Quiz 23: The Late Twentieth Century
Art & Humanities
Q 1Q 1
Which is true of the fourth of Webern's Five Orchestral Pieces?
A) It uses a large orchestra to produce masses of sound.
B) It is in sonata form.
C) It is concise and atonal.
D) It is predictable and repetitive.
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C
Q 2Q 2
The fourth of Webern's Five Orchestral Pieces might be described as a very ________ time segment of very ________ intensity.
A) long; low
B) long; high
C) short; low
D) short; high
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D
Q 3Q 3
Who composed Poème électronique?
A) György Ligeti
B) Edgard Varèse
C) Anton Webern
D) John Cage
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B
Q 4Q 4
Which sounds in Poème électronique are evidence of the use of musique concrète?
A) the electronic effects
B) the short vocal hum and snare drum
C) the highly irregular rhythms
D) the sustained chords
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Q 6Q 6
The performing forces in Lux aeterna consist of:
A) organ and several vocal soloists.
B) solo voices and chorus.
C) voices and synthesizers.
D) voices and musique concrète.
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Q 8Q 8
Lux aeterna begins with:
A) men's voices.
B) a mixed chorus of male and female voices.
C) women's voices.
D) electronic sounds.
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Q 9Q 9
Who composed Music for 18 Musicians?
A) John Adams
B) Edgard Varèse
C) John Cage
D) Steve Reich
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Q 10Q 10
The performing forces in Music for 18 Musicians include,among others:
A) vibraphone, two clarinets, and four singers.
B) recorded nature sounds and strings.
C) piccolo and viola.
D) musique concrète, flutes, and piccolo.
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Q 11Q 11
The introduction of Music for 18 Musicians features:
A) a canon between the four voices.
B) lingering harmonies over a regular, repeating pulse.
C) a pizzicato duet between the violinist and cellist.
D) musique concrète sounds.
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Q 12Q 12
In section 1 of Music for 18 Musicians,a melodic theme is built up first by the ________,then by the ________.
A) vibraphone; bass clarinet
B) violin; cello
C) xylophone; violin
D) clarinets; voices
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Q 13Q 13
In section 1 of Music for 18 Musicians,changes in the theme's pitch level are cued by the:
A) voices.
B) clarinets.
C) vibraphone.
D) cello.
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Q 14Q 14
What are the performing forces in "The House of the Rising Sun"?
A) soprano voice and percussion
B) percussion, brass, and woodwinds
C) soprano voice, percussion, and woodwinds
D) soprano voice, percussion, and brass
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Q 15Q 15
What is heard at the end of the first stanza of "The House of the Rising Sun"?
A) vibraphone and gongs
B) bongo drums
C) maracas
D) loud cymbal crashes
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Q 16Q 16
The form of "Hallelujah,I'm a Bum" is:
A) through-composed.
B) strophic.
C) a round.
D) rondo.
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Q 17Q 17
What are the performing forces in "Hallelujah,I'm a Bum"?
A) voice, piano, and percussion
B) voice and percussion
C) voice, piano, woodwinds, and percussion
D) voice and piano
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Multiple Choice
Q 18Q 18
During the first stanza of "Hallelujah,I'm a Bum," the piano plays:
A) a slow, yearning melody.
B) a three-note motive.
C) an ostinato.
D) dissonant chords.
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Q 20Q 20
What are the performing forces in Indígena?
A) voice, piano, and percussion
B) strings, woodwinds, brass, piano, and percussion
C) brass, piano, and percussion
D) voice, woodwinds, and percussion
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Q 21Q 21
Indígena sounds like a musical depiction of:
A) a Fourth of July parade.
B) visitors strolling through a world's fair pavilion.
C) a pioneer wedding celebration.
D) a Latin American Carnival celebration.
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Q 22Q 22
About six minutes into Indígena,the trumpet emerges to play:
A) fragments of a famous Carnival melody.
B) fragments of a hymn.
C) a regular, repeating pulse.
D) complex polyrhythms.
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Q 23Q 23
The devastating events of World War II prompted composers of the 1950s and 1960s to:
A) begin a new phase of experimental modernism.
B) turn back to Classical styles.
C) turn back to Romantic styles.
D) turn back to Baroque styles.
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Q 24Q 24
Concert music composition today is dominated by:
A) avant-garde modernism.
B) styles that arose in reaction to the avant-garde modernism of the 1950s and 1960s.
C) a return to Classical styles.
D) film music.
