Chapter 34: Marketing Music: Foster and Early “Popular” Song
MULTIPLE CHOICE
1. Which of the following describes music in America during the early nineteenth century?
a. The difficulty of life in the New World essentially eliminated music-making.
b. Music was largely created by American composers.
c. Music was largely imported from Europe.
d. Because of the influence of the Puritans, music was forbidden.
2. Which types of cultivated repertoires are considered high art?
a. opera, chamber music, and symphonies
b. dance music, singing at home, and marches
c. music using vernacular traditions
d. none of the answers shown here
3. What nationality was Stephen Foster?
a. American c. German
b. English d. African American
4. Which nineteenth-century American composer is best remembered for his parlor songs and
minstrel show tunes?
a. William Billings c. Charles Griffes
b. Stephen Foster d. Charles Ives
5. Which of the following best describes minstrelsy?
a. wandering musicians who played at small social gatherings
b. shows that featured white performers in blackface
c. entertainments that copied European models
d. all of the answers shown here
6. Stephen Foster composed all of the following songs EXCEPT:
a. Oh! Susanna.
b. Camptown Races.
c. When Johnny Comes Marching Home.
d. Old Folks at Home.
7. Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair is best described as:
a. a parlor song. c. a song for light opera.
b. a minstrel song. d. part of a song cycle.
8. The form of Foster’s Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair is:
a. A-B-A. c. strophic.
b. rondeau. d. through-composed.
9. Who wrote the text for Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair?
a. Goethe c. Edgar Allan Poe
b. Stephen Foster himself d. William Wordsworth
10. Which nineteenth-century musical traditions were more connected to notions of American popular
identity?
a. music for dancing c. public events such as parades
b. singing at home d. all of the answers shown here
11. Stephen Foster blended the vernacular American spirit and the European art tradition into his
________.
a. Lieder. c. operas.
b. parlor songs. d. sonatas.
12. Parlor songs are best described as:
a. sweet, sentimental, and nostalgic.
b. overly concerned with human nature.
c. intensely emotional, often through-composed.
d. none of the answers shown here
13. Foster was under contract to write songs for:
a. the Christy Minstrels. c. Washington and Jefferson.
b. Walcott’s Rabbit Foot Dancers. d. Harriet Beecher Stowe.
TRUE/FALSE
1. Nineteenth-century American music was a direct reflection of the music of European culture.
2. Stephen Foster made a fortune by writing popular songs.
3. There was a clear split between “classical” and “popular” music in nineteenth-century America.
4. Stephen Foster composed both parlor and minstrel songs.
5. Minstrelsy shaped stereotyping of African American culture well into the twentieth century.
6. Foster’s Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair contains a cadenza.
7. Foster intended his songs to be performed by professional singers.
8. Foster’s Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair was not an immediate success.
9. Minstrel shows featured white performers in blackface, acting out idealized scenes from the
plantation that were vastly different from the realities of slave life.
10. My Old Kentucky Home, written by Stephen Foster, is the state song of Kentucky.
11. Foster was perhaps the first American to make a living as a professional songwriter.
ESSAY
1. How does Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair exemplify the intersection between the vernacular
American spirit and the European art tradition?
ANS:
Answers will vary.
PTS: 1 DIF: 3 REF: Essentials: pp. 192–193
TOP: Stephen Foster MSC: Conceptual
2. Explain how the songs of Stephen Foster helped to build a powerful music publishing industry in
the nineteenth-century United States.
ANS:
Answers will vary.
PTS: 1 DIF: 3 REF: Essentials: pp. 191–194
TOP: Stephen Foster MSC: Applied