Notes · MusicUK · A-Levels

Area of study 1: Western classical tradition 1650-1910

Area of Study 1 is the compulsory strand every candidate must study, and it is the sole focus of the score-based analysis section and one of the two essays. It spans over two and a half centuries of European art music - from the Baroque, through the Classical era, to the Romantic - in three strands: the Baroque solo concerto, the operas of Mozart, and the piano music of the Romantic era. This topic teaches the style, forms and harmonic language of the period and the analytical method for its set works.

5 sections~27 min reading time3 competenciesLevel Foundation 1 · Standard 2 · Advanced 2

T·0222 / 11

Exam profile

AO3 · Analyse and appraise set works from the Western classical tradition using the elements of music and a scoreAO3 · Understand the styles, forms and harmonic language of the Baroque, Classical and Romantic erasAO3 · Make evaluative and contextual judgements about music from 1650 to 1910

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basic level

AS-Level expects secure recognition of the main features and forms of the Baroque, Classical and Romantic styles.

higher level

The full A-Level requires detailed, score-based analysis of the set works and confident evaluation of style, harmony and structure across the period.

Depth

Text

Contents · 5 sections

Area of study 1: Western classical tradition 1650-1910

The compulsory area of study#

FoundationAQA 7272 Area of study 1DfE GCE Music subject content

The three strands of Area of Study 1

Fig. 1The compulsory area of study covers three genres across three eras - Baroque concerto, Classical opera and Romantic piano music.

Area of Study 1, the Western classical tradition 1650-1910, is the one area of study that every candidate must take, whatever their other choices. Its central place in the qualification is deliberate: this repertoire is the foundation of European art music and the source of much of the harmonic and formal vocabulary used across the whole subject, so a secure grasp of it underpins the study of every other area. In the exam it carries a double weight - it is the sole focus of the score-based Analysis section (Section B) and it supplies one of the two essays - so it demands the deepest and most detailed preparation of all the areas of study.

The area is organised into three strands, each representing a genre and a period: the Baroque solo concerto, the operas of Mozart, and the piano music of the Romantic era. Together they trace the great arc of tonal art music - from the Baroque's driving continuo and terraced dynamics, through the balance and clarity of Mozart's Classical style, to the expressive freedom and rich harmony of the Romantic piano miniature. AQA chooses specific set works within each strand, and because these are rotated across specification cycles, you must study the particular works named in your own current specification; the style, forms and methods taught here apply to whichever they are.

The three strands span the period from roughly 1650 to 1910 and correspond to three stylistic eras. The Baroque (about 1600-1750) prized ornate, continuous, contrapuntal music driven by a basso continuo and organised by a single 'affect' or mood per movement. The Classical era (about 1750-1820) turned to balance, clarity, elegant melody-and-accompaniment textures and clear forms such as sonata form. The Romantic era (about 1820-1910) valued personal expression, lyricism, dramatic contrast, extended and chromatic harmony, and freer, more flexible treatment of form. Knowing which era a set work belongs to immediately tells you what stylistic features to expect and listen for.

Studying this area means combining stylistic knowledge with close analytical work on the specific set works. You need to know the general characteristics of each style and genre - what a Baroque concerto, a Mozart opera scene and a Romantic character piece are and how they behave - and, on top of that, the detailed structure, keys, themes and devices of the particular works set for your exam. The general knowledge lets you make sense of an unfamiliar extract in the style; the detailed knowledge lets you answer precise, bar-numbered questions on the set works in Section B. The following sections build the general stylistic picture strand by strand, and the final section draws together the harmonic and tonal language that runs across the whole period.

Because the harmonic language of 1650-1910 is common tonal-functional harmony - major and minor keys, functional chord progressions, cadences, and modulation governed by the circle of fifths - this area is also where the theory that underlies all your analysis is most systematically at work. The concerto, the opera and the piano piece all speak this shared tonal language, differing in how freely and how chromatically they use it. Learning to hear and read functional harmony here equips you to analyse harmony everywhere else in the paper, from a jazz standard to a film cue, so time invested in Area of Study 1 pays back across the whole exam.

Worked example

Placing an unfamiliar extract in the period

In the listening exam you hear an extract for solo violin and orchestra, with a harpsichord audible in the accompaniment and abrupt shifts between loud full passages and quieter solo ones. Where does it belong?

