MANHATTANVILLE COLLEGE MUSIC DEPARTMENT

SENIOR COMPREHENSIVE EXAMINATION

Fall, 2002 (Revised Fall, 2000 and 2007) Effective with Class of 2004

The Senior Comprehensive Examination

The pieces selected for the Music Department Senior Comprehensive Examination include complete works and excerpts that are drawn from the history of music. The list is organized in a way that includes genres that span eras in order to allow for both specific testing of techniques in individual pieces as well as comparisons over the sweep of the discipline. The examinations will be read by the full-time Music Department Faculty. The examination will take place over three days as a part of the regular meetings in the Senior Seminar and the subject material covered in the three meetings will be drawn from historical and theoretical studies.

Note: The Senior Comprehensive Examination (MuH 3997) is not required for the BA with a concentration in Musical Theatre. The "Comps" are required for all other degree programs.

PART ONE: (FOR BA IN MUSIC, BA IN MUSIC MANAGEMENT, BA IN MUSICAL THEATRE, AND BMUS IN EDUCATION DEGREES) 

The first examination session will include listening and score identification, including short questions about the excerpts. The students will prepare a bibliography for the study of the works for that first session. This bibliography would include scores, encyclopedia articles, books, and journal articles about each piece. The format, of course, would have to be in proper order, and the list would be required to sit for the exam. The first part of the exam would be most specific about techniques in pieces, including questions like the following:

Excerpt: Mozart Symphony #41, iv (section with fugue)

Composer: _____________________ Title: ___________________________ Date: ___________________ Section or Movement: ______________________

How does this work fit into the composer's output? At what point of his life was it written and what musical techniques are found in this excerpt that are typical of the composer's era and this particular time in his life?

PART TWO: (FOR BA IN MUSIC, BA IN MUSICAL THEATRE, AND BMUS IN EDUCATION DEGREES)

The second examination session will concentrate on specific areas of music history and theory. The questions will be essay type and should draw from the list of works in various ways. In two hours, up to 6 questions drawn from areas as follows:

Early Music (up to 1750), 18th Century, 19th Century, and 20th century on historical and style issues; and two questions on theoretical topics, including one on 20th Century techniques of composition and one on the common practice era.

(FOR THE MUSIC MANAGEMENT DEGREE) The second examination session will concentrate on specific areas of the music business. Up to 6 questions will be essay type and will draw on the candidates knowledge of The Music Business in General, Publishing and the Copyright Law, The Recording and Broadcast Industries, and Key Legal and Contract Issues.

PART THREE: (FOR BA IN MUSIC, BA IN MUSICAL THEATRE, AND BMUS DEGREES)

Each year the Study List includes at least one romantic multi-movement song or piano collection. For the third examination session, candidates will be given songs or piano miniatures to analyze. The kinds of work included here would be either piano works by Chopin or Schumann, or a Beethoven, Schubert, or Schumann song cycle. The analyses will be written during the examination, but the set of pieces from which the analyses would be drawn will be announced ahead of time. E.g.: Chopin, Preludes; Schumann, Scenes from Childhood; Schubert, Die Schöne Müllerin.

Analyze the given works with reference to formal structure, pointing out any melodic, rhythmic, and harmonic details that support your analyses. If text is included, demonstrate how the composer uses musical techniques to highlight the meaning of the text.

(FOR THE MUSIC MANAGEMENT DEGREE) For the third examination session, candidates will be presented with several hypothetical music business problems and asked to analyze each of the problems, present legal and artistic considerations, and then , to recommend well-thought-out solutions.