Contemporary Period Assessment

Nadia Boulanger was a prominent music teacher who taught some of the most influential composers of the 20th century, including Aaron Copland, Philip Glass, and Walter Piston

True

Which of the following trends in contemporary music does this excerpt exemplify?
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Jazz influence

The following piece was written by a leading figure of the post-WWII Germanavant-garde. Identify this composer.
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Karlheinz Stockhausen

Which of the following composers developed the concept of total theater?

Carl Orff

Which of the following best describes aleatory music?

Music that allows for an element of chance to enter the performance

Given the Hungarian folk music flavor of this example, which of the following is the most likely composer?
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Bartók

Which one of these composers wrote music for prepared piano?

John Cage

Which of the following 20th-century trends sought to restore order, harmony, and emotional restraint to music?

Neoclassicism

Who composed the groundbreaking piece The Rite of Spring?

Igor Stravinsky

Audiences immediately embraced the dodecaphonic work of Arnold Schoenberg.

False

Which of the following was not a French composer?

Carl Orff

Given the atonal nature of this example, which of the following is the most likely composer?
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Schoenberg

Which of the following composers was known for using folk-based fiddle tunes like the one in the following example?
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Aaron Copland

Which characteristic of texture in this example is most closely associated with music of the Contemporary period?
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Thick texture with full and frequently dissonant chords

Which of the following is the composer for this piece?
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Gershwin

Which of the following movements is associated with Debussy and Ravel?

Impressionism

Which of the following composers most heavily influenced the music of the French post-WWI school of musicians known as Les Six?

Erik Satie

In 20th-century music, traditional harmony and tonality were redefined or rejected in favor of:

Atonality and serialism

Which of the following were important composers in the Contemporary period?

Stravinsky and Schoenberg

Which of the following excerpts is atonal music?
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Excerpt B

The factor that most clearly distinguishes this example from music of earlier periods is the use of:
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Extended dissonance that doesn’t resolve directly to consonance

Which of the following is the composer for this piece?
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Debussy

Many composers in the contemporary period sought alternatives to tonality, or key-centered music. Which of the following is one such alternative?

Serialism

Which of the following composers invented the twelve-tone system of composition?

Arnold Schoenberg

Which one of the following composers’ style is most closely associated with that of the commercial music world known as Tin Pan Alley?

George Gershwin

Which of the following composers catapulted to the top of the 20th-century avant-gardeafter composing Firebird, Petrushka, and Le Sacre du Printemps?

Igor Stravinsky

Given the primitive flavor of this example, which of the following is the composer?
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Stravinsky

The composers Samuel Barber, Thea Musgrave, and Ned Rorem resisted the 20th-century trend of serialism.

True

What unique feature of this example suggests that it was written in the Contemporary period?
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Use of a traditional instrument in a completely new way

Which of the following is the composer for this excerpt?
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Cage

Which of the following statements best describes the role of technology with regard to art music in the Contemporary period?

Technology has enabled art music composers to experiment with and change the way that they create music.

According to the text, what was the significance of Debussy’s work?
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It represented the first viable alternative to tonal music.

What compositional technique is illustrated by the following excerpt?
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New ways to manipulate a traditional instrument

Which of the following composers did NOT employ total serialism in his work?

Ralph Vaughan Williams