Test Item File
Part 3: The Baroque Era: 1600–1750
1. The earliest operas were performed in
a. the church.
b. private theaters at the courts of the nobility and royalty.
c. secret showings because opera was ruled illegal by Louis XIV.
d. homes using only the piano as accompaniment.
2. The castrati
a. possessed both the high range of a woman’s voice and the physical power of a
man’s voice.
b. were an unnatural and barbaric phenomenon by today’s standards.
c. often came from impoverished households where the families had given consent
for their sons to have the opportunity to be among the highest paid performers of
the day.
d. all of the above.
3. Baroque musicians tried to move their audiences by
a. the artful imitation of emotion.
b. the loudness of the music.
c. the political statements hidden in their works.
d. wit and charm.
4. During the Baroque Era, churches
a. were thrifty and used little of their resources for the arts.
b. did not allow instruments.
c. spent large sums of money on lavish decorations and powerful organs.
d. hosted frequent opera concerts.
5. Opera was the result of
a. someone uncovering a copy of Hildegard von Bingen’s play.
b. a small group of philosophers, musicians, and poets who met in Florence to
consider reviving the synthesis of music and drama as it had been done in the
ancient Greek culture.
c. a group of housewives who overheard their children acting out stories with music
and shared this practice with their composer husbands.
d. composers adapting the formal structure of the Mass to secular chamber music.
6. Opera is best described as a
a. drama sung from beginning to end.
b. polyphonic choral work based on a sacred text.
c. sacred liturgical work for wind instruments.
d. none of the above
7. In Baroque opera, the group of instruments accompanying the singer is called the
a. Greek chorus.
b. concertato.
c. basso continuo.
d. prima prattica.
8. In opera, the new homophonic texture
a. restored a greater sense of balance between text and music.
b. imitated call-and-response techniques from church music.
c. made all of the voices sound the same.
d. blended the church modes into a new type of harmony.
9. A type of opera singing that lies somewhere between singing and speaking is called
a. recitative.
b. prima prattica
c. aria.
d. basso continuo.
10. What is the musical texture during Orpheus’s recitative in “Tu se´ Morta”?
a. monophonic
b. homophonic
c. polyphonic
d. none of the above
11. What is the musical texture during the chorus section of “Tu se´ Morta”?
a. monophonic
b. homophonic
c. polyphonic
d. none of the above
12. Monteverdi was a master of
a. old textures of composition.
b. new textures of composition.
c. both old and new textures of composition.
d. avant-garde literary techniques.
13. Monteverdi wrote in all the following genres EXCEPT:
a. opera
b. madrigal
c. symphony
d. none of the above
14. Claudio Monteverdi’s career bridged the ______ and Baroque Era.
a. Medieval.
b. Renaissance.
c. Classical.
d. Romantic.
15. Monteverdi spent the last three decades of his life working at
a. the court of Mantua.
b. the papal chapel in Rome.
c. the court of Louis XVI in Paris.
d. St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice.
16. Giovanni Gabrieli
a. combined elements of the old and new in his work.
b. wrote a large-scale sacred piece called O magnum mysterium.
c. worked as a composer in Venice in the decades before Monteverdi’s arrival.
d. all of the above.
17. Dido and Aeneas may have been suppressed for political reasons because it
a. was in the English language.
b. had questionable musical phrases.
c. could have been perceived as an unflattering commentary on the dual reign of
King William and Queen Mary.
d. could have been perceived as a way for the composer to flatter the aristocracy and
thus gain a higher salary.
18. Purcell moves the plot of Dido and Aeneas forward through a series of brief, self-
contained units known as
a. movements.
b. character pieces.
c. oratorios.
d. numbers.
19. Audiences could be quite noisy before the beginning of the opera, due in part to
a. the fact that the music they were about to hear was new and not a cherished and
respected masterwork.
b. people regarded the opera as a social event.
c. they were a lower class and did not know how to act.
d. both a and b.
20. A French overture
a. uses a singing style similar to speech.
b. consists of a slow introduction followed by an imitative fast section.
c. uses the chorus to comment on what’s just happened on stage.
d. all of the above.
21. Which of the following is NOT true of Henry Purcell?
a. He worked in the English court and at Westminster Abbey.
b. Dido and Aeneas is his only true opera.
c. He eventually gained the reputation as the greatest of all seventeenth-century
English composers.
d. He traveled to Italy to learn how to compose opera.
22. Foreign-language opera should probably not be sung in English for all of the following
reasons EXCEPT:
a. It is difficult to create translations that retain the sense of the original and mesh
well with the composer’s music.
b. It is impossible to create an opera in English that can be easily understood
because of all of the consonants and dialects.
c. Words are sounds in their own right and the composer may have chosen a melodic
phrase according to the characteristics of a particular word.
d. English is a challenging language when it comes to rhyme.
23. How have modern opera houses begun to address the challenges of various languages
used in opera?
a. super-titles during performances
b. personalized screens on individual seats
c. both a and b
d. none of the above
24. What musical characteristic does Purcell use to mimic the act of “shaking” in Dido and
Aeneas?
a. hocket
b. rapid uneven (dotted) rhythms
c. vibrato
d. castrato
25. What musical characteristic does Purcell use to convey Dido’s sorrow?
a. ground bass
b. rapid uneven (dotted) rhythms
c. overture
d. hocket
26. The more lyrical numbers in opera that convey deeper feeling are called
a. arias.
b. recitatives.
c. hockets.
d. overtures.