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Q 25Q 25
Highly intellectual,constructive tendencies led some composers of the postwar avant-garde to:
A) leave some elements of music to chance.
B) simplify musical materials.
C) attempt to "serialize" rhythm, dynamics, and tone color.
D) turn back to Classical styles.
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Q 26Q 26
In contrast to constructivist composers,chance composers wanted to:
A) relinquish control over some elements of musical construction.
B) increase the complexity of musical materials.
C) attempt to "serialize" rhythm, dynamics, and tone color.
D) turn back to Classical styles.
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Q 27Q 27
Post-World War II composers were intent on:
A) exploring the modernist music techniques of Debussy.
B) searching for new sound materials.
C) developing more possibilities with the standard Romantic orchestra.
D) discarding serialism in favor of Neoclassicism.
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Q 28Q 28
Which of these sound techniques existed before the post-World War II era?
A) multiphonics for woodwind players
B) the use of "nonmusical" noises
C) electronically produced sound
D) plucking stringed instruments instead of bowing them
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Q 29Q 29
Which family of the orchestra underwent the most growth and innovation in the post-World War II era?
A) strings
B) woodwinds
C) percussion
D) brass
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Q 30Q 30
Which cannot generate sound?
A) the human voice
B) an electronic sound synthesizer
C) an electric guitar
D) electronic recording equipment
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Q 31Q 31
The use of recorded sounds from life is called:
A) symbolism.
B) serialism.
C) musique concrète.
D) synthesizing.
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Q 32Q 32
Electronically produced sound can be generated by a:
A) synthesizer.
B) speaker.
C) voice.
D) piano.
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Q 33Q 33
Webern's Five Orchestral Pieces and Terry Riley's In C demonstrate the postwar avant-garde's efforts to explore:
A) electronic music.
B) contrasting perceptions of time and rhythm.
C) the serialization of rhythm, dynamics, and tone color.
D) chance music.
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Multiple Choice
Q 34Q 34
Music in which composers leave certain elements unspecified,allowing them to be determined by the performers or other circumstances,is called:
A) musique concrète.
B) computer music.
C) chance music.
D) minimalist music.
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Q 35Q 35
An example of chance music is:
A) instructing the performer to place his or her hands inside the piano to strum or strike the strings.
B) throwing dice to determine the order of sections to be performed in a composition.
C) using a synthesizer to produce sounds.
D) using the twelve tones of the chromatic scale in a fixed order.
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Q 36Q 36
Varèse was known as an innovative composer in the area(s)of:
A) bebop and blues.
B) rhythm and electronic music.
C) vocal techniques such as Sprechstimme.
D) orchestral tone color and melody.
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Multiple Choice
Q 37Q 37
The first performance of Poème électronique included:
A) piano, seven wind instruments, and voice.
B) a tape player and one speaker.
C) a tape player, 425 loudspeakers, and the projection of colored lights and images in a pavilion.
D) a tape player and an orchestra.
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Q 38Q 38
György Ligeti is considered a:
A) composer of chance music.
B) part of the postwar avant-garde.
C) strict serialist.
D) modernist nationalist.
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Q 39Q 39
In Lux aeterna,Ligeti's use of pitches results in:
A) a chantlike texture.
B) imitative polyphony.
C) pulsing harmonies.
D) slowly moving sound complexes.
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Multiple Choice
Q 40Q 40
The father of chance music is:
A) John Cage.
B) Philip Glass.
C) John Adams.
D) Steve Reich.
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Q 41Q 41
John Cage's 4' 33'' consists of:
A) an atonal fugue based on a twelve-tone row.
B) any sounds occurring inside or outside the performance hall.
C) a combination of several different styles of jazz into one "serious" work.
D) chance music played by stringed instruments.
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Multiple Choice
Q 42Q 42
In the 1950s,the most popular works in concert halls and opera houses were:
A) chance music.
B) postwar avant-garde compositions.
C) established eighteenth- and nineteenth-century works.
D) electronic music.
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Q 43Q 43
Which composer wrote the famous essay "Who Cares If You Listen?"
A) Edgard Varèse
B) John Cage
C) György Ligeti
D) Milton Babbitt
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Q 44Q 44
The style of music in which simple melodies,motives,and harmonies are repeated many times and change gradually is called:
A) chance music.
B) expressionism.
C) minimalism.
D) serialism.
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Q 45Q 45
Which aspect of modernist experimentation did minimalists continue?
