Music History and Repertoire
This domain tests your ability to place music in a period, name composers and genres, and recognise style features. It also covers Irish traditional music and selected popular or world styles. Dates help, but identifying what you hear matters more.
Periods and style
Renaissance: modal polyphony, a cappella texture, balanced lines; Palestrina. Baroque 1600-1750: continuo, terraced dynamics, ornamentation, ritornello; Bach, Handel, Vivaldi. Classical 1750-1820: balanced phrases, homophony, sonata form; Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven. Romantic 1820-1900: expressive chromaticism, larger orchestra, program music; Schubert, Chopin, Tchaikovsky. Twentieth century: irregular rhythm, dissonance, new timbres; Stravinsky, Debussy, Bernstein.
Irish traditional music
Sean-nos is unaccompanied Gaelic song with free rhythm and ornamentation. A jig is in 6/8, a reel in 4/4, and a hornpipe in 4/4 with dotted rhythm. Instruments include uilleann pipes, fiddle, flute, tin whistle, bodhran and harp. Dance tunes are often played AABB.
Worked example
A listening excerpt has a small string group, harpsichord continuo, a solo violin, terraced dynamics and a returning orchestral refrain. Name the period and two features. Answer: Baroque. The continuo and ritornello refrain are Baroque hallmarks; terraced dynamics also point to Baroque practice. Do not answer Classical just because the group is small; the harpsichord continuo is the decisive clue.
Traps
Dates overlap, so style features matter more. Handel wrote Messiah, not Bach. A jig is 6/8, not 4/4. Traditional music is not all anonymous; know function such as song, dance or lament.