Musical Forms Quiz / Test | Other Music

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1. One of the oldest (and most common) forms of Church Music is the Mass. The Proper Mass consisted of those portions which changed from day to day, while the Ordinary Mass used the same text on all occasions. Which of these movements was contained in the Ordinary?

Answer: Agnus Dei

The other three listed movements are contained in the proper. The mass is one of the oldest known musical forms. The Latin text has remained virtually unchanged (for the Ordinary, at least) since the Middle Ages.

2. The Mass for the dead is similar in structure to the standard Mass, but often omits one or more movements and adds a "Dies Irae" portion. What is the Latin name for such a memorial mass?

Answer: Requiem

References to the requiem go back at least to the 15th century, when the composer Guillarme Du Fay noted in his will that he wished 12 capable singers to perform his requiem mass upon his death. The earliest requiem for which we still have music dates from the late 15th century.

Other famous Requiems have been composed by Mozart (unfinished), Verdi, Faure, and, more recently, Andrew Lloyd Webber.

3. A third type of (sometimes) sacred vocal work was championed by J.S. Bach. Containing multiple movements of arias, recitatives, and choruses, they were poetic narratives often set to the tunes of well known hymns. What name was given to these extended works?

Answer: Cantatas

As Cantor of St. Thomas' church in Leipzig, Bach composed over 200 of these Cantatas. Among the best known of these is No. 80, based off of the Lutheran hymn "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God". Carl Orff's "Carmina Burana" is a more modern work in the genre that is definitely NOT sacred.

4. Another type of music championed by Bach was a form where one or more main themes, or subjects, progressed through various voices in a contrapunctal texture. What name is given to such a piece?

Answer: Fugue

Bach's "Well Tempered Clavier" is a collection of 48 preludes and fugues in two books, with two written in each key. Its goal was to demonstrate how complex and pleasing harmony was still possible under a new system of tuning keyboard instruments. Although fugue reached its height in the "mathematical" music of the Baroque period, it was subsequently adapted and used by composers as varied as Beethoven, Brahms, and Hindemith.

5. Certainly one of the most musically complex classical forms is the symphony. The symphony originated as a three-movement work based on the Italian Overture. Around 1745 Johann Stamitz increased the standard length of an orchestra to four movements by adding what type of movement (typically the third played in a symphony)?

Answer: Minuet and Trio

Stamitz was conductor of the Mannheim orchestra, an orchestra famed for its technical prowess at, among other things, actually being able to crescendo (most Baroque composers preferred to use sharp dynamic contrast, so this was a new and exciting concept).

By the end of the 18th century the four movement form had become so standardized that Mozart's 38th symphony, written in only three movements, has become known simply as "The symphony without a minuet".

6. The sonata allegro form often featured prominently in symphonies, concertos, and, of course, sonatas. What is the typical ordering of the parts of a movement in this form?

Answer: Exposition, Development, Recapitulation

The exposition would introduce two or more themes in contrasting keys. During the development the themes would be varied and broken, moving through frequent modulations until a final transition to the tonic key. Although the recapitulation would present the same themes as the exposition, they would all be presented in the tonic, resolving the conflict between keys raised by the previous two parts.

The sonata allegro was often the first movement of multimovement works of the 19th and 18th century.

7. During the 19th century, a new form of symphony arose. Instead of following a rigid form, the symphony would be based off of a work of art of literary work, the form molding itself to fit the music instead of the other way around. What name was given to such symphonies?

Answer: Program Symphonies

Perhaps the most famous Program Symphony is Hector Berlioz's "Symphonie Fantastique", which represents opium-induced visions an artist has of his beloved. Over five movements the artist glimpses his loved one at a ball, in a field during summer, and at a witches' sabbath (The sabbath is for the artist, who dreams he has already been executed for murdering the same beloved).

Other "programmatic" works include the symphonic poem and concert overture.

8. Operas also included some fixed forms of their own. One of these is an aria of three parts, where the third part is merely the first part repeated with some extra ornamentation thrown in. What name is given to such an aria?

Answer: Da Capo

The name comes from the Italian for "from the head", a musical indication to return to the beginning of the piece. Most composers of da capo arias expected the performers to be able to improvise suitable ornamentation as they went along (as did many composers of keyboard works in the baroque era). Handel, on the other hand, desired such complex ornamentation for his da capo arias that he would write the entire third part out explicitly.

9. As opera grew in popularity, it gradually split into several styles, based partly on nationality and partly on the content of the opera. What name was given to opera sung in Italian featuring heroic or tragic stories?

Answer: Opera Seria

The characters would typically be taken from history and myth, and the characters with power would be carefully portrayed as being fully worthy of that power. This is not surprising, as opera seria was usually funded by the upper class, who were quite pleased to see themselves portrayed so wonderfully.

It tended to be conservative in style, usually consisting almost solely of recitatives and da capo arias.

10. Finally, we turn to a form of music pioneered by Schubert and Schumann. What name was given to a German art song of the 19th century meant to be sung by solo singer with piano accompaniment?

Answer: Lied

Of particular note in many Lieder are the piano accompaniments, which often raise the piano to the role of one (or more) characters in the song. In Schubert's "Erlk�nig" (Elf King), for example, the piano plays the part of the horse. It gallops faster and faster as the father and son flee the title character, slows down as the father approaches town, and stops altogether when the horse stops and the father sits there with his child dead in his arms. I hope you enjoyed this quiz!

Source: Author kevinatilusa

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Musical Forms Trivia Quiz

Music has changed much over the course of the last several hundreds of years. Nevertheless, several fixed forms of music have served to unite the music of various eras.

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