27. In Dido and Aeneas, Belinda and Dido converse in a vocal style that is partway between
speech and singing, which is called
a. chorale.
b. recitative.
c. hocket.
d. aria.
28. What is a name for a brief pattern in the bass line that is repeated throughout the
entire number?
a. ground bass
b. ostinato
c. recitative
d. both a and b
29. Which of these was an important seventeenth-century composer of French opera?
a. Henry Purcell
b. Jean-Baptiste Lully
c. Serge Gainsbourg
d. Guillaume de Machaut
30. Handel wrote Italian operas that used ________ aria, whose form means “from the top.”
a. recitative
b. da capo
c. overture
d. bel canto
31. Mbuti Pygmies live in the
a. Himalayan highlands.
b. Ituri Forest in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
c. Trobrian Islands of Papua New Guinea.
d. Amazon rainforest of northern Brazil.
32. The Mbuti Pybmies are
a. an agrarian society, surviving off subsistence farming.
b. known for their expertise in mountain climbing.
c. nomads, camping for a few weeks at a time in different locations.
d. none of the above.
33. Similar to the political and social organization of their society, the musical parts in Mbuti
Pygmy songs are
a. distributed equally.
b. strictly hierarchical.
c. fully improvised.
d. all of the above.
34. The Mbuti Pygmy “Marriage Celebration Song” uses
a. a call-and-response texture.
b. heterophony.
c. hocket.
d. all of the above.
35. A form of polyphony using two or more interlocking voices is called
a. ostinato.
b. hocket.
c. vibrato.
d. none of the above.
36. The Mbuti Pygmy “Marriage Celebration Song” uses a call-and-response unit that repeats
over and over to create a(n)
a. overture.
b. virtuoso.
c. ostinato.
d. none of the above
37. The author compares the Mbuti Pygmies’ use of ostinato to that of American
a. doo wop.
b. rap music.
c. country western.
d. classic rock.
38. How was music of the Baroque Era like jazz today?
a. Conductors of dance ensembles became the most famous musical figures.
b. Drums were always used to keep a steady beat.
c. Musicians were expected to embellish a basic tune in a spontaneous manner.
d. none of the above
39. The A section in Barbara Strozzi’s “Revenge”
a. uses iambic pentameter.
b. is monophonic.
c. describes the wrath of the gods upon the hero of the story.
d. is a refrain, bringing back a repeated text.
40. Which instruments in Strozzi’s “Revenge” punctuate the end of the refrain by echoing the
soprano line?
a. trumpets
b. oboes
c. violins
d. cello
41. Trio-sonata texture features
a. three high voices written in very close harmony.
b. two basso continuo instruments and one recorder.
c. two high voices and one basso continuo.
d. any combination of instruments and voices.
42. Chamber music was
a. written for an intimate setting, such as a small room with a small group of
instruments.
b. written by Sir Walter Chamber.
c. composed by those awaiting execution in the chamber.
d. just like Gregorian chant.
43. In Strozzi’s “Revenge,” the A section is different than the B section because of its
a. meter.
b. melody.
c. text.
d. all of the above.
44. By the end of her life, Barbara Strozzi had published ________ volumes of music,
including __________ individual works of music.
a. 2; 57
b. 84; 1,066
c. 8; 125
d. 1; 12
45. Upon publishing her first work in 1644, Barbara Strozzi anticipated
a. an overwhelming positive response to her music.
b. criticism against her gender.
c. every household owning a copy and singing these madrigals after dinner.
d. criticism against the embellishments in the soprano part.
46. What was the topic of satire against Barbara Strozzi?
a. greed
b. weight
c. chastity
d. all of the above
47. A genre of chamber music cultivated with special intensity by Baroque composers
was the
a. symphony.
b. mass.
c. hymn.
d. sonata.
48. During the Baroque Era, there were
a. virtually no professional prospects for women composers.
b. many opportunities for women composers.
c. only organist positions in the churches available for women composers.
d. many schools for training women to compose music.
49. Which is true of the women who published music on the Italian peninsula between 1566
and 1700?
a. All were sisters of musicians and composers.
b. More than half were nuns.
c. Many were executed as witches.
d. More than half had attended the best music schools and universities.
50. A concerto is a(n)
a. chamber work for two violins and basso continuo.
b. instrumental work for soloist and a larger ensemble.
c. vocal work for soprano and alto.
d. tone poem.
51. During the Baroque Era, all concertos were built around the
a. ritornello principle.
b. harpsichord as soloist.
c. demands of the composer’s patron.
d. percussion section.
52. The ritornello principle is based upon
a. alternating sections for soloists with sections for the full orchestra.
b. alternating the organ with the full orchestra.
c. using puppets (such as Punchinello) to act out the program during the music.
d. improvisation.
53. The term “program music” refers to a(n)
a. concert that has a printed program.
b. vocal work written to meet a need in a scheduled program.
c. composition written to order for various programs in the church year.
d. instrumental work that is in some way associated with a story, event, or idea.