chapter 26 Romanticism in Classic Forms: Choral,
Chamber, and Orchestral Music
MULTIPLE CHOICE
1. The first repertoire of the eighteenth century to be absorbed into a permanent canon of admired
works in the nineteenth century was the
a.
chamber music of Corelli.
b.
keyboard suites of François Couperin and Jean-Phillipe Rameau.
c.
keyboard music of Bach.
d.
oratorios of Handel and Haydn.
e.
operas of Vivaldi and Scarlatti.
2. Over the course of the nineteenth century, average orchestra sizes increased by approximately ________ percent.
a.
15
d.
250
b.
45
e.
375
c.
125
3. The New York and Vienna Philharmonic Orchestras were both founded in the
a.
1790s.
d.
1870s.
b.
1810s.
e.
1890s.
c.
1840s.
4. The composer whose legacy most broadly influenced musical developments during the nineteenth century was
a.
J. S. Bach.
d.
Beethoven.
b.
Handel.
e.
Mozart.
c.
C. P. E. Bach.
5. Eighteenth– and early nineteenth-century classics in European concert repertoire became more prominent during the
nineteenth century because
a.
of a popular disdain for modern, flashy, virtuosic works.
b.
influential musicians and critics promoted the repertoire as a counterweight to the present.
c.
of the lack of musicians able to perform new music.
d.
of a decline in the amount of new music being composed in the nineteenth century.
e.
of a shift from church patronage toward government patronage of composition and performance.
6. Romantic composers like Schubert and Mendelssohn used lyrical, long themes in their symphonic works. How did
this tendency affect their treatment of sonata form?
a.
They focused in their development sections not on the lyrical material but on new or secondary
motivic material.
b.
They elided the exposition with the recapitulation so as not to disfigure the lyrical material.
c.
They separated their lyrical themes into short motivic components that were amenable to
development.
d.
They wrote exceptionally long development sections that could accommodate prolonged
contrapuntal presentations of their lyrical themes.
e.
They avoided sonata form in the outer movements of their symphonies and leaned toward ternary
form, which was more amenable to lyrical thematic material.
7. Robert Schumann played a pivotal role in locating and publicizing the unknown compositions of
a.
Clara Schumann.
d.
J. S. Bach.
b.
Schubert.
e.
Handel.
c.
Beethoven.
8. The recurring principal theme of the Symphonie fantastique is transformed in all the following ways EXCEPT
a.
key.
d.
meter.
b.
instrumentation.
e.
mode.
c.
tempo.
9. A comparison of Berlioz’s music with Mendelssohn’s would yield the conclusion that
a.
Berlioz, unlike Mendelssohn, frequently composed program music.
b.
Berlioz, unlike Mendelssohn, used existing melodies as symbolic references in his music.
c.
Mendelssohn, unlike Berlioz, composed frequently and fluently for piano.
d.
Mendelssohn, unlike Berlioz, wrote symphonic works that integrated voices with orchestra.
e.
Berlioz, unlike Mendelssohn, composed pieces inspired by his travels.
10. The literary source for Berlioz’s 1839 “dramatic symphony” for orchestra, soloists, and chorus is by
a.
William Shakespeare.
d.
Pierre Corneille.
b.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
e.
Victor Hugo.
c.
Friedrich Schiller.
11. Which of the following statements is true of both Schumann’s Fourth Symphony and Mendelssohn’s Violin
Concerto?
a.
They are in the same key.
b.
They contain movements that are linked to each other without pause.
c.
They are examples of program music.
d.
They have three movements.
e.
They strongly influenced the design of Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique.
12. Fairylike or elfin string writing is a hallmark of scherzo movements or scherzo-like passages by
a.
Mendelssohn.
d.
Schubert.
b.
Berlioz.
e.
Beethoven.
c.
Robert Schumann.
13. Both Schumann’s Fourth Symphony and Berlioz’s Harold en Italie
a.
contain a choral movement.
b.
are examples of program music.
c.
have cyclic forms.
d.
were composed after 1840.
e.
have more than the traditional four movements.
14. Harold en Italie features a prominent solo part for
a.
oboe.
d.
horn.
b.
violin.
e.
piano.
c.
viola.
15. After Beethoven, the most important model for Robert Schumann’s orchestral compositions was
a.
Clara Schumann.
d.
Schubert.
b.
Berlioz.
e.
Chopin.
c.
Liszt.
16. The most influential nineteenth-century treatise on orchestration was written in the early 1840s by
a.
Berlioz.
d.
Mendelssohn.
b.
Hans von Bülow.
e.
Robert Schumann.
c.
Wagner.
17. Schubert’s Trout Quintet is so named because
a.
it was written on a commission from the Viennese ensemble called the Trout Quintet.
b.
the movements of the quintet present a programmatic description of the adventures of a fisherman.
c.
it was dedicated to the violist Sigismund Trout, a friend of Schubert.
d.
it was written during a summer stay in the Austrian spa town of Trout.
e.
the fourth movement is a set of variations on a song by Schubert.
18. The main key areas of the first movement exposition of Schubert’s C Major Quintet are
a.
C and G.
d.
C, F, G.
b.
C and E.
e.
C, E-flat, G-flat, A.
c.
C, E-flat, G.
19. The early chamber works of Schubert and Mendelssohn were modeled on
a.
the late string quartets of Beethoven.
b.
the chamber music of Haydn and Mozart.
c.
the chamber music of Berlioz.
d.
