h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I sat an exam on Saturday. History of music. Sounds like a huge subject, but remember that the course I'm on only deals with Church music. So the main emphasis is placed on the time from the introduction of polyphony in the 9th Century within the church system up until Bach, who was the last composer who wrote exclusively for church services. At least, that's the simplified version we have worked on. We had less than 6 months on the subject.

The teacher is very lenient and looked over our papers at the end and gave us a chance to add a few words which she thought might help.

But - sitting an exam at my age! You really forget how to do this sort of thing.

(a) my handwriting is not that great

(b) I left out a question because I noticed I'd only answered one side of the paper and there were only 5 minutes left and the other side was full of questions, too!

(c) One question was supposed to be answered as a short list and I wrote far too much text describing various types of Mediaeval polyphony because I wasn't sure of their names.

(d) I misjudged the time needed for revision and was up the night before very late and was still reading on the train the next morning. Not that that is any different from days gone by when I was sitting my A levels. The problem was, the subject is so fascinating that I kept getting waylaid in Wikipedia and various other online sources when I looked to check a date, a name, a spelling, or find examples. And the whole time I had youtube playing Palestrina at me to keep me in the mood, but that was distracting if I strayed into that tab and started following the score.



For the rest of the year we have a short course on the construction of the church organ and then a short course on choir accompaniment (piano).

one thing they drummed into us at school, which serves me well with OU activities is:

1) practice papers
2) practice writing (by hand)
3) make a revision timetable with lots of spare room for lethargy



how do you think it went?

Probably OK - they are really lenient and do what they can to help you. They really need qualified organists and church musicians so they hardly ever fail anyone. I would probably be buddies with this teacher in any other situation. We are about the same age, our husbands went to school together (!) and she reminds me of my sister.

Good luck with your results, I'm sure you'll be fine. I can understand why following Palestrina scores would be distracting, but surely that counted as revision time...

MC

"Bach, who was the last composer who wrote exclusively for church services"

Not sure I get that.

Well, that was their assessment of it from the German, Catholic point of view. Who am I to argue? It meant we didn't have to go into the intricacies of 18th, 19th or 20th Century music, which couldn't possibly have been covered in the six month course.

Interesting that Bach was, of course, the ultimate Protestant composer, using texts in the vernacular.

But, off the top of my ill-informed head, I can't think of many composers who had an influence on the fashions and development in music by composing purely sacred works. It was all happening in the secular sector after that, and, if anyone wrote a monumental work in a ground-breaking style, they may have used that style in a requiem, liturgical organ piece, mass, oratorio or cantata as well, but not exclusively.

Whatever. I shall certainly continue reading up on the subject.

Well, Bach wrote plenty of secular music, as well as the (Lutheran) Cantatas and (Catholic) Masses and (flexible) Passions and Motets! They were probably thinking of the fact that, alone among successful 18th-century composers, he wrote no operas.

Even that was only due to the fact that he never landed a job where he would have the opportunity. He did apply for some.

It would have been fun if you had come to give us a lesson or two.

Our music history teacher, who also teaches us liturgical singing, which means the intonation of psalms from up at the organ, complains that the scholars of Latin refer far too seldom to the experts in Gregorian recitation. The notation gives the answers to all the problems of pronunciation that the classicists have spent centuries pondering and arguing on.

Maybe in music history, her eyes would be opened by a similar co-operation with the secular scholars of music. But I suspect that much of what we were taught was limited by constraints of time and the set curriculum.