chapter 30 Diverging Traditions in the Later
Nineteenth Century
MULTIPLE CHOICE
1. One of the principal goals of France’s Société Nationale de Musique was to
a.
rehabilitate the reputation of German orchestral music in the wake of the Franco-Prussian War.
b.
supervise the administration and finances of Paris’s major musical venues.
c.
promote the performance and imitation of Renaissance polyphonic works.
d.
provide free music education in rural regions of France.
e.
promote contemporary as well as seventeenth– and eighteenth-century French music.
2. The works of ________ best represent a “cosmopolitan” musical style in French music in the later nineteenth century.
a.
Gabriel Fauré
d.
Nadia Boulanger
b.
César Franck
e.
Paul Verlaine
c.
Vincent D’Indy
3. The texts of La bonne chanson are poems by
a.
Voltaire.
d.
Paul Verlaine.
b.
Stéphane Mallarmé.
e.
Jean Racine.
c.
Edgar Allen Poe.
4. Fauré’s mature musical language, as seen in songs such as Avant que tu ne t’en ailles, is
distinguished by its
a.
use of common-tone relationships among chords that dilute the impulse toward resolution.
b.
use of extreme chromaticism to build tension and impel harmonies toward strong cadences.
c.
use of coloratura, wide-ranging vocal melody.
d.
avoidance of dissonant harmonies.
e.
densely polyphonic textures.
5. Fauré’s La bonne chanson and Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony, though different in scale, both
a.
use the cyclic return of thematic ideas.
b.
are based on symbolist poetry.
c.
are written for voices and orchestra.
d.
were completed in the same year.
e.
were inspired by Henry Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha.
6. The first movement of Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony
a.
progresses through keys that lie a major third apart.
b.
progresses through keys that lie a minor third apart.
c.
exactly duplicates the key scheme of Schubert’s Wanderer Fantasy.
d.
uses the dominant rather than relative major key for its second theme group.
e.
ends in a different key from that in which it began.
7. Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony is atypical of multimovement symphonies in that
a.
the last movement includes a setting of texts from the Russian Orthodox Reqiuem.
b.
it has six movements, rather than the standard four.
c.
it has no dancelike movement.
d.
it begins in B minor, but its last movement concludes with a triumphal stretto in D major.
e.
it ends with a solemn slow movement.
8. Viktor Hartmann’s works inspired the composition of
a.
Musorgksy’s Songs and Dances of Death.
b.
Musorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition.
c.
Borodin’s In Central Asia.
d.
Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade.
e.
Rimsky-Korsakov’s Russian Easter Overture.
9. Nationalist compositions like Musorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition and Dvořák’s Slavonic Dances were roughly
contemporary with
a.
the premiere of Wagner’s Lohengrin.
b.
the composition of Brahms’s early piano sonatas.
c.
performances by the Fisk Jubilee Singers.
d.
the composition of Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique.
e.
the composition of Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony.
10. Bedřich Smetana’s Tábor is based on
a.
architectural drawings that the composer saw in a Prague gallery.
b.
a hero of fifteenth-century religious wars.
c.
a story from the Arabian Nights.
d.
a fast triple-meter folk dance.
e.
a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale.
11. Antonín Dvořák, Edward MacDowell, and Amy Beach all sought to evoke a distinctly American musical sound by
incorporating in their works
a.
melodies of Native Americans.
d.
Afro-Caribbean folk music.
b.
melodies of African Americans.
e.
New England hymnody.
c.
American military marches.
12. Antonín Dvořák’s first impressions of African American music were gained from
a.
slaves singing on southern plantations.
b.
the Fisk Jubilee Singers.
c.
the singer Harry Burleigh.
d.
German publications of African American song transcriptions.
e.
journal and newspaper descriptions of African American songs and singing.
13. Edvard Grieg’s piano style was strongly influenced by
a.
Chopin.
b.
French grand opera.
c.
Hungarian folk music.
d.
Renaissance liturgical polyphony.
e.
Musorgksy’s and Borodin’s orchestral works.
14. The term English Musical Renaissance, as used by writers like Fuller Maitland, referred specifically to
a.
fifteenth- and sixteenth-century English polyphony.
b.
the appearance in the 1880s of promising British composers who had developed a distinct national
style.
c.
the predominance of works by British composers on European concert programs in the 1880s.
d.
the renewed touring by German and Italian opera stars in Britain after World War I.
e.
the development of London’s West End musical theater scene.
15. Edward Elgar was
a.
the first director of London’s Royal Academy of Music.
b.
the first prominent graduate of London’s Royal College of Music.
c.
the founder of Britain’s Folk-Song Society.
d.
self-taught as a composer.
e.
a student of Hubert Parry.
16. In the second half of the nineteenth century, classical music culture in the United States was
dominated by
a.
American-born, self-taught musicians who quickly developed an indigenous American musical
style.
b.
touring European musicians, as there was almost no self-sustaining local musical culture.
c.
French immigrant musicians and French styles that arrived through Louisiana.
d.
Italian immigrant musicians who came to the United States during the struggle for Italian
unification.
e.
German immigrant musicians and American-born musicians taught in the German tradition.
17. The Dream of Gerontius is based on
a.
a poem by Henry Longfellow.
d.
an anonymous medieval epic poem.
b.
a poem by Paul Verlaine.
e.
Shakespeare’s The Tempest.
c.
a poem by John Henry Newman.
