Music Final Exam
Key terms:
Trill - a rapid altercation of two adjacent notes
Glissando - rapid slide-through pitches of a scale
Double stops - playing two notes simultaneously on a string instrument
Debussy: Prelude to “The afternoon of a Faun” (Prélude à “L’après-midi d’un faune”)
Date: 1894 (impressionist)
Genre: symphonic poem
Basis: Symbolist poem by Stéphane Mallarmé
Performing forces/medium: strings (with two harps), woodwinds, French horns, and antique cymbals
Melody: Colorful; lyrical, sinuous melody; chromatic at opening and closing
Harmony: use of “blue” chords, with lowered thirds
Rhythm/meter: Free-flowing rhythms; sense of floating; lacks pulse, middle section is more animated, no consistent pulse
Texture: homophonic; light and airy
Form: loose A-B-A’ structure; free ternary
Style: Impressionist, timbrally rich, rhythmically free
Expression: evocative mood, sensual
Timbre: rich colors, especially in the woodwinds
Time signature: 9/8 (compound triple)
Key: E major
Stravinsky: “Introduction” & “Sance of the Adolescents” from The Rite of Spring**, Part I**
Date: 1913
Genre: Ballet (often performed as a concert piece for orchestra)
Basis: scenes of pagan Russia, to a scenario by Nikolai Roerich and Igor Stravinsky
Introduction (closing measures)
Melody: disjunct, floating folk-song melody
Expression: haunting mood, representing the awakening of the earth; in a very slow tempo (Lento)
Timbre: Bassoon playing in a high range, with solo clarinets and pizzicato strings
Dance of the Youths and Maidens
Melody: Russiam folk-song melodies alternate with dissonant, nonmelodic blocks of sound
Rhythm/meter: 2/4; basic duple pulse with very irregular accents; constant eighth-note motion; dissonant chords
Texture: Dense, complex polyphony
Performing forces: huge orchestra, with expanded brass, woodwind, and percussion sections
Key signature: E-flat major → F major → D-flat major
Game of Abduction
Melody: Frenetic, scurrying melodic figures and horn calls; a brief fold tune is heard
Harmony: harshly dissonant, with crashing chords
Rhythm/meter: meter not established; fast tempo and unpredictable accents 9/8 → 6/8
Timbre: quickly shifting instrumental colors
Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue
Date: premiered 1925; reorchestrated by Ferde Grofé 1926, 1942
Genre: Concerto-like; a one-movement “rhapsody”
Medium: piano, jass band, complimented with a full orchestra
Melody: bluesy stepwise tunes alternate with more jagged and forceful disjunct ideas
Harmony: consonant and tonal overall, incorporating the blues scale
Rhythm/meter: duple meter, extensive syncopation, and rubato especially in the solo piano cadenzas
Form: recurring themes and motives; some similarities to Baroque ritornello form
Texture: homophony alternates with nonimitative polyphony; solo piano alternates with orchestra
Expression: draws on ragtime, blues, and jazz conventions to create a lively dialogue between piano and orchestra
Influence: draws upon African American traditions, including bending pitches and the use of “wah-wah” (Harmon) mute
Themes and motives:
Stride: characterized by chromatic repeated notes in the brass
Train: lead by the trumpets and features a technique called “flutter tonguing”
Love: the most famous theme; used in many films, civic spectacles, and advertisements
Meter: 2/4
Time signature: B-flat major → A-flat major → C major → G major → E major
Copland: Appalachian Spring**, movements I & VII**
Date: 1944; orchestral suite, 1945
Genre: Ballet suite in seven sections
Medium: symphonic orchestra
Section 1
Melody: a rising motive quietly unfolds, outlining a triad and a slow tempo
Harmony: overlapping chords (polychordal) produces a gentle dissonance
Rhythm/meter: very slow and tranquil; the changing meter is imperceptible
Orchestration: shifting, transparent timbres that feature various solo instruments
- Clarinet → violin → solo woodwinds and trumpets
Section 7
Melody: theme with four phases (a-a’-b-a”); later variations use only parts of the theme
Form: theme and four variations, based on a traditional Shaker song “Simple Gifts”
Timbre: each variation changes tone colors; individual instruments are featured
Rhythm: duple meter with tune appearing in augmentation
Revueltas: “Noche de jaranas” (“Night of Revelry) from La noche de los Mayas
Date: film score, 1939; premiere of suite arrangement by José Linantour, 1961