Identify the tell-tale sonority
An audible harpsichord providing a continuous chordal accompaniment is a basso continuo - a defining Baroque feature - so the extract is Baroque, not Classical or Romantic.
Read the texture and dynamics
The abrupt shifts between loud full passages and quieter solo passages are terraced dynamics and the tutti-solo alternation of the Baroque concerto.
Name the genre
Solo violin set against an orchestra with continuo, alternating tutti and solo, is a Baroque solo concerto - the first strand of the area of study.
Predict the form
You can now expect ritornello form: a recurring tutti theme returning in different keys between the soloist's episodes.

Result: The extract is placed by reading its sonority (continuo), texture and dynamics (terraced, tutti-solo) as Baroque concerto features, which then predict its ritornello form - style knowledge turning an unfamiliar extract into a confident answer.

Typical mistakes

Studying only general style features and not the detailed structure, keys and themes of the specific set works the Analysis section demands.
Assuming the set works are fixed - AQA rotates them, so always study the works named in your own current specification.

Active revision

For each of the three strands, write two sentences: one naming the era and its main stylistic features, and one naming the specific set work(s) in your current specification and one thing you must know about each.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: GCE AS and A level subject content for music (Department for Education)

The Baroque solo concerto#

StandardAQA 7272 Area of study 1 (Baroque solo concerto)DfE GCE Music subject content

Ritornello form

Fig. 2In ritornello form the full-tutti ritornello recurs in different keys, separated by the soloist's modulating episodes, and returns to the tonic to close.

The Baroque solo concerto sets a single solo instrument - often a violin, but also oboe, trumpet, flute or keyboard - against a small orchestra (the ripieno or tutti), and its whole character comes from the contrast and dialogue between the two, the very idea captured in the word concerto (from concertare, to contend or work together). A typical concerto has three movements in a fast-slow-fast pattern, and the outer fast movements are usually built in ritornello form. Composers such as Vivaldi, Corelli, Bach and Handel established and perfected the genre, and its sound - brilliant, energetic, driven - is one of the most recognisable in all music.

Two features define the Baroque sound above all: the basso continuo and terraced dynamics. The basso continuo is the continuous foundation of the music - a bass line played by a low instrument (cello, bassoon or double bass) together with a chordal instrument (harpsichord or organ) that fills in the harmony above the bass, reading from a figured bass (numbers under the notes indicating the chords). This continuo runs almost throughout, giving Baroque music its characteristic propulsive drive and full harmonic underpinning. Terraced dynamics are abrupt shifts between loud and soft (rather than gradual crescendos), often produced by the alternation of the full tutti and the lighter solo, and they give the music its blocky, contrasting energy.

Ritornello form organises the fast movements and is essential to know. A ritornello is a recurring theme played by the full tutti; between its returns, the soloist plays contrasting episodes that are often more virtuosic and figurative. The movement typically opens with the ritornello in the tonic, and thereafter the ritornello returns several times in different related keys (the dominant, the relative minor and so on) before a final return in the tonic to close. The soloist's episodes modulate between these returns, so the form works as an alternation - ritornello (tonic), episode, ritornello (new key), episode, and so on - with the recurring tutti theme unifying the whole while the episodes provide contrast and harmonic movement. The ritornello itself is often not repeated in full each time but fragmented, so recognising even a partial return is part of the analysis.

The melodic and rhythmic language of the Baroque concerto has clear hallmarks. Melodies tend to be built from short motifs that are extended by sequence (a pattern repeated at successively higher or lower pitches) and spun out in long, continuous lines (a technique sometimes called Fortspinnung). The rhythm is typically steady, motoric and continuous, often in constant quavers or semiquavers driven by the continuo, with a strong, regular pulse. The texture is frequently contrapuntal, with imitation between parts, and the harmony is functional and diatonic, moving purposefully through related keys and marked by clear cadences at the ends of sections. Ornamentation - trills, appoggiaturas and the like - decorates the solo lines, sometimes improvised by the performer.

For analysis, the Baroque concerto rewards tracking the interplay of texture, key and thematic return. Follow where the ritornello comes back and in which key (this maps the structure and the tonal journey); notice how the texture thickens for the tutti and thins for the solo; hear the terraced dynamics that accompany those changes; and identify the sequences and imitation in the melodic writing. In an essay, the concerto is a superb example of contrast unified by recurrence - the drama of tutti against solo and the constant modulation held together by the returning ritornello - and of the driving, continuous, continuo-based texture that defines the Baroque style.

