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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What is the name of a performance hall in New York City where Paderewski made a debut in 1891 on his tour for the Steinway piano company?
(a) Carnegie Hall.
(b) New York Philharmonic.
(c) Vienna Philharmonic.
(d) Metropolitan Opera.

2. Who played difficult music fast and accurately but died in 1951 at the piano in Carnegie Hall?
(a) Franz Liszt.
(b) Claude Debussy.
(c) Simon Barrere.
(d) Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

3. What school promoted musicianship, severity, strength and solidity rather than charm and sensuality?
(a) The British school.
(b) The French school.
(c) The German school.
(d) The Russian school.

4. How old was Isaac Albeniz when his father allowed him to go to New York?
(a) 13.
(b) 14.
(c) 16.
(d) 17.

5. Who was world exponent of ultra-avant-garde pianism because he could read the new printed notes that required playing simultaneously piano keyboard, sounding board and strings, tape recorder and kazoo?
(a) David Tudor.
(b) Arthur Rubinstein.
(c) Claude Debussy.
(d) Vladimir Horowitz.

6. What term is used to describe the late nineteenth and twentieth century disciplined style of piano playing in which the pianist reverts back to playing with strict adherence to composers' written musical note?
(a) Neo-Classicism.
(b) Romanticism.
(c) Classicism.
(d) Modernism.

7. When was Sergei Rachmaninoff born?
(a) 1873.
(b) 1799.
(c) 1941.
(d) 1849.

8. Where was Rudolf Serkin sent to study at the age of nine?
(a) Paris.
(b) Oslo.
(c) Warsaw.
(d) Vienna.

9. Where was the musician Glenn Gould from?
(a) Canada.
(b) Germany.
(c) The United States.
(d) France.

10. When did Harold Bauer make his American debut?
(a) 1885.
(b) 1910.
(c) 1900.
(d) 1799.

11. Who was Anton Rubinstein's greatest pupil, according to the author?
(a) Maurizio Pollini.
(b) Glenn Gould.
(c) Josef Hofmann.
(d) Alfred Brendel.

12. What Russian pianist played Chopin's Polonaise for an amazed critic, George Bernard Shaw?
(a) Percy Grainger.
(b) Alfred Grunfeld.
(c) Moriz Rosenthal.
(d) Vassily Sapellnikoff.

13. What contemporary pianist of Teresa Carreno called her a "goddess" despite her lack of discipline?
(a) Alfred Grunfeld.
(b) Percy Grainger.
(c) Vassily Sapellnikoff.
(d) Claudio Arrau.

14. In what year did Isaac Albeniz go to San Francisco before returning to Europe?
(a) 1865.
(b) 1905.
(c) 1874.
(d) 1948.

15. How old was Wilhelm Backhaus when he made his first concert tour?
(a) 18.
(b) 12.
(c) 14.
(d) 16.

Short Answer Questions

1. Where was Artur Schnabel from?

2. At what age did Isaac Albeniz hide on a ship crossing the Atlantic to Puerto Rico and play in his French musketeer costume for passengers?

3. What term refers to an individual who possesses outstanding technical ability in the fine arts, at singing or playing a musical instrument?

4. Who codified twentieth century theory of technique beyond Chopin's ideas?

5. Whose powerful opening made orchestra conductor Eugen Pabst leave the podium to watch his hands and the "audience went wild"?

(see the answer keys)

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