Composers
Compositional Styles
Genres
Compositional Eras
Grab Bag
100
This famous Classical composer wrote many operas, including Don Giovanni.
Who is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart?
100
A style in which composers wrote music and used operatic plots that were influenced by the music of Eastern cultures. This fascination began in the Classical Era with the "Turkish March" like the one found in Haydn's 100th Symphony, and continues to this day.
What is exoticism?
100
A group of art songs that tell a story. Schumann's "Dichterliebe" is a perfect example.
What is a song cycle?
100
The music of these two eras are characterized by monophony, modal scales, and complex polyphony. The vast majority of this music is also written for voices, not instruments.
What are the Medieval and Renaissance Eras?
100
This composer, comfortable in both the popular and classical music realms, wrote the Broadway hit West Side Story.
Who is Leonard Bernstein?
200
A composer who bridged the Classical and Romantic compositional periods, he wrote many piano sonatas, including the Moonlight Sonata.
Who is Ludwig van Beethoven?
200
This technique involves creating a melody using each of the 12 pitches of the chromatic scale. The trick is that you can't repeat a single note!
What is serialism/the Twelve Tone system?
200
A Mass for the Dead. This genre has been composed for centuries.
What is the Requiem?
200
In this compositional era we find a wider range of sound with the invention of new instruments, larger orchestras, more passionate emotion, and more complex harmonies (but still within the tonal system).
What is the Romantic era?
200
This compositional style, associated with Claude Debussy, uses whole tone and pentatonic scales,which help create a dreamlike atmosphere.
What is impressionism?
300
This Romantic era German composer, who wrote only 4 symphonies, was a proponent of absolute music, as opposed to programmatic music.
Who is Johannes Brahms?
300
This type of music, most identified with Aaron Copland, sought to appeal to as many people as possible,as well as instill American patriotism among the audience.
What is populist music?
300
A French art song, characterized by much much more elegance and restraint when compared to the German lied.
What is a melodie?
300
This compositional period introduces the tonal system we use today. Opera and oratorio are also born in this time period. We find florid vocal lines in these works. Finally, we see the rise of instrumental music, especially dance suites.
What is the Baroque Era?
300
Reich, Tavener, and Adams all use this compositional technique, which involves repeating a musical fragment over and over, sometimes changing it slightly and gradually. This allows the listener to hear the musical process.
What is minimalism?
400
This French composer won the Prix de Rome in 1913, but was too sick to complete her residency in Rome, and died at the age of 24.
Who is Lili Boulanger?
400
This technique, most identified with Charles Ives, involves taking a fragment of a well known tune (for example, "Yankee Doodle") and reworking it into your own piece in a unique way.
What is quotation?
400
An orchestral piece, almost always with a soloist in the Classical era, and divided into three, sometimes four movements. The first movement is almost always in sonata-allegro form.
What is a concerto?
400
This era sought to simplify music by creating lyrical, easily memorable melodies, and emphasized formal structure (such as sonata-allegro form and theme and variations) in organizing the music.
What is the Classical Era?
400
This composer invented serialism, or the twelve-tone system
Who is Arnold Schoenberg?
500
This 20th century composer wrote in three different styles over the course of his life: Russian nationalism, neoclassicism, and serialism.
Who is Igor Stravinsky?
500
This operatic style, identified with Puccini, sought to use plots and characters with which the average person could identify,in stark contrast to the mythological and royal characters of the Baroque and Classical era opera.
What is verismo/realism?
500
A genre invented by John Cage in which the piano player inserts various objects in between the strings of the piano to completely change their sound.
What is prepared piano?
500
The music of this era is so varied it is hard to find similarities. In general you will find lots of experimentation with sound, complex rhythms, lack of singable melody, and sometimes imitation of previous compositional eras.
What is the 20th century?
500
This compositional method, invented by John Cage, involved the performers throwing dice to decide which notes to play.
What is chance music?
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