INSTRUCTOR’S MANUAL

CHAPTER 6

EARLY BAROQUE OPERA

MULTIPLE CHOICE

1. Which combination of words best describes Baroque art and music?

a. balance and proportion
b. dramatic and grandiose
c. passionate and personal
d. subdued and discreet
e. subtle and exotic

ANSWER: b

2. The era known as the Baroque period was from:

a. 1475-1600
b. 1750-1820
c. 476-1475
d. 1600-1750
e. 1500-1650

ANSWER: d

3. When and where did Baroque music first appear?

a. around 1475 in Paris
b. around 1600 in Italy
c. around 1685 in central Germany
d. around 1710 in London
e. around 1725 in Austria

ANSWER: b

4. The original meaning of the term “Baroque” had a negative connotation,

signifying distortion, excess, and extravagance.
a. true
b. false

ANSWER: a

5. The idea that different musical moods could and should be used to influence the
emotions of the listener is known as:
 a. Doctrine of Affections
b. Enlightenment
c. humanism
d. Counter-Reformation
e. Baroque

ANSWER: a

6. What emotionally powerful genre of music emerged in Western Europe during

the Baroque era?
a. symphony
b. string quartet
c. opera
d. etude
e. the minuet

ANSWER: c

7. Which genre of composition is a dramatic work in which the actors sing some or
all of their parts and features elaborate costumes and stage sets?
a. opera
b. overture
c. chamber cantata
d. oratorio
e. chorale

ANSWER: a

8. The dramatic text that composers set to music in an opera, oratorio, or cantata is
called:
a. toccata
b. libretto
c. monody
d. arioso
e. ostinato

ANSWER: b

9. What did the inventors of early opera think they were reviving?
a. organum
b. symphony
c. ancient Greek drama
d. ancient Roman oratory
e. Gothic romances

ANSWER: c
10. __________ is a genre that was prominent during the early Baroque. It consists
of a few instruments that accompany a solo singer performing a song based on a
highly charged, emotional text.
a. oratorio
b. madrigal
c. opera
d. motet
e. monody

ANSWER: e

11. What is the term for a small ensemble that furnishes a foundation for the melody
or melodies of a composition, requires at least two instrumentalists, and occurs
almost exclusively in Baroque music?
a. figured bass
b. basso ostinato
c. basso continuo
d. canon
e. counterpoint

ANSWER: c

12. The most common basso continuo group was the:

a. harpsichord and low string instrument
b. organ and theorbo
c. low string instrument and bassoon
d. piano and organ
e. harpsichord and flute

ANSWER: a

13. What is the numerical shorthand in music that tells the player which unwritten
notes to fill in above the written bass note?
a. ostinato
b. basso continuo
c. recitative
d. figured bass
e. basso ostinato

ANSWER: d

14. Which Italian musician is considered the creator of opera? His career as a
performer and composer was spent in the Italian cities of Cremona, Mantua, and
Venice.
a. Monteverdi
 b. Vivaldi
c. Corelli
d. Palestrina
e. Handel

ANSWER: a

15. Why is Orfeo significant in the history of European music?

a. it is the first time instruments were used to accompany singing
b. it is Bach’s only opera
c. it was the first composition distributed to a mass market by the printing press
d. it is the first true example of European opera
e. it is the first composition based upon a mythological subject

ANSWER: d

16. What is the term for an instrumental showpiece that typically demands great
technical dexterity on the part of the performer?
a. ritornello
b. concertino
c. toccata
d. suite
e. canon

ANSWER: c

17. Which statement describes the general plot of Monteverdi’s Orfeo?

a. a retelling of section of Virgil’s epic poem The Aeneid
b. the hero has to rescue his love from the Minotaur
c. the hero has to charm and disarm the demons of the underworld in order
rescue his new bride
d. the hero seeks to revenge the death of his friend, who was killed in battle
e. a rollicking tale of seduction that culminates with the damnation of the
unrepentant villain-hero to hell