18. A central problem for nineteenth-century American composers like Paine, Chadwick, and
MacDowell was how to
a.
synthesize their European-style training with indigenous musical elements.
b.
prevent indigenous forms of popular “low” music from contaminating American art music.
c.
integrate jazz elements into their concert works.
d.
gain entry and respect for their music in academic circles.
e.
adapt their French musical training to the tastes of American audiences.
19. Amy Beach’s musical career was marked by all the following EXCEPT
a.
suppression of her concert career during her marriage.
b.
emulation of the musical style of Brahms.
c.
studies in Paris with Vincent D’Indy.
d.
studies in Germany just before World War I.
e.
integration of Irish folk music and Native American music in her compositions.
20. The tradition of organized amateur wind bands in the United States arose in the
a.
1760s.
d.
1840s.
b.
1790s.
e.
1860s.
c.
1820s.
21. The music of Richard Wagner was introduced to American audiences during the 1880s and 1890s primarily through
a.
staged performances in opera houses.
b.
band transcriptions.
c.
student performances at large American university music departments.
d.
radio broadcasts.
e.
touring European opera companies.
22. Band transcriptions were primarily intended to
a.
make popular band compositions playable on the piano for domestic enjoyment.
b.
make popular orchestral works performable by wind bands.
c.
notate improvised band performances for future reproduction.
d.
rescore original band compositions for performance by full orchestras.
e.
accompany opera in smaller venues lacking space for strings.
23. The form of the standard mid-nineteenth-century American march was
a.
ternary.
d.
rondo.
b.
binary.
e.
variation set.
c.
sonatina.
24. An important innovation by Sousa in the composition of marches for concert performances was
a.
to bring a march to a rousing, contrasting conclusion.
b.
the inclusion of string parts in band scores.
c.
the repetition of the opening section of the march, with fuller orchestration.
d.
the repetition of the opening section of the march at double tempo.
e.
the conclusion of the march with a fugue.
25. In the late nineteenth century, the distinction between art song and popular song was based mainly on
a.
the technical difficulty of the song’s vocal part.
b.
whether a song was published.
c.
whether a song was in English.
d.
the relationship between a song’s text and musical accompaniment.
e.
whether a song was composed for commercial profit.
TRUE/FALSE
1. In the 1890s, Gabriel Fauré was regarded as the standard–bearer for France’s conservative musical establishment.
2. Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto was premiered in the United States.
3. Theodore Thomas, like Hubert Parry and Charles Stanford, was an important figure in the late–nineteenth-century
English Musical Renaissance.
4. Theodore Thomas was one of the first native-born Americans to lead a major orchestra.
5. Women were not permitted to enroll at major universities in the late nineteenth century.
6. During the 1890s in the United States there was sharp disagreement as to whether American
musical style should be based on distinctly American styles and repertoires.
7. Because of their popular orientation, American bands in the late nineteenth century excluded
European masterworks and cultivated more accessible repertoire.
8. The destruction and deprivations of the American Civil War reduced by nearly 40 percent the number of bands active
in the United States, stunting the development of band culture for nearly three decades.
9. The songs of African slaves proliferated and were absorbed into the American musical vernacular because
slaveholders considered this music harmless or even beneficial.
10. Unlike the music of their European contemporaries, most music written by American composers in the late nineteenth
century did not long remain part of the canon of concert repertoire.
SHORT ANSWER
1. In the 1880s, the conductor Édouard Colonne first introduced ________ to edify audiences about the music they were
to hear.
2. The Parisian school founded in 1853 to provide instruction especially in church music was called the ________.
3. The French equivalent of a German Lied was called a(n) ________.
4. Evoking Beethoven’s famous Piano Sonata, Op. 13, Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony is subtitled ________.
5. Elgar’s popular set of orchestral variations is called ________.
6. In a typical American march, the tunes are presented in musical periods that are also known as ________.
7. In the terminology of American popular song, the frequent scoring of song refrains for multiple voices led to their
being called ________.
8. The song publishing industry in the 1880s and 1890s was based in a New York neighborhood popularly known as
________.
9. The singing practice of African slaves in which short phrases were alternately sung by a leader and group is known as
________.
10. The religious songs of southern slaves, passed down through oral tradition and often expressing longing for freedom,
are known as ________.
MATCHING
Match each musician to the institution with which he was associated.
a.
Vincent D’Indy
d.
George Chadwick
b.
Gabriel Fauré
e.
Horatio Parker
c.
Edward MacDowell
1. Schola Cantorum
2. Columbia University
3. New England Conservatory
4. Paris Conservatory
5. Yale School of Music
Match each work to its composer.
a.
Le bonne chanson
d.
After the Ball
b.
Gaelic Symphony
e.
From My Life
c.
Capriccio espagnol
6. Amy Beach
7. Charles Harris
8. Bedrich Smetana
9. Gabriel Fauré
10. Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov
ESSAY
1. What role did nationalism play during the second half of the nineteenth century in the formation of musical styles
among composers in Europe, Russia, Britain, and the United States? How did the role of nationalism differ in
different regions? Did nationalism yield a single coherent musical style or a diversity of styles? Identify and describe
compositions that illustrate the influence of nationalism on later–nineteenth-century music, and explain whether and
how nationalist ideologies and aesthetics confer distinct stylistic traits on these works.
2. How and why did the categories of art music and popular music begin to diverge in the late nineteenth century? What
repertoires demonstrate this divergence? What role did American musicians play in the emergence of popular musical
genres? Discuss works from these new popular genres that illustrate their characteristics and functions.