Genre: suite from film score \n Medium: full orchestra with piano and Latin American percussion instruments
- Bongos, conch shell, drum (without snares), guiro, huehuetl, Indian drum, sonajas (basket rattle, tam–tam, tom-toms, tumbadora, log drom, and xylophone
II. “Noche de jaranas”
Melody: short snippets of the tune are passed around the ensemble; a contrasting flowing melody is heard in the central section
Harmony: tonal, with expanded chromaticism and unusual harmonic shifts
Rhythm/meter: Highly syncopated, dance-like rhythms; alternations between the compound (6/8) and irregular (5/8, 10/8) meters
Form: Rondo-like (ABABCA)
Texture: homophony alternating with non-imitative polyphony
Expression: Combines elements of a symphonic scherzo with Latin American son dance music (regional dance music in Mexico)
Notes: this movement was set at the time European colonizers first came to the Americas; the music celebrates the heritage of the Maya in the film, while the score evoked the musical soundscape of his country’s traditions
Cage: Sonata V, from Sonatas and Interludes
Date: 1946-48 (first performed 1949)
Overall structure: 16 sonatas, in four groups of 4, each group separated by an interlude
Medium: prepared piano, in which various materials (nails, bolts, screws, rubber, wood, leather) are inserted between the piano strings
Sonata V
Melody: Irregular, small-range phrases, in an undulating chromatic line; the second section is more disjunct
Rhythm/meter: Regular movement at the beginning, then a changing rhythmic flow, seemingly without a clear meter
Form: Two-part, or binary, form (A-A-B-B)
Timbre: the piano produces percussive effects (both pitched and non-pitched), otherworldly sounds, and varied tone qualities
Time signature: 2/2
Williams: Imperial March**, from** The Empire Strikes Back
Date: 1980
Genre: film score \n Medium: full orchestra; brass is featured
Imperial March
Melody: accented, disjunct melody, in two-measure phrases
Harmony: G-minor theme, with some chromaticism
Rhythm/meter: marchlike, duple meter (also quadruple meter*), with rhythmic ostinatos
Form: themes and variations
Expression: menacing and marchlike
Note: there’s a stuttering pattern, with repeated notes in horns, strings, and timpani
Glass: Symphony No.4 (Heros), movement I
Date: 1996
Genre: “Symphonic Ballet”
Medium: orchestra with expanded percussion section
1. Heros
Melody: short motives are repeated and combined
Harmony: E-flat major; some passages introduce chromaticism, but there is no contrasting key
Rhythm/meter: moderate quadruple meter; regular use of syncopation, triplets, and four-note arpeggios
Texture: increasingly layered polyphony, with contrasting homophony at the opening and closing
Form: The Heros motive from Bowie’s song is repeated and layered with other material in the main body of the piece. The main body is famed by contrasting opening and closing music
Expression: musical ideas developed slowly through extended repetition and layering; they reflect on the motive of the song’s melody
Notes: composer Philip Glass draws from David Bowie’s 1977 album, Heroes; symphony was originally a collaborative effort between Glass and choreographer Twyla Tharpe, so the music was meant for dance
Adams: “At the sight of this” from Doctor Atomic
Date: 2005
Genre: Opera
Setting: Los Alamos, New Mexico, 1945
Librettist: Peter Sellars
Medium: chorus and orchestra
Characters: Oppenheimer physicist (baritone, Oppenheimer’s wife (mezzo-soprano), US army engineer (bass), Teller physicist (baritone), Wilson physicist (tenor), meteorologist (baritone), army officer (tenor), and Oppenheimer's maid, mezzo-soprano)
Text: set chapter 11 from the Hindu scripture Bhagavad Gita
Act II, scene 3, chorus “At the sight of this”
Melody: short, choppy phrases with declaimed text; ideas are often repeated (disjunct)
Harmony: sharply dissonant chords
Form: verse and refrain structure with repeated sections and text
- A → refrain → A, elongated → refrain → B → refrain → A → refrain → B → coda
Rhythm/meter: syncopated, with many offbeat accents
Notes: there are prominent brass and timpani parts
*Note: from Susman, he said that he won’t include rhythm/form questions on songs that say two different meter terms, such as Starwars (mentioned after Exam 4)
Facts:
Philip Glass calls himself a composer of “music with repetitive structures”
- A single phrase was repeated four times with dynamics alternating (loud, soft, loud, soft)