chapter 35 Between the World Wars: The
Classical Tradition
MULTIPLE CHOICE
1. The idea that music is an autonomous art refers to the
a.
freedom of composers from political constraints on their work.
b.
need for modernist composers to market their music to audiences.
c.
separation of the meanings of musical works from the historical and material world around them.
d.
formation of self-governing musicians’ unions in the Soviet block after World War II.
e.
idea that music should be performable by amateur musicians without the guidance or participation
of professionals.
2. The contrast between the composers Vincent d’Indy and Francis Poulenc vividly represents the aesthetic dichotomy
of
a.
modernism versus neoclassicism.
b.
“low” popular music versus “high” art music.
c.
formalism versus realism.
d.
vocal versus instrumental music.
e.
classicism versus Romanticism.
3. All of the following compositions confronted contemporary political issues of the 1930s EXCEPT
a.
Paul Hindemith’s Mathis der Maler.
b.
Kurt Weill’s Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny.
c.
Silvestre Revueltas’s Homenaje a Federico García Lorca.
d.
Arthur Honneger’s Pacific 231.
e.
Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5.
4. All of the following French composers embraced international and French vernacular musical styles in their works
during the early twentieth century EXCEPT
a.
Vincent D’Indy.
d.
Arthur Honegger.
b.
Francis Poulenc.
e.
Maurice Ravel.
c.
Darius Milhaud.
5. Milhaud’s La création du monde was
a.
oratorio composed for the cathedral of Notre Dame to celebrate the end of World War II.
b.
the neoclassical setting of the text of Haydn’s The Creation.
c.
chamber piece that integrated techniques of American jazz with European modernism.
d.
the collection of twenty-four preludes and fugues demonstrating polytonal and polyrhythmic
techniques.
e.
patriotic cantata marking the French entry into World War I.
6. Krenek’s opera Jonny spielt auf examines the cultural dichotomy between
a.
music for amateurs and music for connoisseurs.
b.
tonal and serial music.
c.
American jazz and European classics.
d.
neoclassicism and Romanticism.
e.
secular and sacred music.
7. Poulenc’s Dialogues of the Carmelites is based on
a.
a thirteenth-century French romance.
b.
historical events during the French Revolution.
c.
an absurdist play by Jean Cocteau.
d.
historical events during French colonial rule in Algeria.
e.
an expressionist play by Oskar Kokoschka.
8. Who among the following composers pursued a successful career writing Broadway musicals
in the 1930s and 1940s?
a.
Kurt Weill
d.
Paul Hindemith
b.
Darius Milhaud
e.
Sergei Prokofiev
c.
Ernst Krenek
9. In the late 1920s, Hindemith engaged with contemporary society most directly in his cultivation of
a.
neoclassicism.
d.
Gebrauchsmusik.
b.
jazz.
e.
folk music styles.
c.
extended techniques.
10. An important challenge for composers in Russia and Germany in the 1930s was how to
a.
compose modern music in a regressive, tradition-oriented aesthetic climate.
b.
adapt twelve-tone techniques to a popular idiom.
c.
cultivate the officially sanctioned formalist style.
d.
create new national styles independent of their countries’ past styles.
e.
create music that was autonomous and divorced from political and economic issues.
11. Zoltán Kodály and Carl Orff were both
a.
wartime émigrés to the United States.
b.
persecuted by the Nazi regime.
c.
Hollywood film composers in the 1940s and 1950s.
d.
inventors of music pedagogy techniques.
e.
members of the Union of Soviet Composers.
12. Official condemnation of Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District was especially aimed at its
a.
libretto inspired by Shakespeare, a symbol of Russia’s adversary Britain.
b.
overreliance on Baroque musical styles and generic references.
c.
lack of the expressive qualities of classical opera and symphonic music.
d.
poor reception by audiences who thought the plot immoral.
e.
overt imitation of bourgeois Russian composers like Borodin and Mussorgsky.
13. The four-pitch musical motive D–E-flat–C–B is a musical cipher of
a.
Louis Durey.
d.
Dmitri Shostakovich.
b.
J. S. Bach.
e.
Arthur Honegger.
c.
Darius Milhaud.
14. Which of the following statements is true of Krenek, Gershwin, Copland, and Milhaud?
a.
They were all Jewish refugees from Nazi-occupied Europe.
b.
They all used twelve-tone techniques in the 1950s.
c.
They were all self-taught as composers.
d.
They all incorporated jazz idioms in their music.
e.
They all composed Broadway musicals.
15. The American ultramodernists included
a.
Varèse, Cowell, and Gershwin.
d.
Copland, Still, and Crawford Seeger.
b.
Varèse, Cowell, and Crawford Seeger.
e.
Copland, Still, and Thomson.
c.
Varèse, Still, and Crawford Seeger.
16. Varèse’s concept of sound mass fundamentally challenged traditional ideas of musical rhetoric
because it deemphasized
a.
orchestration.
d.
thematic development.
b.
texture.
e.
form.
c.
dynamics.
17. The American composers’ organizations known as the International Composers Guild and the League of Composers
were formed with the goal of
a.
attracting European concert artists to the United States.
b.
programming avant-garde European compositions on American concerts.
c.
protecting the American musical tradition from contamination by other musical cultures.
d.
cultivating political links with the Union of Soviet Composers.
e.
securing performances of new American compositions on programs dominated by European works.
18. The development of tape recording technology in the 1930s made possible compositions such as
a.
Offrandes.
d.
The Aeolian Harp.
b.
Homenaje a Federico García Lorca.
e.
Déserts.
c.
Hyperprism.