Worked example

Distinguishing tutti from solo in the texture

Explain how you can tell, by ear, when the ritornello returns in a Baroque concerto.

Listen for the texture change
The ritornello is played by the full tutti (the whole ensemble plus continuo), so the texture suddenly thickens and the sound becomes fuller and louder.
Listen for the dynamic shift
The move from solo to tutti produces a terraced dynamic - an abrupt jump to a louder level - rather than a gradual crescendo.
Recognise the returning theme
The tutti plays the familiar ritornello material heard at the opening (often just a fragment of it), so you recognise the theme even when it is in a new key.
Confirm with the key
Note the key of the return - the same theme in the dominant or relative minor confirms a ritornello return rather than a new idea, mapping the movement's structure.

Result: A ritornello return is heard through the sudden thickening of texture, the terraced jump in dynamics and the recognisable (if fragmented) tutti theme, confirmed by its key - the practical listening test for the form.

Typical mistakes

Confusing ritornello form with rondo - both have a recurring idea, but ritornello returns in different keys and is often fragmented, while a rondo refrain returns in the tonic.
Overlooking the basso continuo, which is the harmonic and rhythmic engine of the whole texture and a defining Baroque feature.

Active revision

Listen to a Baroque concerto fast movement and map its ritornello form: mark each return of the tutti theme, note its key, and describe how the solo episodes between them differ in texture and figuration.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: GCE AS and A level subject content for music (Department for Education)

The operas of Mozart#

StandardAQA 7272 Area of study 1 (the operas of Mozart)DfE GCE Music subject content

The number-types of a Mozart opera scene

Fig. 3An opera scene is built from number-types with distinct functions: recitative advances the plot, arias reflect on emotion, ensembles combine characters.

The second strand turns to the Classical era and to opera - drama set to music - through the works of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, one of the supreme composers of the operatic stage. Mozart's mature operas combine the elegance and clarity of the Classical style with an extraordinary gift for characterisation and dramatic pacing. Studying them means understanding both the general Classical musical language - balanced phrasing, clear textures, functional harmony, elegant melody - and the specific conventions of opera: how the music is organised into different kinds of number, and how it serves the drama, the characters and the words.

An opera unfolds through a sequence of musical number-types, each with a dramatic function, and recognising them is central to analysis. Recitative is speech-like sung dialogue that carries the plot forward: secco recitative is accompanied only by continuo and moves quickly through text in a free, speech rhythm, while accompanied (stromentato) recitative uses the orchestra for more dramatic or emotional moments. An aria is a set-piece solo song in which a single character expresses feeling and the drama pauses to explore an emotion, often in a clear form with orchestral accompaniment. Ensembles - duets, trios and larger numbers up to full-cast finales - allow several characters to sing together, often expressing different feelings simultaneously, and Mozart's act finales are famous for building long, continuous, dramatically escalating musical structures. The overture opens the work and can set its mood.

The Classical style Mozart writes in has clear, examinable features. Melodies are elegant, balanced and often built in periodic phrases - a two- or four-bar antecedent 'question' answered by a consequent 'answer'. Textures are predominantly homophonic (melody with accompaniment), lighter and clearer than the dense Baroque counterpoint, often using an accompaniment figure such as an Alberti bass (a broken-chord pattern) or repeated chords. The harmony is functional and largely diatonic, with clear cadences articulating the phrases, though Mozart colours it with chromaticism and well-judged dissonance for expressive and dramatic effect. Dynamics are more graded and flexible than the Baroque's terraced contrasts, and the orchestra is the Classical ensemble of strings, pairs of woodwind, horns and sometimes trumpets and timpani.

Word-setting and characterisation are where Mozart's operatic genius is most examinable. The music is closely matched to the text and the drama: the rhythm and rise and fall of the vocal line follow the natural stress and meaning of the words (syllabic setting for clarity in recitative and patter, melismatic flourishes for emotional or virtuosic display in arias); the key, tempo, texture and instrumentation are chosen to fit a character's mood and status; and in ensembles Mozart can give each character distinct music so that several personalities and emotions coexist in one number. Analysing a Mozart scene means showing how these musical choices dramatise the words and reveal the characters - the union of music and drama that opera exists to achieve.

