Finals: Class and Take Home

Finals: Class and Take Home

Final Exam: Take home questions:
    -Document
    -Please return your responses to me by email (Word document) or hard copy no later than 6:30 P.M. on Thursday, Dec. 15.
    -General Knowledge (Choose 3)
    -1. What have been some of the central themes of art song in the 200 years of its existence? Give examples of songs discussed in this class which exemplify at least three of these themes, and comment on specific and particular musical and textual representations of themes in the songs you discuss.
    -2. How can a composer express his national, religious, or cultural background in music? Choose one composer’s music and illustrate your points by discussing this music.
    -3. We have listened to only two of Gabriel Fauré’s 97 songs this term: Après un rêve (After a dream) and Clair de lune (Moonlight). How do these songs differ? What aspects of art song, and perhaps of French art song in particular, do they each exhibit?
    -4. Ricky Ian Gordon has this to say about art song:
…As for what art song stands for, and the fate of those who write them, maybe the point is not to think of them as art songs. To write something that can be communicative and then hope it will penetrate the boundaries of “Art” and popular culture, so that an opera singer could sing it but so could a popular artist in a cabaret situation – that is my goal. … The lines between highbrow and lowbrow should be blurred.
Name a song which demonstrates the blur between “highbrow and lowbrow,” and describe the song’s “high” and “low” (or “art” and “popular”) characteristics.
    -5. What are a few (at least three) of your favorite art songs from those we have discussed or that you have listened to this term? Why? Be specific, demonstrating that you have done the assigned reading and listening for this course.
Review guidelines for the final exam
-Document
Listening list for the final exam
-Document
Track list for the listening CDs
-Two CDs are on reserve in the Music Library. Here's the track list for both CDs:

Track lists for final exam CDs:

1. Fauré, Gabriel: Après un rève
2. Fauré, Gabriel: Clair de lune
3. Debussy, Claude: Clair de lune
4. Duparc, Henri: L’invitation au voyage
5. Britten, Benjamin: The Salley Gardens
6. Britten, Benjamin: Death, be not proud
7. Ives, Charles: At the River
8. Ives, Charles: The Things Our Fathers Loved
9. Barber, Samuel: The Crucifixion
10. Barber, Samuel: Sure on This Shining Night
11. Naginski, Charles: Richard Cory
12. Duke, John: Richard Cory
13. Swanson, Howard: The Negro Speaks of Rivers
14. Gordon, Ricky Ian: Genius Child
15. Gordon, Ricky Ian: My People
16. Bolcom, William: George
17. Bernstein, Leonard: To What You Said
18. Tilson Thomas, Michael: We Two Boys
19. Yeston, Maury: December Snow
20. Yeston, Maury: Bookseller in the Rain
21. Yeston, Maury: By the River
22. Heggie, Jake: Listen

1. Vandervelde, Janika: Positive Women – Susan
2. Musto, John: Heartbeats
3. Heggie, Jake: White in the Moon
4. Heggie, Jake: Snake