A) the presentation of long, slowly changing blocks of musical time
B) the inclusion of quotations from past musical repertoires
C) the use of musique concrète
D) the serializing of elements such as rhythm and dynamics
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Q 46Q 46
With which musical style is Steve Reich associated?
A) serialism
B) minimalism
C) tonal music
D) chance music
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Q 47Q 47
The sound of Music for 18 Musicians is reminiscent of:
A) a concerto grosso.
B) the gamelans of Indonesia.
C) chamber music.
D) Chinese opera.
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Q 48Q 48
Composers reacting to the complexities of the avant-garde experiments of the 1950s and 1960s sought:
A) even more complexity in their music.
B) a return to the first wave of avant-garde music.
C) a return to established eighteenth- and nineteenth-century styles.
D) greater accessibility and more direct emotional expression in their music.
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Q 49Q 49
New music that refers to styles older than modernism is sometimes called:
A) post-avant-garde.
B) postmodern.
C) chance music.
D) millennial.
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Q 50Q 50
Contemporary composers such as Ellen Taaffe Zwilich who compose in styles reminiscent of late Romantic music may be called:
A) post-avant-garde.
B) postmodern.
C) expressionist.
D) millennial.
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Q 51Q 51
Concert music composition since the 1970s has been marked by:
A) eclecticism and stylistic variety that make individual works difficult to categorize.
B) similarities of style that make individual works easy to categorize.
C) a turn away from emotional expression and toward machinelike repetition.
D) a turn away from any styles that preceded modernism.
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Q 52Q 52
George Crumb's song cycle exploring the surreal poetry of Federico García Lorca is called:
A) American Songbook.
B) Music for 18 Musicians.
C) Ancient Voices of Children.
D) Black Angels.
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Q 53Q 53
George Crumb's American Songbook consists of:
A) musical explorations of the poetry of Federico García Lorca.
B) two volumes of piano miniatures.
C) an evocation of humpback whale songs.
D) collections of transformed and reimagined traditional American songs.
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Q 55Q 55
Perhaps the most striking and individual feature of Tania León's music is her treatment of ________,which merges African and Latin styles with modernist styles.
A) melody
B) harmony
C) rhythm
D) tone color
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Q 56Q 56
Many of John Adams's works,such as Nixon in China and The Death of Klinghoffer,may be described as:
A) chance music.
B) expressionist.
C) minimalist.
D) late Romantic.
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Q 57Q 57
John Adams's On the Transmigration of Souls was written as:
A) an opera about the first explosion of an atomic bomb.
B) a memorial for the events of September 11, 2001.
C) a song cycle about J. Robert Oppenheimer.
D) an opera about Richard Nixon.
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Q 58Q 58
The aria "Batter my heart" is from John Adams's opera:
A) Nixon in China.
B) The Death of Klinghoffer.
C) El Niño.
D) Doctor Atomic.
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Q 59Q 59
The words of the aria "Batter my heart" are taken from:
A) the Bible.
B) a letter written by J. Robert Oppenheimer.
C) a sonnet by John Donne.
D) a traditional Latin American song.
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Q 60Q 60
The aria "Batter my heart" evokes the manner of a Baroque da capo aria through its use of:
A) repeating sections marked off by orchestral ritornellos.
B) words taken from a poem.
C) static, almost unchanging harmonies.
D) three quatrains and a final couplet.
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Q 61Q 61
Broadly speaking,when were the two phases of avant-garde modernism in the twentieth century? How did the second phase differ from the first?
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Q 64Q 64
Briefly explain the new sound sources discovered and used by composers in the post-World War II era.
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Q 66Q 66
Define musique concrète.Contrast musique concrète with electronically generated sounds in music.
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Q 68Q 68
Compare and contrast the way Anton Webern uses the time elements of music with the way Terry Riley uses them.
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Q 70Q 70
Briefly explain the approach Edgard Varèse took to rhythm and sonority.What was his reaction to the introduction of electronic composition equipment?
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Q 71Q 71
Briefly describe how Ligeti has contributed new sonorities and new ways of dealing with time in twentieth-century music.
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Q 73Q 73
Is it important that the text be clearly understood in Lux aeterna? Why or why not? What is the source of the text?
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Q 74Q 74
Briefly describe the musical philosophy of John Cage.Name two nonmusical influences on this philosophy.
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Q 78Q 78
Briefly discuss the state of current compositional practice,including three common tendencies among composers.
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Q 79Q 79
Describe George Crumb's American Songbook,including the kinds of songs it includes and the performing forces it uses.
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