For the exam, the Mozart strand rewards understanding both the map of an operatic scene and the fine detail of the set works. Know the sequence and function of the number-types so you can follow how a scene is built (recitative advancing the plot into an aria or ensemble that reflects on it); know the Classical stylistic features so you can describe the musical language; and, for the specific set works, know their structure, keys, characters and dramatic situations in detail. In an essay, Mozart's operas exemplify the Classical style's balance and clarity harnessed to vivid, humane drama - the perfect subject for connecting musical analysis to expressive and dramatic meaning.

Worked example

Explaining how music serves character in an aria

An aria for an agitated character is fast, in a minor key, with a driving accompaniment and a disjunct, leaping vocal line. Explain how the music dramatises the character.

Read the tempo and metre
The fast tempo conveys agitation and urgency, matching a character in a state of anger or panic rather than calm reflection.
Read the tonality
The minor key colours the number dark and troubled, reinforcing the character's distress.
Read the accompaniment and vocal line
A driving, insistent accompaniment adds restless energy, while a disjunct, leaping vocal line (rather than smooth stepwise motion) sounds unstable and unsettled.
Draw the conclusion
Together these choices - fast tempo, minor key, driving accompaniment, leaping line - make the music enact the character's agitated emotional state, which is exactly what the analysis must show.

Result: The aria is analysed by reading each musical choice (tempo, tonality, accompaniment, melodic shape) as a means of dramatising the character's feeling - demonstrating the union of music and drama that opera analysis rewards.

Typical mistakes

Confusing recitative and aria - recitative is speech-like and advances the plot, while an aria is a set-piece song that reflects on an emotion.
Describing the music in isolation from the drama, when the whole point of opera analysis is to show how the music serves the words and characters.

Active revision

Take one scene from a Mozart set work and label its number-types in order (recitative, aria, ensemble); then, for one aria, explain how two musical choices (key, tempo, texture or word-setting) express the character's feeling.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: GCE AS and A level subject content for music (Department for Education)

Romantic piano music#

AdvancedAQA 7272 Area of study 1 (Romantic piano music)DfE GCE Music subject content

The stylistic arc from Baroque to Romantic

Fig. 4Area of Study 1 spans the arc of tonal art music from 1650 to 1910 - Baroque, Classical and Romantic - one strand in each era.

The third strand moves into the Romantic era and to the piano - the instrument that, more than any other, embodied nineteenth-century music. The Romantic piano repertoire prizes personal, intense expression, singing lyrical melody, dramatic contrast, virtuosity and a much richer, more chromatic harmonic language than the Classical style. Composers such as Chopin, Brahms, Schumann, Liszt and Grieg wrote for a newly powerful piano with a bigger range, more sustaining power (through the pedal) and greater dynamic capacity, and they exploited all of it. Studying this strand means understanding both the Romantic aesthetic of expression and the specific character-piece genres it produced.

Much Romantic piano music takes the form of the character piece - a relatively short work that captures a single mood, atmosphere or idea, often with an evocative title. Genres include the nocturne (a lyrical, songlike night-piece), the prelude, the etude (a study that is also a concert piece), the ballade, the mazurka and waltz (dance-inspired pieces), the intermezzo, and the lyric piece. These pieces are frequently in ternary form (ABA) - a first section, a contrasting middle section, and a return of the first, often varied and more elaborately decorated - so recognising a clear three-part design with a contrasting central episode is a common analytical observation. The music aims to sound spontaneous and personal, a direct outpouring of feeling.

The melodic and expressive language is distinctive. Melodies are long, singing and lyrical - the piano is made to 'sing' like a voice - often highly ornamented with expressive decoration, and shaped by rubato, the expressive stretching and relaxing of the tempo that gives the playing its flexible, spontaneous feel. Wide dynamic contrasts and careful use of the sustaining pedal create a rich, resonant, blended sonority quite unlike the clearer Classical texture. The texture is typically a singing melody in the right hand over a flowing, arpeggiated or chordal accompaniment in the left, though the two hands are often intertwined and the writing can become dense and virtuosic in climactic passages.

