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Reviving the practice of using elements of popular music in classical composition, an approach that had been in hibernation in the United States during the 1960s, composer Philip Glass (born 1937) embraced the ethos of popular music without imitating it. Glass based two symphonies on music by rock musicians David Bowie and Brian Eno, but the symphonies’ sound is distinctively his. Popular elements do not appear out of place in Glass’s classical music, which from its early days has shared certain harmonies and rhythms with rock music. Yet this use of popular elements has not made Glass a composer of popular music. His music is not a version of popular music packaged to attract classical listeners; it is high art for listeners steeped in rock rather than the classics.
1. The passage addresses which of the following issues related to Glass’s use of popular elements in his classical compositions?
A. How it is regarded by listeners who prefer rock to the classics
B. How it has affected the commercial success of Class’s music
C. Whether it has contributed to a revival of interest among other composers in using popular elements in their compositions
D. Whether it has had a detrimental effect on Glass’s reputation as a composer of classical music
E. Whether it has caused certain of Glass’s works to be derivative in quality
2. The passage suggests that Glass’s work displays which of the following qualities?
A. A return to the use of popular music in classical compositions
B. An attempt to elevate rock music an artistic status more closely approximating that of classical music
C. A long-standing tendency to incorporate elements from two apparently disparate musical styles
3. Select the sentence that distinguishes two ways of integrating rock and classical music. 最后一句
A person who agrees to serve as mediator between two warring factions at the request of both abandons by so agreeing the right to take sides later. To take sides at a later point would be to suggest that the earlier presumptive impartiality was a sham.
1. The passage above emphasizes which of the following points about mediators?
A. They should try to form no opinions of their own about any issue that is related to the dispute.
B. They should not agree to serve unless they are committed to maintaining a stance of impartiality.
C. They should not agree to serve unless they are equally acceptable to all parties to a dispute.
D. They should feel free to take sides in the dispute right from the start, provided that they make their biases publicly known.
E. They should reserve the right to abandon their impartiality so as not to be open to the charge of having been deceitful.
Was Felix Was Felix Mendelssohn (1809–1847) a great composer? On its face, the question seems absurd. One of the most gifted prodigies in the history of music, he produced his first masterpiece at sixteen. From then on, he was recognized as an artist of preternatural abilities, not only as a composer but also as a pianist and conductor. But Mendelssohn’s enduring popularity has often been at odds — sometimes quite sharply — with his critical standing. Despite general acknowledgment of his genius, there has been a noticeable reluctance to rank him with, say, Schumann or Brahms. As Haggin put it, Mendelssohn, as a composer, was a “minor master . . . working on a small scale of emotion and texture.”
2. Select a sentence in the passage whose function is to indicate the range of Mendelssohn’s musical talents.
3. The passage suggests that anyone attempting to evaluate Mendelssohn’s career must confront which of the following dichotomies?
A. The tension between Mendelssohn’s career as a composer and his career as a pianist and conductor
B. The contrast between Mendelssohn’s popularity and that of Schumann and Brahms
C. The discrepancy between Mendelssohn’s popularity and his standing among critics
D. The inconsistency between Mendelssohn’s reputation during his lifetime and his reputation since his death
E. The gap between Mendelssohn’s prodigious musical beginnings and his decline in later years.
4. the author mentions Schumann and Brahms primarily in order to A. provide examples of composers who are often compared with Mendelssohn
B. identify certain composers who are more popular than Mendelssohn
C. identify composers whom Mendelssohn influenced
D. establish the milieu in which Mendelssohn worked
E. establish a standard of comparison for Mendelssohn as a composer
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