Final Exam Essays

Please prepare the following five essays; for the exam, I will choose three for you to write about.  You may use your notes, scores, and textbook  as sources.

1) Compare Chopin's and Liszt's piano concertos in terms of the function such pieces had in the two composers' careers.  How did their approach to form, style, and technical virtuosity reflect the public personas of the composers?

2) Discuss the different ways composers use narrative and autobiography as ways of structuring their concertos.

3) Focusing on Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue as a starting point, discuss the use of jazz in "art" or "concert hall" music.  How did different composers incorporate jazz elements in their concertos, and with what results?

4) Choose several examples from those we have studied and discuss the ways borrowing, quotation, and historical reference can be used to different aesthetic ends.

5) Discuss the ways Beethoven's legacy was reflected in the concertos of German composers from Mendelssohn to Brahms.