19. New Musical Resources (1930) was a(n)
a.
ear-training text written by Paul Hindemith for his classes at Yale University.
b.
critique of the excesses of musical modernism by Vincent d’Indy.
c.
summary of avant-garde, extended techniques by Henry Cowell.
d.
manifesto issued by the Union of Soviet Socialist Composers.
e.
joint manifesto of the composers of Les Six.
20. During the Depression and New Deal eras, Ruth Crawford Seeger and Aaron Copland both
a.
integrated serial techniques into their music.
b.
took interest in indigenous American musical traditions.
c.
experimented with electronic music.
d.
studied with Nadia Boulanger.
e.
taught at the University of Berlin.
21. The last movement of Crawford’s String Quartet 1931 is notable for its
a.
palindrome form.
b.
incorporation of native American melodies.
c.
use of a twelve-tone row.
d.
improvised cadenzas in jazz style.
e.
vocal setting of a Carl Sandburg poem.
22. Appalachian Spring
a.
was composed to commemorate the armistice that ended World War I.
b.
was composed as a string quartet and later arranged for wind band.
c.
was the first American twelve-tone composition.
d.
includes variations on the hymn Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott.
e.
was first composed as a ballet.
23. Which of the following works best exemplifies the aesthetics of Gebrauchsmusik?
a.
William Grant Still’s Afro-American Symphony
b.
Francis Poulenc’s Dialogues of the Carmelites
c.
Darius Milhaud’s La création du monde
d.
Aaron Copland’s The Second Hurricane
e.
George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue
24. An African American musician first conducted a major American professional orchestra in
a.
1913.
d.
1948.
b.
1922.
e.
1955.
c.
1936.
25. According to Henry Cowell and Aaron Copland, ultramodernist techniques and musical Americanism were first
prominently juxtaposed in the works of
a.
Charles Ives.
d.
William Grant Still.
b.
Aaron Copland.
e.
Carlos Chávez.
c.
Edgard Varèse.
TRUE/FALSE
1. The New Deal economic policies in the United States and its economic austerity led to the defunding of many
American orchestras and musical institutions in the 1930s and 1940s.
2. Following the brutality and savagery of World War I, European composers largely abandoned their earlier
allegiances to nationalist musical styles and identities.
3. Kurt Weill’s Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny was a scorching satire on the failure of Soviet communism.
4. After the Bolshevik seizure of power in Russia in 1917, Western modernist tendencies among Russian composers
were immediately suppressed.
5. Professional orchestras were not formed in Canada until the late 1940s.
6. During the 1920s and 1930s the Mexican government suppressed the traditional arts of indigenous peoples and
promoted instead ascendant European styles.
7. Varèse’s ideas about spatial music had an important influence on the next generation of European and American
composers including Cage and Stockhausen.
8. The American periodical New Music published scores by composers as diverse as Ives and Schoenberg.
9. Gershwin’s Concerto in F and Still’s Afro-American Symphony both employ blues progressions.
10. In the years following World War II, composers tended to abandon or suppress previously held political convictions
in favor of more abstract modes of expression.
SHORT ANSWER
1. Historians refer to Germany during the years 1919–1933 as the ________ Republic.
2. In 1870–1871, the future of Germany was powerfully shaped by its war with the nation of ________.
3. The group of young French composers including Francis Poulenc and Georges Auric that was active in the 1920s
was collectively known as ________.
4. The musical aesthetic popular among German composers in the 1920s that promoted accessibility, clarity, social
relevance, and familiar stylistic elements was known as ________.
5. The Soviet artistic aesthetic formulated and implemented in the 1930s to underscore the progress of the Soviet state
and celebrate its revolutionary ideology is known as ________.
6. Heitor Villa-Lobos’s famous composition Bachianas brasileiras No. 5 is scored for a vocalist accompanied by an
ensemble comprised entirely of what instrument?
7. The years 1936–1939 witnessed a horrific civil war in the nation of ________.
8. Walter Damrosch and Charles-Marie Widor collaborated to establish an important music school in the town of
________.
9. Paul Whiteman’s concert billed as “An Experiment in Modern Music” was the venue for the premiere of what
landmark American composition?
10. Aaron Copland was the first of many American composers who studied in France with the famous pedagogue
________.
MATCHING
Match each composer to the figure who inspired one of his compositions.
a.
Silvestre Revueltas
d.
Kurt Weill
b.
Paul Hindemith
e.
Sergei Prokofiev
c.
Francis Poulenc
1. Federico García Lorca
2. John Gay
3. Sergei Eisenstein
4. Matthias Grünewald
5. Jean Cocteau
Match each innovation in compositional technique to the composer who developed or prominently used it.
a.
spatial music
d.
heterophony of dynamics
b.
harmonic fluctuation
e.
tone clusters
c.
polytonality
6. Darius Milhaud
7. Henry Cowell
8. Ruth Crawford Seeger
9. Paul Hindemith
10. Edgard Varèse
ESSAY
1. How did political and social upheavals in the first half of the twentieth century affect the development and
dissemination of twentieth-century musical styles and techniques? What historical events motivated important
musical developments? How did emerging political ideologies affect the aesthetics and composition of music in this
period? Discuss compositions that show the impact of important events and ideologies on musical composition in
this period.
2.What social and artistic factors influenced music in the Western Hemisphere in the first half of the twentieth century?
Who were some prominent composers active in the region? How did contemporary events at home and abroad affect
their aesthetic views, musical techniques, and artistic priorities? Identify and explain examples of composers and
their works that illustrate the diverse developments in music of the Americas in this period.