Graduate Music History and Literature
Preliminary Examination

The Music History and Literature examination for all entering students is divided into
seven sections.

1. Listening: Period, genre, and possible composer identification
2. Multiple Choice: Medieval Period - composers, theorists, forms, etc.
3. Multiple Choice: Renaissance Period - composers, forms, instruments, schools, etc.
4. Multiple Choice: Baroque Period - composers, compositional techniques, forms, etc.
5. Multiple Choice: Classical Period - composers, styles, forms, opera, etc.
6. Multiple Choice: Romantic Period - composers, forms, instruments, terms, etc.
7. Multiple Choice: Contemporary Period - composers, terminology, compositional techniques, works.

The examination is divided (as noted above) into each historical period. The exam is
comparable in difficulty to those given undergraduate music students in their music history courses. To pass without qualification students must score 70% or higher on each portion of the exam. Students scoring below 70% on one or more of the exams will be advised by the Coordinator of Graduate Studies as to appropriate ways to remediate these deficiencies.

The following books are recommended for review. They may be available in the Harper Maybee Music and Dance Library.

• Miller, Hugh M. History of Music (Barnes & Noble College Outline Series),
  Harper & Row, 1973.
• Grout, Donald J. & Claude J. Palisca. A History of Western Music, 5th edition,
  W. W. Norton & Co., 1997.
• Ulrich, Homer and Paul Pisk. A History of Music and Musical Style, Harcourt
  Brace, 1963.

The following are sample questions contained in the exam.

Which of the following composers did not compose during the Renaissance Period?

1. Giovanni Palestrina
2. John Wilbye
3. Heinrich Isaac
4. Jean Mouton
5. Johann Pachelbel

The texture of Vivaldi's concerti is typically:

1. polyphonic
2. monophonic
3. heterophonic
4. homophonic

The founder of modern French chamber music was:

1. Hector Berlioz
2. Claude Debussy
3. George Bizet
4. Cesar Franck