MHL 603 TOPICS – FINAL EXAM
(F-11)
The final
exam will be in class on Wed. December7.
The first 20 minutes will be a repertory quiz on the last unit
(Art-folk-pop). For the exam itself I
want you to outline answers to four
of the following eight questions. For the exam I'll cut the list down to six
questions ask you to write essays on two
of those that you choose.
Look over the readings and the lecture
notes, study the scores, outline your answers, note down facts, analytical
points, and passages you want to remember, but don't write out your essays
until the exam itself. On the back of this page is a list of all the pieces
we’ve covered this semester.
1. Compare and contrast the use of folk and
popular music in compositions by four or
more of the following composers:
Stravinsky, Berg, Bartok, Ives, Villa Lobos, Vaughan Williams, Bolcom, Ashley. Please don't just give me four separate characterizations.
Try to generalize or make an overarching point (or points).
2. Can we distinguish between "experimental"
and “avant-garde” music? How would you
define each? Which pieces that we studied this semester fit into one or the
other of these categories? Do some pieces fit into both? If you think that this
distinction is meaningless or not very useful, then explain why not and also
what you think might be a better way to distinguish between groups of pieces we
studied this semester.
3. Discuss
the relation of music and dance in the four Stravinsky ballets we studied (Petrushka, Rite, Orpheus, Agon).
Discuss both similarities and differences between these works. You may also
want to consider scenario, costumes, story, and other factors that combine to
create a ballet. Review the videos of Petrushka, Rite
and Agon; for Orpheus consult the lecture notes and
the posted note.
4. Stravinsky
said in his Poetics of Music (1939):
“my freedom will be so much the greater and more
meaningful the more narrowly I limit my field of action and the more I surround
myself with obstacles…..The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees
one’s self of the chains that shackle the spirit.”
Discuss 12-tone
techniques and 12-tone compositions in relation to Stravinsky’s idea. Give
examples from composers and pieces we studied this semester. If you like you can also refer to some
non-12-tone pieces.
5. What (if
anything) is wrong with 19th-century opera dramaturgy? What reforms of
19th-century dramaturgy or alternatives to it did 20th-century
opera composers implement in their works? If
you feel that there was "no problem" with traditional
dramaturgy, then why did so many composers and librettists reject it? (And why
do so many modern directors undermine it in their productions of
"standard" operas?) Discuss on the basis of the four operas we
studied plus any other 20th-century operas you want to add.
6. Here are three 12-tone compositions: Berg Violin Concerto; Stravinsky, Agon; Stockhausen, Kreuzspiel. Obviously they sound very different from one
another. How much are these differences due
to the composers using different 12-tone procedures? How much to other factors? Discuss both the procedures and the
"other factors." I will have scores of these pieces available at the
exam.
7. Discuss the relation between speech and song
in the four operas we studied this semester. What are some of the problems of
conveying a drama to an audience in speech and song with instrumental
accompaniment? How did these four composers address and/or solve these
problems?
8. In "Little Bangs" Frederic Rzewski
says: "Because improvisation resembles ordinary real life in its
precariousness and unpredictability, it contains a necessary element of
realism, with which many people can immediately identify . . . " Is this
true of the improvised pieces we studied this semester? What about the
"indeterminate" pieces. Do some of the non-improvised pieces we
studied this semester contain an "element of realism"? Is this
realism similar to or different from the realism the Rzewski hears in
improvised music? Discuss four or more pieces with specific
examples.
REPERTORY LIST FOR MHL 603
Stravinsky: Petrushka (1st
tableau), Rite of Spring (part 1),Symphonies of Wind Instruments, Orpheus, In
memoriam Dylan Thomas, Agon (first half)
Schoenberg:
Wind Quintet (mvts. 1 and 4)
Berg: Violin
Concerto (1st mvt), Wozzeck
Webern: First
Cantata (mvt 1)
Babbitt: 3
Compositions for piano (#1)
Stockhausen: Kreuzspiel
Copland:
Piano Quartet (1st mvt), Billy the Kid (scene
1)
Ives: 3
quarter-tone pieces, Putnam’s Camp
Schaeffer: 5
Studies of Noise
Cage: The
Perilous Night (1, 2, 5, 6), 4’33”, Concert for Piano and Orchestra (excerpt)
Cowell, Advertisement, The Banshee
Varèse, Ionisation
Berio, Sequenza V
for Trombone
Nancarrow, Studies 3a,
5, 31
Scelsi, Maknongan
Janacek: From
the House of the Dead
Ashley:
Perfect Lives (The Park, The Church)
Glass,
Einstein on the Beach (excerpts)
Villa Lobos, Choros No. 7
Bartok,
Improvisations, Op.20, String quartet No. 5 (mvt 1)
Crumb:
Wayfaring Stranger
Bolcom:
Songs of Innocence and Experience (1, 4, 5, 6)