Late Romanticism to Mid-Twentieth-Century Music History

Comprehensive question-and-answer flashcards reviewing late Romanticism, early and high modernism, French aesthetics, expressionism, neoclassicism, national movements, recorded sound, American band and popular music, and early jazz.

Which works by Richard Strauss are cited as prime examples of late nineteenth-century 'Hyper virtuosity'?

Don Juan and Ein Heldenleben.

Which three tone poems comprise Richard Strauss's first major cycle of tone poems?

Macbeth ($1886\text{--}1888$), Don Juan ($1889$), and Tod und Verklärung ($1889$).

Between which three contrasting musical styles or melodies does Gustav Mahler alternate in the third movement of Symphony No. 1 'Titan' ($1888$)?

Frere Jacques, a Klezmer band, and a Lieder melody (from 'Die zwei blauen Augen').

What was considered shocking to nineteenth-century audiences regarding the realism introduced in Verdi's La traviata and subsequent operas?

The unprecedented level of non-fiction and objectivity presented within an operatic genre that audiences traditionally expected to be fictional and subjective.

What are the five distinct realistic elements featured in Georges Bizet's opera Carmen?

Local color, proletarian life, immorality, lawlessness, and a graphic on-stage death.

What defines the post-Romantic Italian artistic movement known as Verismo?

The rejection of traditional, mythological, and aristocratic themes in favor of everyday, realistic subjects, seeking an objective portrayal of reality wherever and whenever it existed.

How did Claude Debussy technically challenge the propulsive forces of nineteenth-century musical syntax?

He attacked strong metrical drives and cadential harmonic drives by avoiding fifth relations, blurring key and chord ambiguity, employing parallel triads, and utilizing alternative scales such as pentatonic and whole-tone scales.

How does Expressionism differ fundamentally from Impressionism?

Expressionism seeks to express internal emotional experience and psychological states, whereas Impressionism is concerned with capturing external, fleeting impressions of the world such as shifting effects of light and color.

What structural tonal transition takes place across the four movements of Arnold Schoenberg's String Quartet No. 2?

It moves progressively from tonality to atonality across movements $1$ through $4$, with the first two movements scored for string quartet alone and the final two movements adding a soprano.

What structural and musical solutions did Alban Berg employ in his opera Wozzeck instead of twelve-tone serialism?

Berg used leitmotivs as his primary musical solution and organized the opera using traditional, non-operatic instrumental musical forms as his structural solution.

Which Ballets Russes premiere in Paris caused a notorious scandal in $1913$?

Igor Stravinsky's Le sacre du printemps (The Rite of Spring).

How is Neoclassicism defined in post-World War I music?

A modernized reworking of older, pre-Romantic eclipsed musical styles into a contemporary language characterized by clarity, emotional restraint, and simplicity.

What core ideals did Erik Satie and 'Les Six' champion for French music after World War I?

Simplicity, unpretentiousness, freedom from foreign influence, rejection of lofty idealism, and inspiration drawn from popular and circus music.

What is a Tone Row in Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone method?

A subthematic, pitch-generative source (Grundgestalt) beneath the surface of the music that ensures all $12$ chromatic pitches receive equal treatment to generate organic unity without functional tonality.

What was Ottorino Respighi's political and institutional relationship to Benito Mussolini's Fascist regime?

Respighi never joined the Fascist Party, did not consider himself a Fascist, and wrote numerous non-Italian-themed works; rather than Respighi supporting the regime, Mussolini's regime co-opted and supported Respighi.

Which earlier work by Jean Sibelius formed the basis of his tone poem Finlandia?

Press Celebrations Music ($1899$), from which the final movement was reworked into Finlandia.

What are the structural designs of the four movements in Béla Bartók's Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta ($1937$)?

Movement 1: Neoclassical chromatic fugue based on the Fibonacci sequence; Movement 2: Sonata form; Movement 3: Night music in arch form; Movement 4: Rondo-like movement featuring Bulgarian rhythms.

What regional indigenous melodies did Carlos Chávez incorporate into Sinfonía India ($1935\text{--}1936$)?

Melodies from three Northern Mexican groups: the Huicholes (or Cora) of Nayarit, the Yaquis of Sonora, and the Seris of Tiburón Island in Baja California.

Why is Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein's Show Boat ($1927$) designated as the first true musical?

It was the first work to integrate all four types of musical theater (revues, operettas, musical comedies, and Black-cast shows) into a coherent, overarching plot where song, humor, and production numbers were fully unified.

Which ensemble established the modern standard instrumentation for the concert band in $1952$?

The Eastman Wind Ensemble.

What were the three distinct stylistic periods of Aaron Copland's career?

The French or 'jazz' period ($1923\text{--}1929$), the esoteric or austere period ($1929\text{--}1935$), and the period of patriotism and 'imposed simplicity' ($1935$ onward).

What structural and thematic innovation characterizes the first movement of William Grant Still's Afro-American Symphony ($1930$)?

It uses sonata form featuring a primary blues theme and a secondary spiritual theme, with the themes returning in reverse order in the recapitulation.