Graduate Literature Exit Exam

Last day of studying.  Yester evening I listened to the beginning of all pieces and went over dates.  Today, I will create a date list from memory (composers and their composition completion and premieres).  Then I will go back and fill in what's important and/or distinctive about the piece.  I wish I had started all this intense studying earlier.  Why did I wait?  I should have been doing all this studying last summer.  Then I would be completely at ease today.  Okay, I'm joking.  I would not be at ease today even if I had studied this intensely for the past two years.

Let me recap where I am at: I feel comfortable enough with my knowledge when John asks me questions or tests me.  I could tell you most dates of the compositions and their premieres.  I could tell you some odd instrumentation.  I recognize some important melodies (although I can't put a name to all of them).  I know what the pieces are about and/or what inspired them.

What I want to solidify today: Dates of composers (although I have a general idea of each of them, I miss the exact years sometimes).  Some specific composer tricks (for example, Britten's War Requiem includes an important F# to C tritone that comes back often in the piece or Dallapiccola intones the "Dies irae" in this Canti di Prigionia while above that is his 12-ton rows).  Identify a few more specific relations between pieces (quotations, borrowed technics, etc).  And I want to become a little more comfortable with identify Beethoven Missa Solemnis (don't judge me- the beginning of his Credo is more Classical and by the end it's clearly not.  So I get confused.  Although thankfully I recognize the Credo theme), Berlioz Requiem (although here, if I can just remember the women are rarely in divisi and the men are almost always in 4 part divisi, I should be fine...), Mendelssohn Elijah (although I recognize specific movements, I have yet to feel comfortable identifying anything as Mendelssohn... although what other piece uses that sounds vaguely like a Handel or Bach oratorio but with clear, light texture of the Classical period with the at times highly emotional moments?).

I guess after the exam I will know if I should celebrate or not.