The harmony is where Romantic piano music most clearly advances beyond the Classical style. While still fundamentally tonal, it uses far more chromaticism - chromatic chords, chromatically inflected melodies and passing notes - richer and more colourful chords (sevenths, ninths and altered chords), and bolder, more distant and more frequent modulations, sometimes to unexpected keys, all used for heightened expressive and emotional effect. Dissonance is used more freely and is often less quickly resolved, creating longing and tension. This expanded harmonic palette, still anchored in functional tonality but stretching it, is one of the defining features to listen and look for, and it points forward to the further loosening of tonality that would come later in the century.

For analysis, Romantic piano music rewards attention to expression, form and harmonic colour together. Track the ternary (or other) structure and the contrast between sections; describe the lyrical melody and its ornamentation and the rubato that shapes it; identify the rich, chromatic harmony and the modulations that colour the piece; and note the pedalled, resonant sonority and the wide dynamic range. In an essay, this strand exemplifies the Romantic ideal of music as intimate personal expression, and it makes a natural point of comparison with the earlier strands - the driving, continuo-based Baroque and the balanced, clear Classical - showing how style, harmony and texture evolved across the two and a half centuries the area of study spans.

Worked example

Comparing the harmonic language of the three strands

In an essay you must contrast how harmony is used across the Baroque concerto, Mozart's opera and Romantic piano music. Sketch the comparison.

The Baroque concerto
Functional, diatonic harmony driven by the basso continuo, moving purposefully through closely related keys with clear cadences - direction and drive over colour.
Mozart's Classical harmony
Also functional and largely diatonic, articulating balanced periodic phrases with clear cadences, but coloured with well-judged chromaticism and dissonance for expressive and dramatic effect.
Romantic piano harmony
Still tonal but far more chromatic, using richer chords (sevenths, ninths, altered chords), freer dissonance and bolder, more distant modulation for heightened emotional colour.
Draw the trajectory
Across the period harmony moves from functional drive (Baroque), through balanced clarity with expressive colour (Classical), to rich chromatic expression (Romantic) - a clear line of increasing harmonic colour and freedom.

Result: The comparison is organised by a single element (harmony) discussed across all three strands together, tracing a clear trajectory from Baroque drive to Romantic colour - the thematic, evidenced structure a strong comparison essay needs.

Typical mistakes

Describing the harmony merely as 'tonal' without noting the specifically Romantic chromaticism, colourful chords and adventurous modulation.
Missing the ternary structure by not hearing the return of the opening material (often varied and decorated) after the contrasting middle section.

Active revision

Analyse a Romantic character piece from your set works: map its structure (is it ternary?), describe the melody and how rubato and the pedal shape it, and find one chromatic chord or unexpected modulation and describe its expressive effect.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: GCE AS and A level subject content for music (Department for Education)

Harmony, tonality and style across 1650-1910#

AdvancedAQA 7272 Area of study 1 (harmony and tonality)DfE GCE Music subject content

The circle of fifths

Fig. 5The circle of fifths arranges the keys so that neighbours are a fifth apart and closely related; distance around the circle measures how remote a modulation is.

Underlying all three strands is the common language of functional tonal harmony, and understanding it is the key that unlocks the whole area of study. Tonal music is organised around a home key - a tonic - and a hierarchy of chords built on the degrees of its scale, of which the most important are the tonic (I), the subdominant (IV) and the dominant (V). Functional harmony means that chords have roles and tend to progress in expected ways - the dominant (V) pulls strongly back to the tonic (I), creating the sense of resolution that defines a perfect cadence. This system of keys and functional progressions, shared across 1650-1910, is what makes the music sound purposeful and directed, and what your harmonic analysis describes.

Cadences are the punctuation of tonal music, marking the ends of phrases and sections, and knowing the four types by sound and by chords is essential. The perfect cadence (V-I) sounds finished and conclusive, like a full stop. The imperfect cadence (ending on V) sounds unfinished and questioning, like a comma or a raised eyebrow. The plagal cadence (IV-I) has a softer, 'Amen' quality. The interrupted cadence (V-vi) sets up the expectation of a perfect cadence and then surprises the ear by resolving elsewhere. Cadences are examined in every section of the paper, and because they define phrase structure they are also the landmarks by which you navigate a piece's form, so instant recognition of them - by ear and from a score - is one of the most valuable skills you can build.

