Final Exam--Take-home

Please write on 3 of the following 4 topics.  Keep in mind that each essay should be equivalent to what you would write in a 30-minute in-class test (for a 2-hour exam; not more than 1250 words (= five double-spaced pages of 12-point Courier type with 1-inch margins all around))--making sure, of course, that you have addressed the question in full.  You may use any sources available in the library; however, if you do, please be sure to credit them in end-notes (which do not count in the word or page total!).  Please be sure to also use musical examples, both from the assigned listening and any others you may find useful.  Whenever appropriate you may use diagrams and other illustrative materials (again, not counted in the page total).

Please turn in the exam either in printed or electronic form by 5 pm, Thursday 11 August 2005.

1)      Discuss Vivaldi’s Four Seasons (op. 8 nos. 1-4) as they illustrate his approach to concerto composition, both from a structural and from a programmatic standpoint.  You need not discuss all the movements, or even all the concertos, in the group, but select individual movements or even parts of movements to support your points.

2)   Define, from the widest possible point of view, the musical aesthetics of the period we call "Baroque."  You may draw on any of the repertory we have studied to support your ideas, and you may range over the entire chronological period.  You need not take a chronological approach--indeed, it may be better to think topically rather than chronologically.

3)  Discuss Gluck's criticisms of opera seria in light of the works we have studied, with particular reference to Handel's approach to the genre, as well as to French operatic aesthetics in the 17th and 18th centuries.

4)  Discuss the development and principal functions of the instrumental ensemble sonata in the 17th century.