MiM quiz – Explorer level / Education

Remember, this quiz is not about testing your knowledge about contemporary music. It's all about getting to know the four composers - their music, techniques, but also inspirations and private stories. We invite you to take on this challenge - discover the universe of four personalities and dive in into their music.

 

 

Chamber music - which of the four composers wrote this musical piece?

Listen to the short exceprt and recognise the composer.

The example comes from Louis Andriessen Zilver.

The example comes from Kazimierz Serocki Swinging Music.

The example comes from Arvo PärtEs sang vor langen Jahren.

The example comes from Pierre BoulezLe marteau sans maître.

Vocal music - who composed this musical piece?

Listen to the short excerpt and  recognize the composer.

The example comes from Pierre BoulezPli selon pli.

The example comes from Louis Andriessen La passione.

The example comes from Arvo PärtKanon pokajanen.

The example comes from Kazimierz Serocki Poesies.

The quotations come from other composers and music journalists. Whom they apply to?

xxx in the quotations replace the name of the composer in question.

He considered himself from his earliest days to have an almost Napoleonic mission regarding music and its cultural role. His ambition was not only to compose, but to change the attitude of the public, institutions […] with regard to modernism.

George Benjamin (British composer) on Pierre BoulezThe Guardian, 20 March 2015

Individualist when it came to understand folklore but also the orchestra and new form. Though uncommonly intelligent, there was no indication of the intellectual nature of his actions.

Bogusław Schaeffer (Polish composer) on Kazimierz SerockiKompozytorzy XX wieku tom 2 (Kraków, 1989)

xxx music is the sound of the most fruitful of collisions between political radicalism, minimalist pulsation and European modernism; at its most profound, it's much more than that.

Tom Service (music journalist) on Louis Andriessen The Guardian, 15 October 2012

European music shows the signs of a spiritual crisis, and xxx is there, the lonely humans voice. He writes religious music in a very secular age.

Steve Reich (American composer) on Arvo Pärt  – Die Zeit, 11 September 2015

To which one of the four composers can the following quotes be attributed:

More and more I find that in order to create effectively one has to consider delirium and, yes, organize it.

Not all of the quotations can be found on the MiM website, but the personalities and interests of the Composers clearly suggest the right answers.

Answer: Pierre Boulez

[I wrote my piece] as a contribution to the debate about the relation of music to politics.

Not all of the quotations can be found on the MiM website, but the personalities and interests of the Composers clearly suggest the right answers.

Answer: Louis Andriessen

“What can one say about oneself? Not much, in my opinion, and besides it always seems to me a bit pretentious.”

Not all of the quotations can be found on the MiM website, but the personalities and interests of the Composers clearly suggest the right answers

Answer: Kazimierz Serocki

I have discovered that it is enough when a single note is beautifully played. This one note, or a silent beat, or a moment of silence, comforts me …

Not all of the quotations can be found on the MiM website, but the personalities and interests of the Composers clearly suggest the right answers.

Answer: Arvo Pärt

 

Which composers visited the International Summer Course for New Music in Darmstadt?

Since 1946 the International Summer Course for New Music in Darmstadt has been the most important meeting place for composers interested in new phenomena in music. For two of the Four Composers the Darmstadt course was an important place in their artistic biographies, for the remaining two – not at all. Which composers visited the course?

In 1958 Musica concertante (1958) by Kazimierz Serocki was the first ever piece by a Polish composer to be premiered during the Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik in Darmstadt. In the 1950s PB, Karlheinz Stockhausen and Luigi Nono were considered to be leading young avant-garde composers, for whom the Summer Course in Darmstadt remained for a while the most important forum for presenting their own music and concepts.

Orchestral music - who composed this musical piece?

Listen to the short excerpt and  recognize the composer.

Instrumental color scheme also plays a major role in Pli selon pli composed by Pierre Boulez, but this piece sounds quite different from Serocki’s music. Boulez saw the precise pitch as equally important as harmony arrangements.

In Ad libitum the nature of the music resembles that of colour fantasia, like in many of Krzysztof Serocki’s works.

A vivid, though by no means simple rhythm, sound of the orchestra favouring the brass rather than the strings suggest Louis Andriessen – the example is taken from his Mysterien.

Consonant chords, melody and harmony bringing to mind Renaissance music in Arvo Pärt’s 3. Symphony are characteristics of many of his works.

Well done!

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