Romantic/20th Century MH1X3

Question 1

Musique concrete -

Answer 1

Fr. “concrete music”. Term coined by composers working in Paris in the 1940s for music composed by assembling and manipulating recorded sounds, working “concretely” with sound itself rather than with music notation.

Question 2

Minimalism -

Answer 2

One of the leading musical styles of the late twentieth century, in which materials are reduced to a minimum and procedures simplified so that what is going on in the music is immediately apparent. Often characterized by a constant pulse and many repetitions of simple rhythmic, melodic, and harmonic patterns.

Question 3

Passacaglia-

Answer 3

A baroque genre of variations over a repeated bass line or harmonic progression in triple meter.

Question 4

Sprechstimme-

Answer 4

(Gr. “speaking voice”) A vocal style developed by Schoenberg in which the performer approximated the written pitches in the gliding tones of speech while following the notated rhythm.

Question 5

Expressionism -

Answer 5

An early 20th-century term derived from art, in which music avoids all traditional forms of “beauty” in order to express deeply personal feelings through exaggerated gestures, angular melodies, and extreme dissonance.

Question 6

Atonal -

Answer 6

Terms for music that avoids establishing a tonal center through tonization.

Question 7

Impressionism -

Answer 7

A late 19th-century term derived from art, used for music that evokes moods and visual imagery through colorful HARMONY and instrumental TIMBRE.

Question 8

Leitmotiv -

Answer 8

Gr. “leading motive” in an opera or music drama, a motive, theme, or musical idea associated with a person, thing, mood, or idea, which returns in original or altered form throughout.