Renaissance polyphonic vocal music.
e.
no previous composers’ works; Schubert and Mendelssohn created radically new styles severed
from the past.
20. Goethe’s Faust inspired
a.
Schumann’s Fourth Symphony and Schubert’s Die Nacht.
b.
Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony and Schumann’s Fourth Symphony.
c.
Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique and his Harold en Italie.
d.
Mendelssohn’s octet and Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique.
e.
Mendelssohn’s Fourth Symphony and Berlioz’s King Lear overture.
21. Choral societies flourished in the first half of the nineteenth century in all the following cities EXCEPT
a.
Boston.
d.
Manchester.
b.
Leipzig.
e.
Vienna.
c.
Dresden.
22. Choral societies served all of the following important functions in musical and social life in the early nineteenth
century EXCEPT
a.
occupying leisure time.
b.
developing sense of local community.
c.
exposing less musically sophisticated people to quality repertoire.
d.
cultivating spiritual and ethical values.
e.
preserving authentic eighteenth-century choral performance practices.
23. In the 1820s and 1830s, Mendelssohn played a pivotal role in reviving the vocal music of
a.
Beethoven.
d.
J. S. Bach.
b.
Palestrina.
e.
Pergolesi.
c.
Haydn.
24. The mid-nineteenth-century Cecilian and Oxford movements encouraged the
a.
composition and performance of liturgical choral music in Renaissance polyphonic style.
b.
revival of Baroque opera.
c.
adaptation of Italian opera style to church music.
d.
use of instruments in church.
e.
writing of choral music for Protestant congregations.
25. The Sacred Harp is a(n)
a.
oratorio by Mendelssohn.
b.
oratorio by Handel that influenced Mendelssohn.
c.
collection of American spiritual songs in shape-note notation.
d.
partsong by Schubert.
e.
hymn tune by Lowell Mason.
TRUE/FALSE
1. By 1870, nearly three-quarters of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra’s repertoire was by composers no longer alive.
2. Schubert’s C Major Quintet and his Symphony No. 9 in C Major both have three-key expositions.
3. The premiere of the Symphonie fantastique was such a sensation that it made Berlioz the most sought-after and
widely performed orchestral composer in Paris during the 1830s.
4. A hallmark of Schumann’s style is his juxtaposition of contrasting musical patterns within a theme, rather than the
ongoing development of a single idea.
5. Clara Wieck willingly restricted her compositional efforts to solo piano music, as her contemporaries considered
larger genres of chamber and orchestral music beyond the capacities of women composers.
6. By the middle of the nineteenth century, chamber music genres were the media in which many avant-garde
composers like Berlioz and Liszt experimented with novel techniques and forms.
7. Choral societies in the nineteenth century were the vanguard for performances of progressive,
new music.
8. Unlike conservative composers like Mendelssohn, Berlioz wrote no choral music.
9. Nineteenth-century shape-note hymn texts were sung to melodies that were composed specifically
for them and that uniquely expressed their individual meanings.
10. Lowell Mason promoted a style of hymn composition that adhered to the harmonic and melodic conventions of
European compositional practice, in contrast to the crude style predominant in the rural South.
SHORT ANSWER
1. The low brass instrument invented in the 1830s called the ________ was occasionally used in the orchestra.
2. The ________ is said to have first been used in orchestral music by Louis Spohr in 1820.
3. The principal theme of Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique, subject to several transformations throughout the work’s
movements, is called in French the ________.
4. Death is symbolized in the last movement of the Symphonie fantastique by the melody known as ________.
5. The bowing technique used by Berlioz in the Symphonie fantastique to evoke the sound of dancing skeletons is
called ________.
6. Schubert’s Quintet in C Major is scored for the standard quartet of two violins, viola, and cello,
plus a(n) ________.
7. The late chamber music of Robert Schumann, as well as the finale of Clara Schumann’s Trio in
G Minor, demonstrate especially these musicians’ careful study of the style and techniques of the composer
________.
8. An expressive setting of a strophic, lyric poem sung a cappella by a small choir is called a(n) ________.
9. In 1829, a performance of ________ stimulated many musicians to study the long-ignored
vocal works of its composer.
10. The notation related to solmization syllables and used in collections such as The Southern Harmony
is called ________.
MATCHING
Match each institution or event to the individual associated with it.
a.
Handel and Haydn Society
d.
Reformed Synagogue in Vienna
b.
Berlin Singakademie
e.
Leipzig Conservatory
c.
World Peace Jubilee in Boston
1. Patrick Gilmore
2. Felix Mendelssohn
3. Carl Zelter
4. Lowell Mason
5. Salomon Sulzer
Match each literary work to its author.
a.
Confessions of an English Opium Eater
d.
Aeneid
b.
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage
e.
Becalmed at Sea and Prosperous Voyage
c.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
6. Virgil
7. Thomas De Quincey
8. Lord Byron
9. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
10. William Shakespeare
ESSAY
1. What kinds of melodic, harmonic, rhythmic, and formal techniques and strategies are peculiar to Romantic
orchestral and chamber music? What adaptations of earlier conventions and procedures, or advances beyond them,
mark works in this repertoire as “Romantic”? Identify and discuss representative examples of composers and their
works to illustrate your points.
2. How did literature and other arts affect the composition and reception of orchestral and chamber music in the first
half of the nineteenth century? Identify and discuss composers and works that illustrate the range of extramusical
influences on these genres.