Terms 1

Question 1

What were the romantic views on originality and self-expression?

Answer 1

There was a strong emphasis on originality and self-expression and conventional forms were rejected for being too formulaic

Question 2

What was the perspective of romantic music?

Answer 2

The composer illuminating the world like a lamp through the artists’ perspective (as opposed to art holding a mirror up to nature)

Question 3

What were common topics in romantic art?

Answer 3

Yearning, alienation of man from nature, alienation of the artist from society, the supernatural, the sublime

Question 4

Who were some original geniuses?

Answer 4

Homer, Shakespeare, and Beethoven

Question 5

What was considered the supreme art form and why?

Answer 5

Instrumental music because it is untied to the concrete world and can offer a glimpse of the supernatural

Question 6

What musical trends emerged in the 19th century?

Answer 6

1) Interest in sonority
2) Increased chromaticism
3) Modal mixture
4) Freer treatment of dissonance
5) Unusual modulations (common-tone modulations)
6) More distant tonal relationships (including third relations)
7) Exploitation of ambiguities in the tonal system for special effects

Question 7

What works are good examples of the musical trends that were popular in the 19th century?

Answer 7

Schumann’s “Im Wunderschönen Monat Mai” and Schubert’s “Wandrers Nacht Lied II”

Question 8

What is modal mixture?

Answer 8

The use of chords belonging to the parallel key (for example, using chords from C minor in a C major composition, or vice versa)

Question 9

What is a common-tone modulation?

Answer 9

Modulation that uses a sustained or repeated pitch from the old key to modulate to a new key that includes the same pitch.

Question 10

What is a third relation?

Answer 10

A relationship between two chords whose roots are related by a third (either major or minor) and share a common tone

Question 11

What three ideas were applied to Beethoven’s work?

Answer 11

1) Beethoven was a revolutionary, overturning music and freeing in from older conventions
2) Beethoven was a seer, cut off from society with his eyes fixed on the future
3) Beethoven was a model for instrumental forms (especially sonata form)

Question 12

What were the influential characteristics of Beethoven’s music?

Answer 12

1) Cyclic works: ideas returned in later movements of a symphony, string quartet, or sonata
2) The symphony and string quartet became monumental art forms with unique characters
3) Enlargement of form
4) Heroic style: dynamism in motives development and foreword drive of fragmentation
5) Increased weight on the finale of instrumental cycles as the summation of the whole work
6) Synthesis of genres

Question 13

What is fragmentation?

Answer 13

The division of a musical idea into segments

Question 14

What is an example of one of Beethoven’s ‘grand finales’?

Answer 14

The finale from his 9th symphony

Question 15

What musical forms appeared in the finale of Beethoven’s 9th symphony?

Answer 15

Hymn, geseliges lied, march, fugue, concerto (double exposition and cadenza), variations, opera finale, and archaic religious music

Question 16

What characteristics were particular to Beethoven’s late style?

Answer 16

1) Increased lyricism (more urgent, as if the music were directly speaking to the listener)
2) Interest in fugue and counterpoint
3) Interest in variations
4) Highly original approach to form on a broad level

(Link these features to a specific work)

Question 17

What works exemplify Beethoven’s late characteristics?

Answer 17

Symphony no. 3 “Eroica”
Symphony no. 9 “Choral”
Piano Sonata in C minor “Pathétique”, op. 13, i
String Quartet in C# minor, op. 131, i and ii