Chapter 47: Exotic Allure: Puccini and the Italian Verismo Tradition

Question 1

Post-Romanticism

Answer 1

A trend at the turn of the twentieth century in which nineteenth-century musical characteristics like chromatic harmony and expansive melodies are carried to the extreme. (page 284)

Question 2

Exoticism

Answer 2

Musical style in which rhythms, melodies, or instruments evoke the color and atmosphere of far-off lands. (page 284)

Question 3

Verismo

Answer 3

Operatic “realism,” a style popular in Italy in the 1890s, which tried to bring naturalism into the lyric theater. (page 285)

Question 4

Pentatonic Scale

Answer 4

Five-note pattern used in some African, Far Eastern, and Native American musics; can also be found in Western music as an example of exoticism. See also gapped scale. (page 286)

Question 5

Whole-Tone Scale

Answer 5

Scale pattern built entirely of whole-step intervals, common in music of the French Impressionist composers. (page 286)

Question 6

Gapped Scale

Answer 6

A scale that lacks some pitches of the seven-note diatonic scale; for example, a five-note (pentatonic) scale has gaps.