Part VII
The Twentieth Century and Beyond
1. In music, the early twentieth century was a time of ______.
D. disinterest
2. Which of the following statements is not true?
A. The “emancipation of the dissonance” does not prevent composers from differentiating between chords of greater or lesser
tension.
3. Which of the following statements is not true?
A. The years following 1900 saw more fundamental changes in the language of music than any time since the beginning of the
baroque era.
4. The most famous riot in music history occurred in Paris in 1913 at the first performance of ______.
A. Arnold Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder
5. All of the following composers worked in the early years of the twentieth century except ______.
A. Arnold Schoenberg
6. Composers in the twentieth century drew inspiration from ______.
A. folk and popular music from all cultures
7. Why did twentieth-century composers incorporate elements of folk and popular music within their personal styles?
A. It made their music more commercially viable.
8. A great twentieth-century composer who was also a leading scholar of the folk music of his native land was ______.
A. Claude Debussy
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9. Which of the following composers was not stimulated by the folklore of his native land?
A. Igor Stravinsky
10. Which of the following statements is not true?
A. Modern composers drew inspiration from a wider historical range of music.
11. In twentieth-century music ______.
A. string players are sometimes called on to use the wood instead of the hair on their bows
12. The glissando, a technique widely used in the twentieth century, is ______.
A. the combination of two traditional chords sounding together
13. Among the unusual playing techniques that are widely used during the twentieth century is the _______, a rapid slide up or
down a scale.
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D. ostinato
14. In modern music ______.
A. instruments are played at the very top or bottom of their ranges
15. A piano is often used in twentieth-century orchestral music to ______.
A. “sing” a beautiful melody
16. Which of the following is not an alternative to the traditional organization of pitch used by twentieth-century composers?
A. Bitonality
17. The combination of two traditional chords sounding together is known as ______.
A. polytonality
18. A fourth chord is ______.
A. a combination of four tones
19. A chord made of tones only a half step or a whole step apart is known as ______.
A. polytonality
20. To create fresh sounds, twentieth-century composers used ______.
A. scales borrowed from nonwestern cultures
21. The technique of using two or more tonal centers at the same time is called ______.
A. expanded tonality
22. The absence of key or tonality in a musical composition is known as ______.
A. polytonality
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Feedback: The logical next step after Wagner’s increased use of unresolved dissonances, was to abandon tonality completely.
This departure from the tonal tradition is known as atonality.
23. Using all twelve tones without regard to their traditional relationship to major or minor scales, avoiding traditional chord
progressions, is known as ______.
A. polytonality
24. The first significant atonal pieces were composed around 1908 by ______.
A. Igor Stravinsky
25. The use of two or more contrasting and independent rhythms at the same time is known as ______.
D. ostinato
26. To what does ostinato refer?
A. A rapid slide through different pitches
27. A motive or phrase that is repeated persistently at the same pitch throughout a section is called ______.
A. polytonality
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Bloom’s: Remember
Learning Objective: Know general characteristics of twentieth-century musical styles
Topic: Rhythm
Feedback: An ostinato is a motive or phrase that is repeated persistently at the same pitch throughout a section. It may occur in
the melody or in the accompaniment.
28. Radio broadcasts of live and recorded music began to reach large audiences during the ______.
A. 1900s
29. The first opera created for television was Gian Carlo Menotti’s ______.
A. Turandot
30. When did the first pairing of music and film take place?
D. 1930
31. One of the most important teachers of musical composition in the twentieth century was ______.
A. Amy Beach
32. Impressionist painting and symbolist poetry as artistic movements originated in ______.
A. Bohemia
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C. France
D. Austria
33. The most important impressionist composer was ______.
A. Richard Wagner
34. The term impressionist derived from a critic’s derogatory reaction to Impression: Sunrise, a painting by ____.
A. Claude Debussy
35. When viewed closely, impressionist paintings are made up of ______.
A. fine lines
36. Impressionist painters were primarily concerned with the effect of light, color, and ______.
A. rhythm
37. The impressionist painters were particularly obsessed with portraying ______.
D. battle scenes
38. Which of the following is not considered a symbolist poet?
A. Stéphane Mallarmé
39. Which of the following statements is not true?
A. Both impressionist painting and symbolist poetry were catalysts for many developments during the twentieth century.
40. Many of Debussy’s songs are set to poems by the symbolist poet ______.
A. Stéphane Mallarmé
41. A dramatic turning point in Debussy’s career came in 1902 when ______.
D. he went to Bayreuth to hear Wagner’s music
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Feedback: Debussy’s opera Pelléas et Mélisande (1902) marked a turning point in his career. Although the critics were sharply
divided over it, the opera soon caught on, and Debussy was recognized as the most important living French composer.
42. At the Paris International Exhibition of 1889 Debussy was strongly influenced by ______.
A. the advantages of modern technology
43. Which of the following characteristics is not usually associated with impressionism?
A. Fleeting mood
Feedback: Impressionism was a style concerned with impermanence, change, and fluidity, using symbols to suggest, rather than
state. Clearly delineated forms were not a characteristic of this style.
44. Debussy’s music tends to ______.
He uses successions of dissonant chords that do not resolve. “One must drown the sense of tonality,” Debussy wrote.
45. Impressionism in music is characterized by _______.
A. the recurrence of strong accents on the downbeat
46. Lingering vibrations and hazy sounds in Debussy’s piano music are the result of what?
A. Sloppiness in transcribing the sounds he wanted
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Bloom’s: Understand
Learning Objective: Recognize the characteristics of music composed by Debussy
Topic: Claude Debussy
Feedback: Debussy’s frequent use of the damper pedal, which allows a pianist to sustain tones after the keys are released, results
in hazy sounds in which chords and tones blend together.
