Listening Response Essay

#1
assigned: January 30/31
due: February 6/7

Topics in Classical-Era Instrumental Composition

One way of understanding how 18th-century listeners might have comprehended
Classical-era instrumental composition is through the concept of topics. Topics are
characteristic musical figures or stereotypical features used by composers to designate
particular moods, feelings, scenes, or affections in their instrumental music. These
topics, in total, function something like a musical vocabulary that was shared amongst
composers of the Classical era and recognized by their listening audience. Topics in
instrumental composition might include military music, hunting music, pastoral music,
the brilliant style (virtuosity), the singing style and the comic style (both in imitation of
opera), the learned style (fugue and counterpoint), fantasia, Empfindsamkeit, and
exotic national styles.
In this essay assignment, your listening will explore one such exotic national style
topic: the Turkish style. Download the MP3s [links removed] and listen to the excerpts
taken from these three works:
1.
2.
3.

Christoph Willibald Gluck: overture to the opera La Rencontre imprvue (1764)

W. A. Mozart: Piano Sonata in A major, K. 331, mvt. III: Rondo alla turca (1784)
Joseph Haydn: Symphony No. 100 in G major, mvt. II: Allegretto (1794)

Reflect on what you have heard. What musical features do these three
compositions have in common? What are the musical characteristics of the
Turkish music topic? Does the presence of a topic help you to better
understand the nature of this music? Why might composers choose to employ
shared musical topics in their works?
Write a 500-600 word response essay in which you address these and/or other related
issues. Form your own opinions and do not hesitate to incorporate your own reactions
as a listener.
Be sure to incorporate specific musical details from each of the three example
recordings to support your arguments.

Your TAs will inform you of the specific due dates and preferred method of
delivery for this assignment.

Listening Response Essay

#2
assigned: March 6/7
due: March 13/14

Musical Advocacy
Imagine that you have been asked by an orchestras board of directors to advise them
on repertoire selection for an upcoming concert season. The board would like to
introduce their audiences to works they have not heard before. They are seeking a
representative example of musical Romanticism. They have selected three unknown
compositions and would like you to help them choose one to program on a concert.

[Download removed] that contains the three examples. Listen to these

unidentified excerpts. The clips each include only three minutes of longer,
single-movement orchestral works. Reflect on what you have heard, thinking
about the trends of musical Romanticism that each excerpt might exemplify.
Note: it is neither necessary nor recommended to know the composers or titles of
these music examples. Any effort to identify them is essentially a waste of your time!
Write a 500-600 word essayyour response to the orchestra boards request for
advice. Select which composition you believe the orchestra should perform next
season. Explain why you think your choice is a representative example of musical
Romanticism and argue for why you believe audiences ought to be introduced to this
unknown work. (In your writing, refer to your chosen example by the number in the file
name.)

Explain and support your opinions by discussing specific musical

details from your chosen example. Draw upon the knowledge you have
learned in class about the style of 19th-century musical Romanticism
[terminology, style features, aesthetic and philosophical trends, etc.] to
help justify your opinions. There is no correct answer, so please don't
try to guess which one your TAs think is the "best." That is missing the
whole point! Instead, your writing will be graded based upon your ability
to justify your selection.

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Listening Response Essay #3

assigned: April 15/16
due: April 22/23

Recordings of the Composer as Performer

Thanks to sound recording technologies invented around the start of the twentieth century,
listeners today can step back into the aural past and hear what early twentieth-century music
sounded like when it was new. Oftentimes, composers themselves captured their own
interpretations on record. While it is impossible to listen to performances by Bach, Beethoven, or
Brahms playing their own music, through recorded sound we can hear, for example, what
Debussy, Stravinsky, or Ives sounded like as performers. Begin your preparation for this writing
assignment by pondering the extent to which recording technology has altered our access to early
twentieth-century music, in contrast to the musics of earlier centuries.
For this project, we will use an etude by Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943) as an example. Listen
first to the composers own recording of his Etude-Tableaux in a minor, Op. 39, No. 6.
(Apologies for the youtube advertisement . . .) This piece was composed in 1917 and recorded in
1925. You can download a PDF of the score here.

Next, compare Rachmaninoffs performance with two additional, more recent

recordings of the same piece.

Evgeny Kissin (rec. 1988)

Vladimir Ashkenazy (rec. 1986)

Write a 500-600 word essay in which you consider both the benefits and
the disadvantages of our ability to hear and compare an early twentieth-century
composer perform his own music in sound recordings.

Pay attention to the interpretive decisions made by each individual

performer. Explain and support your opinions by discussing specific
musical details selected from all three of the assigned performances.
[Please do not allow yourself to be distracted by all the nonsense in the youtube
comments section!]