ANSWER: c

18. Identify the musical form Monteverdi used in the opening aria of his opera
Orfeo.
a. simple recitative
b. strophic variation
c. ground bass
d. canon
e. chorale

ANSWER: b
19. Musically heightened speech that relates the action or dramatic narrative to the
audience is called __________. The text is usually in prose rather than poetic
meter and the musical setting mirrors the natural rhythms of everyday speech.
a. ritornello
b. aria
c. libretto
d. recitative
e. cantata

ANSWER: d

20. What sets “simple recitative” apart from other types of recitative?
a. there is minimal harmonic movement
b. there is no syncopation in the vocal line
c. the accompaniment solely consists of a basso continuo
d. it is only sung at the beginning of an act or scene, before the dramatic
situation becomes too complex
e. all of the above

ANSWER: c

21. This singing style expresses feeling or emotion rather than narrating the drama’s
action. All or part of the orchestra, including the basso continuo, accompanies
the singer.
a. chorale
b. cantata
c. aria
d. recitative
e. madrigal

ANSWER: c

22. Which composer has been called the “greatest of all English composers,” a title
to which only the pop songwriter Paul McCartney can plausibly challenge.
a. Handel
b. Purcell
c. Pachelbel
d. Perotinus
e. Monteverdi

ANSWER: b

23. Which epic Latin poem provided the story for Purcell’s opera Dido and Aeneas?
a. Aeneid
b. Odyssey
 c. Mahabharata
d. The Faerie Queen
e. Iliad

ANSWER: a

24. A melody, harmony, or rhythm that repeats continually throughout a musical

composition is called:
a. a toccata
b. a ritornello
c. a sonata
d. an ostinato
e. a sequential repetition

ANSWER: d

25. Which term is synonymous with “Ground bass”?

a. basso ostinato
b. basso continuo
c. walking bass
d. Alberti bass
e. ostinato

ANSWER: a

26. In the opera Dido and Aeneas, who dies of a broken heart?
a. Orfeo
b. Dido
c. Euridice
d. Aeneas
e. its opera: by the end all the characters have died tragically

ANSWER: b (page 22)

27. Which response best describes the bass line heard in the listening example
a. fugue
b. canon
c. basso ostinato
d. figured bass
e. sequential repetition

ANSWER: c [Purcell, Dido and Aeneas; DL 22; 0:58-1:43]

SHORT ANSWER

1. How did the Doctrine of Affections shape the mood of Baroque compositions?
[it was expected that a composition should affect the mood of the listener, and so it was
important to maintain a single mood for each movement]

2. What are the two elements of music that remained constant throughout the Baroque
era?

[expressive melody, strong supporting bass (basso continuo)]

3. What was the purpose of the figured bass?

[told the harpsichord player which chords to improvise while accompanying the melody]

4. Why is Orfeo important in the history of Western art music?

[it is the first important opera]

5. What type of pattern was typically used in the basso ostinato of a lament aria?

[a chromatically descending line, or bass line that descends by step]

ESSAY

1. What was the character of Baroque architecture, its decoration, and how music
translated these ideas into sound? Give at least one example of each (architecture,
decoration, music) and mention how it illustrates your point.

[colossal scale (Versailles, St. Peter’s basilica), elaborate decoration adds warmth to vast
space (Bernini’s baldachin or monastery of St. Florian), energetic detail within large
compositions in music (e.g., Corelli sonata)]

2. Describe the different use of musical texture in the music of the Renaissance and that
of the Baroque. You may include diagrams, but explain what their meaning.

[Renaissance: polyphonic texture, with all voices of equal importance; Baroque: polarity
between the top and bottom lines, organized in a homophonic style rather than
polyphonic]

3. Differentiate between the textual organization, musical style, and dramatic purpose of
operatic recitative and aria.

[Recitative: text in prose, music set in speech rhythms, voice accompanied by basso
continuo alone, conveys the dramatic action; Aria: text in poetic meter, more elaborate
vocal setting that features word repetition and melismatic extension, accompanied by
orchestra, purpose is to convey the character’s emotional state.]