SYMPHONY SEMINAR – MIDTERM EXAM

(F-09)

Due Mon. 26 October

Write an essay of about 5 typed pages on one of the topics below. Illustrate what you say with examples drawn from symphonies we have studied so far this semester (list attached).

1. Read what J.P.P Schultz said in 1774 about first movements of “chamber symphonies” ( Reading #1 attached). Pick three symphony first movements that we’ve studied this semester and discuss them in Schultz’s terms. Which of the traits he lists are present? which are missing? Be specific about where you find these traits in the scores. In your opinion is Schultz’s list of characteristics a good way of describing the symphony as a genre? Are there important aspects of the three symphonies you discussed that your Schultz-style analysis misses?

2. Attached is a quote from Gene Wolf’s “Symphony” article in Groves Online (Reading #2). Pick three symphony movements we’ve studied so far (list attached), and discuss them in Wolf’s terms, identifying “characteristic procedures and techniques” in the scores (be specific). Do you prefer to consider these movements to be variants of sonata-form “types” as Hepokoski and Darcy do, or as “a flexible collection”? Discuss.

3. We discussed several early symphonies, overtures and concertos, including:

Alessandro Stradella, La Forza delle stelle, Sinfonia (1680s ?) (no score)

Alessandro Corelli - Concerto Grosso Op. 6 no. 7 (D major) (1680s)

Alessandro Scarlatti – Il prigioniero fortunato, Sinfonia (1698) (no score)

Antonio Vivaldi – Concerto in e minor, RV 133 (1710s?)

Leonardo Leo, Amor vuol sofferenza, Sinfonia (1739)

G. F. Handel, Symphony to Saul (1738)

Pick three of these pieces and discuss how they are similar to later symphonies that we studied and how they are different. Would you call the pieces you discusses “symphonies”? Why or why not? Discuss specific passages in the scores to support the points you make. (Most scores are posted online; recordings are available on Naxos).