47. In order to “drown the sense of tonality,” Debussy did what?
A. Turned to the medieval church modes
48. A five-tone scale, such as that produced by the five black keys of the piano in succession, is called a _______________ scale.
D. pentagon
49. A scale made up of six different notes each a whole step away from the next is called a ________ scale.
A. pentatonic
50. Debussy’s opera Pelléas et Mélisande is an almost word-for-word setting of the symbolist play by ______.
A. Paul Verlaine
51. In which of the following areas did Debussy not create masterpieces?
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B. Art songs
C. Chamber music
D. Piano music
52. The poem that inspired the Prelude to “The Afternoon of a Faun” was written by ______.
A. Paul Verlaine
53. The faun evoked in Debussy’s famous composition is a ______.
A. baby deer
54. Why did Ravel perhaps harbor a lingering resentment toward the French musical establishment?
A. He was not permitted to attend the Paris Conservatory as a student.
55. While some of Ravel’s music has the fluid, misty, atmospheric quality associated with impressionism, he does not fit neatly
into any stylistic category because of what reason?
A. His music is too clearly defined in form and tonality.
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Feedback: Much of Ravel’s music is too clearly defined in form and tonality and classically balanced in phrase structure to be
considered impressionist. His lyrical melodic lines, though individual in style, are closely related to melodies by nineteenth-
century French composers such as Georges Bizet.
56. Which of the following statements is not true of Ravel?
A. He was a brilliant orchestrator.
57. Ravel’s Bolero originated as a(n) ______.
A. piano composition commissioned by Paul Wittgenstein
58. The neoclassical movement in music roughly encompassed the years ______.
A. 1890-1915
59. Which of the following statements concerning neoclassicism is not true?
D. Neoclassicism was an important trend in other art forms such as painting and poetry.
60. Which of the following is not characteristic of neoclassicism?
A. Emotional restraint
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C. Misty atmosphere
D. Balance
61. Neoclassical composers favored ______.
A. unusual and exotic scales
62. Neoclassical compositions are characterized by ______.
D. the use of the twelve-tone system
63. Neoclassical composers modeled many of their works after the compositions of ______.
A. Richard Wagner
64. Neoclassicism was a reaction against _______.
D. traditional forms
65. The painter who designed the sets for Stravinsky’s Pulcinella, and who went through a phase that showed the influence of
ancient Greek art, was ______.
D. Ernst Kirchner
66. Igor Stravinsky studied composition with ______.
A. Claude Debussy
67. Stravinsky’s life took a sudden turn in 1909, when he met the director of the Russian Ballet, ______.
A. Michel Fokine
68. Sergei Diaghilev was a famous ______.
69. The immense success of Stravinsky’s 1910 ballet ________ established him as a leading young composer.
D. Pulcinella
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70. The famous riot in 1913 was caused by the first performance of Stravinsky’s ballet ______.
A. Pulcinella
71. Stravinsky’s enormous influence on twentieth-century music is due to his innovations in ______.
72. Which of the following ballets is not from Stravinsky’s Russian period?
A. The Rite of Spring
73. Stravinsky’s second phase is generally known as ______.
D. serial
74. During the period from about 1920 to 1951, Stravinsky drew inspiration largely from ______.
D. African sculpture
75. In the 1950s Stravinsky dramatically changed his style, drawing inspiration from ______.
A. Claude Debussy
76. The deliberate evocation of primitive power through insistent rhythms and percussive sounds is known as _______.
A. ostinato
77. Le Sacre du printemps (The Rite of Spring) is an example of ______.
A. neoclassicism
78. Which of the following statements is not true?
D. Stravinsky’s extensive output includes compositions of almost every kind, for voices, instruments, and the stage.
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Feedback: Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring is considered primitivist, not neoclassical. Primitivism is a style marked by the deliberate
evocation of primitive power through insistent rhythms and percussive sounds, clearly displayed in the work’s harsh dissonances,
percussive orchestration, rapidly changing meters, and violent offbeat accents. Neoclassical music is almost the opposite, marked
by emotional restraint, balance, and clarity; neoclassical compositions use musical forms and stylistic features of earlier periods,
particularly of the eighteenth century.
79. Igor Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring is scored for ______.
A. a small chamber group
80. In the 1950s Stravinsky dramatically changed his style to favor ______.
D. jazz
81. Why is Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms unconventional in its orchestration?
D. It includes a chorus with full symphonic orchestra.
82. The expressionist movement in music and art flourished in the years ______.
A. 1890-1914
1925.
83. The twentieth-century artistic movement that stressed intense, subjective emotion was called ______.
A. impressionism
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C. expressionism
D. neoclassicism
84. Expressionism as an artistic movement was largely centered in ______.
A. the United States
85. Expressionism grew out of the same intellectual climate as Freud’s studies of _______.
D. mystical literature
Expressionists sought to communicate the tensions and anguish of the human psyche.
86. Twentieth-century musical expressionism grew out of the emotional turbulence in the works of late romantics such as
______.
A. Richard Wagner
87. One of the immediate predecessors of expressionism was the composer _______.
A. Edvard Munch
88. Richard Strauss’s operas Salome and Elektra were known for their ______.
D. lack of harmony and rhythm
89. The operas of Richard Strauss use chromaticism and dissonance to depict ______.
A. peace and harmony
90. Expressionist painters, writers, and composers used ______________ to assault and shock their audience.
A. pastel colors
91. Which of the following statements is not true?
A. Twentieth-century musical expressionism grows out of the emotional turbulence in the works of late romantics like Wagner,
Richard Strauss, and Gustav Mahler.