Multiple Choice Questions For Year 9s
Piece – Passacaglia by Heinrich Franz Biber
1. What is a Passacaglia?
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An instrument
A tempo marking
A form of music
A Bird
2. Where did the Passacaglia Originate from?
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Italy
France
Brazil
Spain
3. What century did the Passacaglia originate in?
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10th century
16th Century
17th Century
18th Century
4. What is the Passacaglia similar to?
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The Chaconne
Adagio
Basso continuo
Disco
5. What is an ostinato?
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Rhythms that continuously change
Counterpoint
A repeated motif that occurs in a piece
Where you have half chocolate milk and there is no froth, unlike a cappuccino and more like a
mochaccino.
5 Short Questions for Year 9s
1. Describe the main feature of a passacaglia?
The main feature of a passacaglia is its continuous repeated bass line.
2. What type of music was the Passacaglia originally used for? How was it used in this music?
It was generally used as an instrumental prelude or interlude for folk dances.
3. Name two compositional techniques that composers used in early Baroque period.
Composers started using extensive use of polyphony and the basso continuo technique.
4. What instrument from Spain was a popular choice for writing a Passacaglia?
What was a compositional technique needed to play a Passacaglia?
A popular choice was the guitar. It can easily play chords needed to write polyphony or basso continuo.
5. Why is Biber’s Passacaglia important to the violin repertoire?
It was one of the first violin pieces to extensively used polyphony unaccompanied.
5 cloze Questions for Year 9s
During the 16th century, in the ____________ period, instrumental pieces often called Variations on a
Ground were starting to become popular, particularly in _____________. These consisted of variations
over a repeated bass pattern referred to as a ‘bass ground’. A prominent master of this form was the
English Baroque composer, _____________. This would later evolve into forms such as ground bass,
theme and variations, chaconne and passacaglia.
Despite having Spanish roots, the first musical example of a passacaglia are found in Italian sources
dated 1606. The word passacaglia derives from the Spanish pasar, to walk and calle, street. During the
transition from the Renaissance into the _____________ period, two very individual styles of
composition arose; extensive use of polyphony and the basso continuo technique. Both styles were
greatly influenced by the revolutionary Italian composers, Claudio Monteverdi and Girolamo
Frescobaldi. Franz Biber wrote one of the earliest known pieces for solo violin, the
monumental passacaglia from the book of ________________. During Biber's lifetime, his music was
known and imitated throughout Europe.
ANSWERS
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Renaissance
Romantic
The 60s
England
Ireland
Australia
Henry Purcell
J.S Bach
Michael Jackson
Baroque
Ballet
Rock and Roll
Mystery Sonatas
How to write Counterpoint by Monteverdi.
Where’s Wally
Multiple Choice Questions For Year 11s
Piece – Passacaglias by Shostakovich. In particular the 3rd Movement from his 1st Violin Concerto.
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Who was another 20th century composer to regularly use the Passacaglia apart from Shostakovich?
Mendelssohn
Ives
Webern
Beethoven
2. By analysing the score. How long is the Passacaglia’s ground bass exactly?
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10 bars
17 bars
16 bars
20 bars
3. Beside the Passacaglia itself, what other Baroque influences does Shostakovich use in the movement?
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Traditional harmony - fourths, fifths and Neapolitan chords
Fugal writing
Dance like rhythms in triplets
The Harpsichord
4. What piece did Shostakovich first experiment with the Passacaglia?
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The First Symphony
The Second Symphony
Transfigured night
Piano Trio No.2
5. What did Dmitri Shostakovich write to commemorate the bicentenary of Bach’s death?
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A Passacaglia
A Concerto
A set of Poems
A set of 24 Preludes and Fugues.
5 Short Questions for Year 11s
1. What is the difference between a Passacaglia and a Chaconne?
The chaconne is based on a harmonic sequence with a recurring soprano melody, and the
Passacaglia is formed over a ground bass pattern.
2. Name at least 3 other works where you can find a Passacaglia by Shostakovich
Lady Macbeth of Mtsendk, the 2nd Piano Trio and in the Eighth Symphony
3. Why where 20th century composers using the Passacaglia in their works?
Composers needed a basic structure that could hold everything together in the midst of all the major
musical developments of the new century. The passacaglia was something that could achieve this
through its main constructive principle of repetition.
4. The theme in the Violin Concertos 3rd Movment goes through nine variations in total.
Analyse the score and name the instruments that go through the 1st, 2nd and 3rd
statements of the ground bass.
1st - Cellos and Bass.
2nd – Tuba and Bassoon.
3 – Violins
5. What is the well known motif used by Shostakovich’s found in the Passacaglia’s cadenza?
The DSCH motif - Shostakovich’s Initials.
5 cloze Questions for Year 11s
Lying relatively dormant for around 150 years, the passacaglia took a turn and made a sudden revival in
the 20th century. This revival did not just consist of a few isolated examples, but became a worldwide
trend. Hindemith, predominantly a composer of instrumental works and symphonies, would use the
passacaglia as a means to establish a tonal centre, and to recall earlier thematic material. There were
numerous other 20th century composers who wrote at least one passacaglia. They include: Barber, Berg,
Bloch, Britten, Dubensky, Haubiel, Pisk, Ravel, Reger, Schoenberg, Schostakovich, Starokadomsky,
Vaughan Williams and Weiss. Composers needed a basic structure that could hold everything together
in the midst of all the major musical developments of the new century. Generally the passacaglia is a
form that most theorists and historians associate with the Baroque period, but surprisingly there have
been even more passacaglias written during the 20th century. Although there were new techniques in
tonality as well as other developments, most composers still showed an adherence to the traditional 3-4
meter and eight-bar unity for the theme. The reason for this was that they were looking for something
to provide them with continuity, coherence, order and symmetry. It was during the darkest times of his
career that Shostakovich composed his First Violin Concerto Op.77 between July 1947 and March 1948.
During the cold war - following World War II, the Soviet government introduced the Zhdanovshchina
cultural policy.
The third movement titled Passacaglia, is considered to be the most famous of the four. The four
movement structure gives the work a symphonic form although the work is still very much soloist
based. It may well count as one of Shostakovich’s finest symphonic outputs despite its concerto
structure. Although the first and third movements (the Nocturne and Passacaglia) are similar in melodic
growth and symphonic nature, they contrast in tonal centring. Where the Nocturne is sometimes
enigmatic, the Passacaglia is clearly defined in F minor. The ostinato theme in the Passacaglia is also
unusually long
There is a lot of speculation that the Violin Concerto was inspired by World War II and the Jewish
Holocaust, as in the case of the Eighth Symphony. By the time the First Violin Concerto was composed,
Shostakovich had already written a substantial amount of passacaglias in his life time such as those
found in Lady Macbeth of Mtsendk, the 2nd Piano Trio and the fourth movements of the string quartets
and Eighth Symphony.
For Shostakovich the passacaglia and its formality of Baroque techniques, demonstrates that despite the
Soviet artistic repression, it is a perfect device for expression and could create extreme beauty during
the hardest years of his life.