questions.

1. Why does his age matter?

2. What was the programme of the concert he conducted?
3. What was the purpose of his experiment?
4. What was unusual about the presentation of the second piece?
5. What were the audience’s impressions?
6. What does he compare his job as a music director to and why?
7. What factors does he have to take into consideration?
8. What kind of balance is important to him as a composer?
9. How did Ives, Copland and Gershwin achieve this balance?
In Louisville, A Young Conductor Seeks To Challenge And Delight

Louisville Orchestra conductor Teddy Abrams is a fresh face on the classical music scene. 28 years old, he is the youngest music
director of a major American orchestra. He is wielding the baton in this recording of Brahms’ First Symphony. But he is also
hoping to bring new audiences to the concert hall with music for a new generation, like this symphony from another musician in
his twenties – Sebastian Chang.

Rachel Martin: Maestro Teddy Abrams joins us from the studios of Louisville Public Media. Welcome to the programme.

Teddy Abrams: Thank you so much for having me.

Rachel Martin: You programmed both of those pieces in the same concerts which took place earlier this year, and you
actually conducted an experiment to gauge audience reaction. Can you tell us about that?

Teddy Abrams: On this program, we present two first symphonies: the first symphony of the great composer Brahms, and a first
symphony of a living composer, Sebastian Chang, who is just a couple years younger than me, actually — 26 when he wrote it. I
wanted to see how people, especially first-time concert goers, would react to hearing these two different first symphonies. So, I
invited tons of people in my neighborhood — I just gave free tickets to all of them — and gauged what all of their reactions were.

It was fascinating because, for the Sebastian Chang symphony, we had Sebastian there. We brought out a piano, and he and I
talked before the performance of this piece. He demonstrated the work on the piano and how he came to improvise the themes,
and he sat down and actually played his thought process for the whole audience. When I talked to a lot of people afterwards about
the experience, many people said, well, that Brahms piece was wonderful, it was beautiful — but we felt really emotionally
connected to the Sebastian Chang. The experience of hearing that piece premiered with the composer there, explaining the
thought process and the reasons for its existence was very powerful and very compelling, and was such an affirmation that what
we do is incredibly alive.

I often like to make the reference to what a chef has to go through. Unlike a chef preparing a single meal, I am preparing a year's
worth of meals for an entire community of, in this case, 1.2 million people. [And] not only meals that are going to be attractive
and are going to be fun to eat, with ingredients that people already love, but you also have to make them nutritious. You have to
make them interesting for the chefs that are preparing them. You have to do that for an entire year, when you're thinking about
what your season is going to look like.

I'm convinced that my job is two parts: It is to provide for the needs of everybody, but it's also to provide for their wants and the
stuff that they want and care about already that deserves to be heard. But people can love and care about so much more music
than what they're already aware of, and so it's very, very important to me that not only do we bring pieces that people don't know
to the table, but we also demonstrate — more than demonstrate — we are an active participant in the creation of music now.

You're a composer yourself. What do you find makes something accessible with a broader audience? And how do you
balance that with keeping the music challenging?

Well, there were a couple of model composers that really pioneered how to rectify the divergence between wanting to be new,
creative, and come up with sounds that nobody's heard before, and actually connecting with the people.
For instance, Charles Ives, even though many of his pieces are really thorny, he used American folk songs and hymns to actually
make up the body of his work so that the references would be clear, emotionally, to his audiences. Aaron Copland, realizing that
modernism wasn't necessarily working out in terms of connecting with the people listening to his music, included all sorts of
Americana right in his works, whether they were cowboy songs or all sorts of ditties that people would have recognized. You find
them quoted very famously in Appalachian Spring with "Simple Gifts," a famous song.

Or people like Gershwin — incorporating jazz, genuine jazz, into his compositions — understood that the connection between
populism and being true to your style is a really important balance.
 MUSIC AND ECONOMY 

When the New York Philharmonic toured in Budapest, the Prime Minister received an
invitation to attend the gala concert, but sent his finance minister instead. Next day,
members of cabinet received the following memo.

Subject: Assessment of Schubert's Unfinished Symphony in the light of budgetary policy.

I made the following observations at last night's concert:

1. The oboe section had nothing to do for long periods of time. Their numbers should be cut,
and their work distributed among the other members of the orchestra.

2. All 12 violins played the same tune. This points up an unnecessary duplication that is
grounds for a significant work force reduction. Moreover, if the point of having 12 violins is
to produce a certain volume of sound, the same result can be achieved by suitably
amplifying 6 or even fewer violins.

3. Considerable effort had to go into the accurate rendering of sixteenth notes. This appears
to be superfluous ornamentation. It would be better to replace sixteenth notes with much
easier eighth notes. Students or entry level musicians could then be employed instead of
highly trained professionals, with impressively lower salary and operating expenditures.

4. I don't see any point to having the horn section repeat the same tune that the string
section has already played. If we can eliminate useless repetition of this kind, the symphony
can be performed in twenty minutes instead of two hours.

I have to conclude that if Schubert had taken these items into consideration, he could
have finished the symphony.

Recommendation: Introduction of these principles into the operations of the music

community in this country would make it possible to schedule more concerts in each concert
hall. As a result, half the concert halls could be closed, bringing significant further savings.