A music teacher plays a short excerpt filled with shifting harmonies and tone colors that evoke a misty landscape. Which composer’s style is most likely being heard?

• Igor Stravinsky

• Claude Debussy

• Arnold Schoenberg

• Sergei Prokofiev

During a music appreciation activity, students are tasked to compare the textures in Debussy’s Clair de Lune and Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire. Which statement best distinguishes Impressionism from Expressionism?

• Impressionism uses tonal ambiguity; Expressionism uses strict tonality

• Impressionism is light and atmospheric; Expressionism is intense and emotional

• Impressionism relies on folk melodies; Expressionism rejects melody

• Impressionism uses polyphony; Expressionism uses monophony

   

A modern composer wants to evoke fleeting impressions of nature using whole-tone scales and unresolved chords. Which period and style are he emulating?

• Romantic Period – Nationalism

• 20th Century – Impressionism

• 20th Century – Expressionism

• Classical Period – Neoclassicism

Which musical element in Debussy’s works directly challenges the traditional rules of harmony?

• Parallel chords (planning)

• I–V–I progression   

• Circle of fifths

• Alberti bass

A film director wants an unsettling and tense atmosphere for a horror scene. Which Expressionist technique would be most effective?

• Use of whole-tone scales

• Use of 12-tone serialism

• Use of pentatonic scales

• Use of regular rhythmic patterns

In class discussion, a student claims that Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire is Impressionist because it paints vivid imagery. How should you correct them?

• By explaining that vivid imagery is only Romantic

• By pointing out that it uses atonality and Sprechstimme, key features of Expressionism

• By saying Debussy invented Sprechstimme

• By noting that all atonal music is Impressionist

Which of the following best explains why Debussy is considered the father of Impressionist music?

• He rejected tonality completely

• He created music to depict inner psychological states

• He pioneered the use of modal scales, unresolved dissonances, and tone colors to suggest images

• He wrote the first opera in the 20th century

A musicologist is asked to arrange these works chronologically: Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune (Debussy), Verklärte Nacht (Schoenberg), and The Firebird (Stravinsky). Which is the correct order?

• Debussy – Schoenberg – Stravinsky

• Schoenberg – Debussy – Stravinsky

• Stravinsky – Schoenberg – Debussy

• Debussy – Stravinsky – Schoenberg

   

If Debussy’s music captures fleeting sensory impressions, Schoenberg’s music primarily aims to:

• Reflect realistic landscapes

• Depict psychological truths and raw emotion

• Promote national identity

• Return to classical forms

Which of these techniques is most closely associated with Schoenberg’s twelve-tone method?

• Using each note of the chromatic scale once before repeating

• Writing melodies in pentatonic scale

• Using unresolved dissonance to depict nature

• Avoiding rhythm entirely