Matura History of Music study plan

Build a one-page reference sheet of clefs, key signatures to seven sharps/flats, and relative/parallel major-minor pairs, then self-test by writing all 15 key signatures from memory in under 10 minutes

Identify by ear and on the staff all simple and compound intervals up to a thirteenth, including inversion rules, scoring at least 90% on a 40-item self-made drill

Analyse the harmonic function of every chord in two short Romantic piano miniatures (e.g. a Mendelssohn Song without Words and a Grieg Lyric Piece), labelling cadences and chromatic chords

Map the chronological spine of Romantic music onto a timeline with at least 25 composers, birth-death dates, and one representative genre each

Write a 150-word definition of programme music, absolute music, and the New German School versus the conservative camp, using only your own examples

Compare the song cycles of Schubert and Schumann by filling a table of at least eight works with poet, scoring, narrative thread, and one harmonic or motivic feature each

Trace the development of the Romantic symphony from Schubert through Brahms, listing for six symphonies the formal expansion, orchestration, and cyclic devices used

Distinguish national schools (Russian, Czech, Scandinavian, Hungarian) by naming three composers each and one characteristic rhythmic or modal trait per school

Practise score reading by reducing the first 30 bars of a Romantic orchestral score to a two-staff piano sketch, marking transposing instruments

Draft 10 exam-style essay openings on Romantic topics, each stating a thesis in one sentence

Classify at least 12 twentieth-century techniques (atonality, twelve-tone, serialism, modality, polymetre, aleatorism, minimalism, spectralism, sonorism) with a defining rule and one work each

Construct a twelve-tone row, derive its retrograde, inversion, and retrograde-inversion, and label every form in a short passage from a Second Viennese School score

Explain the harmonic language of Debussy and Stravinsky by identifying whole-tone, octatonic, and pentatonic collections in three short excerpts

Build a timeline of 1900-2025 with at least 30 works grouped by decade, noting the premiere year and one reception controversy each

Define five post-1945 movements (Darmstadt avant-garde, musique concrète, electronic, minimalism, post-modernism) in your own words with a representative composer

Contrast Baroque and twentieth-century uses of ostinato, ground bass, and rhythmic repetition by comparing a Purcell ground bass with a minimalist work, noting three shared and three divergent features

Summarise the main currents of Polish and Central European modernism after 1945 in a 200-word note, naming composers and genres

Identify by ear the instrumentation and texture of five short twentieth-century excerpts, writing one sentence of justification for each identification

Answer four past-paper-style short questions on twentieth-century music under timed conditions (20 minutes total) and mark them against a checklist

Revise the Baroque domain by building a table of concerto grosso, solo concerto, trio sonata, and fugue with typical scoring, form, and two examples each

Map the Baroque era from 1600 to 1750 on a timeline with at least 20 composers, courts, and genres, marking the shift from prima prattica to seconda prattica

Compare the operatic reforms of Monteverdi, Lully, and Handel by listing for each the recitative style, aria types, and orchestra role

Analyse a fugue subject and its answer, countersubject, and episodes in a two-page Bach fugue, marking every entry on the score

Outline the development of notation and polyphony from organum through the ars nova to the Renaissance mass, naming five sources or treatises

Identify the formal sections of a da capo aria and a French overture in two listening excerpts, writing the section boundaries with timings

Compare the sonata forms of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven by analysing the first movements of three sonatas and tabulating exposition, development, and recapitulation lengths

Explain the Viennese Classical genres (symphony, string quartet, sonata, concerto, opera buffa) with typical movement plans and two examples each

Chart Polish music from the Middle Ages to the present with at least 15 composers or anonymous sources, noting genre, patronage, and one surviving work each

Describe the role of Chopin, Moniuszko, and Szymanowski in Polish musical identity in three 100-word paragraphs with specific works cited

Practise score reading by identifying instrumentation, texture, and cadence points in a Classical string quartet movement without a recording

Trace the development of sacred and secular medieval genres (chant, organum, motet, chanson, madrigal) with one notated example each and the source type named

Link Polish medieval and Renaissance sources (e.g. the earliest notated Polish repertories and surviving liturgical manuscripts) to broader European trends in a short comparative note

Complete five timed listening tasks: for each excerpt, write composer, approximate date, genre, and two supporting features within four minutes

Read three short score excerpts cold and write the key, texture, and likely period with justification

Compile a personal error log of at least 15 recurring mistakes from weeks 1-6 and write a correction rule for each

Sit two full mock papers under exam timing, covering all eight domains, and score them against a marking scheme

Redo every item in the error log and confirm each correction rule from memory without notes

Write three timed essays (25 minutes each) on Romantic, twentieth-century, and Polish topics, each with a thesis, three supporting works, and a conclusion

Drill listening identification on 20 mixed excerpts, targeting at least 80% accuracy on composer, period, and genre

Review the four heaviest domains (Romantic, twentieth-century, Baroque, Classical) using one-page summaries you write from memory, then check against your notes