Modulation - the movement from one key to another - is the large-scale motion of tonal music, and it is governed by the relationships mapped on the circle of fifths. The most common modulations are to closely related keys: the dominant (a fifth above), the subdominant (a fifth below), and the relative minor or major (which share a key signature). These keys are 'close' because they differ by only one sharp or flat, so the ear moves to them smoothly; the circle of fifths arranges all the keys so that neighbours are a fifth apart and closely related, and distance around the circle measures how remote a modulation is. A Baroque concerto modulates mostly to these near keys; Romantic music ventures to more distant ones for dramatic colour. Tracking the keys a piece visits, and how far around the circle it travels, is central to structural and stylistic analysis.

Style evolved across the period even as the tonal language remained common, and the differences are examinable. The Baroque (concerto strand) is marked by continuous continuo-driven textures, terraced dynamics, sequence and Fortspinnung, contrapuntal writing and a single affect per movement. The Classical (Mozart strand) is marked by balanced periodic phrasing, lighter homophonic textures with figures such as the Alberti bass, graded dynamics, clear forms and elegant melody. The Romantic (piano strand) is marked by intense personal expression, lyrical singing melody, rubato, pedalled resonant sonority, wide dynamic contrast and richly chromatic harmony. These stylistic signatures let you identify the era of an extract and give an essay the vocabulary to trace continuity (the shared tonal system) and change (the evolving textures, forms and harmonic freedom) across 1650-1910.

Bringing it together, the area of study is best understood as one tonal tradition observed at three moments in its development. The shared harmonic language - keys, functional progressions, cadences and circle-of-fifths modulation - provides the continuity; the changing style, texture, form and degree of chromaticism provide the change. A candidate who can hear and read functional harmony, recognise cadences and modulations, and describe the stylistic features of each era can analyse any set work in the area and can write the comparison essay that connects them. And because this same tonal language, more or less loosened, underlies music far beyond the classical tradition, the analytical skills built here transfer directly to the pop, jazz, theatre and media music of the optional areas of study.

Worked example

Reading a modulation on the circle of fifths

A movement in C major modulates first to G major, then later to A minor. Use the circle of fifths to describe these modulations.

Locate the home key
The tonic is C major, at the top of the circle - the reference point for the journey.
Read the first modulation
G major sits one step clockwise from C (a fifth above): this is a modulation to the dominant, the closest and most common modulation, so it sounds smooth and natural.
Read the second modulation
A minor is the relative minor of C major (shares its key signature, no sharps or flats): a very close relationship, giving a change of colour from major to minor without a change of key signature.
Describe the overall journey
The movement stays among closely related keys - dominant and relative minor - which is typical of Baroque and Classical style; a leap to a distant key such as E major would signal a bolder, more Romantic gesture.

Result: The modulations are described by locating each key on the circle of fifths relative to the tonic - dominant and relative minor, both close - showing how the tool turns a list of keys into an analysis of the music's tonal journey and style.

Typical mistakes

Treating all the music as one undifferentiated 'classical' style instead of distinguishing the Baroque, Classical and Romantic stylistic signatures.
Not relating modulations to key relationships (dominant, relative minor, distant keys) and so missing what the tonal journey reveals about structure and style.

Active revision

Using the circle of fifths, list the keys most closely related to C major (its dominant, subdominant and relative minor), then find, in one set work, a modulation to a closely related key and one to a more distant key and describe the different effect.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: AQA AS and A-level Music (7271 / 7272) specification (AQA)

References & sources

Sources

Department for Education

GCE AS and A level subject content for music

AQA

AQA AS and A-level Music (7271 / 7272) specification

Area of study 1: Western classical tradition 1650-1910

5 sections~27 min reading time3 competenciesLevel Foundation 1 · Standard 2 · Advanced 2

Area of study 1: Western classical tradition 1650-1910

Key points

Placing an unfamiliar extract in the period

Key points

Distinguishing tutti from solo in the texture

Key points

Explaining how music serves character in an aria

Key points

Comparing the harmonic language of the three strands

Key points

Reading a modulation on the circle of fifths

Sources

Area of study 1: Western classical tradition 1650-1910

Key points

Placing an unfamiliar extract in the period

Key points

Distinguishing tutti from solo in the texture

Key points

Explaining how music serves character in an aria

Key points

Comparing the harmonic language of the three strands

Key points

Reading a modulation on the circle of fifths

Sources