Jacopo Pontormo Tournament of Manners
Chicago Open 2005 Fine Arts Singles,July 1, 2005
Questions by Chris Frankel
Preliminary Packet, Seeding Round 2
1. The third movement of George Rochberg’s sixth Concord String Quartet features a series of variations on this piece. A four measure descending ground bass harmony consisting of eight half notes opens the piece and repeats throughout, while the first violin section enters with an F sharp, begins a slow descending major scale down to A, then ascends back to D as the second violin enters with the same melody; four measures later the third violin section continues this pattern. Originally paired with a gigue that has enjoyed little of its immense popularity, this is, FTP, what repetitive Baroque piece that made a one-hit wonder out of Johann Pachelbel?
ANSWER: Canon in D (accept “Canon and Gigue in D”)
2. Its northern entrance is flanked by two towers in a concave arrangement, with the outside wall to the left of the entrance featuring a staircase leading to both a green door and a red one. On its east side, the roof shields an open air pulpit designed for outdoor services. Randomly punched out window openings in the walls and the giant brown slabs that form its curved roof contrast with white concrete to give this building a primitive feel that marks a departure from its architect’s International Style. FTP, name this chapel in Ronchamps, France, designed by Le Corbusier.
ANSWER: Notre Dame du Haut (accept “Our Lady of the Height”)
3. Seventeen different states exist for the artist’s Japanese-influenced drypoint version of this scene, where color primarily comes from the black on yellow floral pattern of a kneeling woman’s dress and from the rich blue of the titular vessel. In the painted version, a white porcelain pitcher with a flower print rests in the lower right corner, and the downward angled view centers on a woman in a white, gray, and lavender striped dress resting a half naked little girl in her lap and holding out her foot. FTP, give the common title of these Mary Cassatt pieces showing a mother washing her child.
ANSWER: The Bath
4. His last effort was an adaptation of Richard Strauss’ tone poem on Till Eulenspiegel, which contributed to a failure of a tour that would prevent his company from ever performing in America again. His descent into madness began after meeting and marrying Romola de Pulszky in Buenos Aires, where he gave his two last performances before being replaced by Leonide Massine. Often remembered for his leap out a window in performances of The Spectre of the Rose, this is, FTP, what legendary dancer and choreographer of the Ballet Russes?
ANSWER: Vaslav Nijinsky
5. Support for its weight is provided entirely by a pair of small, plain rectangular blocks. Its basic shape is heavily distorted by rippling, wave-like outward projections that give it a wind-swept appearance. The heavy legs, shown in a walking motion, make up the bulk of the figure, and the armless torso brings to mind the Winged Victory of Samothrace, which was once discussed by the artist’s colleague, Filippo Marinetti. FTP, name this bronze Futurist sculpture by Umberto Boccioni.
ANSWER: Unique Forms of Continuity in Space or Forme Uniche della Continuità nello Spazio
6. The front of a wide-eyed cat on the floor with its ears perked up fills the lower right corner of this drawing, whose title appears in white text on the thinly shaded side of the desk in the lower left. The title figure is seated with his legs crossed and slumping over that desk with his head in his hands as sinister-looking owls and bats begin to swarm around him. The 43rd plate in the Caprichos engraving series, which the artist completed over a decade before beginning The Disasters of War, this is, FTP, what Francisco Goya drawing whose title describes the nightmarish consequences of when rationality is allowed to “fall asleep?”
ANSWER: The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters (accept similar translations, such as “Dream” for “Sleep” or “Brings forth” for “Produces”) or El Sueño de la Razon Produce Monstruos
7. Its sixth movement, which the composer described as “music of stone,” has the instruments imitate the sound of gongs and trumpets to create an apocalyptic “Dance of Fury.” The preceding movement, led by a solo melody from the cello, honors Jesus, and in similar fashion, the violin and piano duet that comprises the eight and final movement is entitled “Praise to the Immortality of Jesus.” The “Liturgy of Crystal” begins this set of piece, which developed from a violin, cello, and clarinet trio written for the composer’s fellow prisoners at a German camp. FTP, name this chamber music masterpiece by Olivier Messiaen.
ANSWER: Quartet for the End of Time or Quatuor pour la Fin du Temps
8. The director requested that the Titan Symphony be used as a model for the score, and made that piece the only sound to play on the track during the first battle scene. Also significant is the piteous sound of a flute, which is played by a blind boy as he stands over the now-ruined old man who had his eyes put out. An androgynous pop star named Peter plays the role of Kyoami the fool, and the aforementioned old man is Hidetora, a ruler whose banishment of Saburo comes back to haunt him as his other two sons Taro and Jiro betray him and go to war after having his land divided between them. FTP, identify this 1985 Akiro Kurosawa film based on King Lear.
ANSWER: Ran or Chaos
9. In his early commissions, he designed tapestries for the Como Cathedral and stained glass windows for the Milan Cathedral. The Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna houses renditions of Fire and Water from his four part Elements series painted for Maximilian II. He also did a painting of a cook that shows a servant uncovering a platter when turned upside down, two series personifying the four seasons, and an allegorical portrait that relied on images of fruits and flowers to portray Rudolf II as the Roman god Vertumnus. FTP, name this 16th Century Italian painter known for creating composite images of faces from images of objects like small animals, plants, and vegetables.
ANSWER: Giuseppe Arcimboldo
10. The violin melody of this short A minor piece opens with a two-octave chromatic descent starting an octave above open E, and consists almost entirely of sixteenth notes. The middle of this piece is marked a pizzicato A minor arpeggio, and the main melody primarily consists of extremely fast chromatic motions around E, and increases in octave after each bridge. It depicts Prince Guidon after he has been transformed by a swan and is now speeding through the air to reach the court of Tsar Sultan. FTP, name this Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov piece that mimics the frenetic buzzing of an insect.
ANSWER: Flight of the Bumblebee
11. Transported to the entrance of the Tapis Vert after its 1682 completion, this statue joins Perseus and Andromeda and a bust of Louis XIV as the only of its creator’s works to have been exhibited at Versailles. The tunic of the title character falls between his legs; his calves are raised and pushing back off the ground, while his twisted torso arches forward, and his open mouth and contorted face visibly express his agony. His right hand is being pulled behind his back by a beast, while his left is trapped inside a broken tree stump, sealing his fate. FTP, name this marble sculpture of a Greek athlete about to be devoured by a lion, a work by Pierre Puget.
ANSWER: Milo of Crotona or Milon de Crotone
12. On a hill in the upper right corner, a bound man kneels hopelessly, as the sword raised above him indicates an impending beheading. In the lower right corner, a round, white gaming table sits hastily abandoned as its players stand and brandish swords in a futile attempt to defend themselves. A wagon full of skulls enters on the left, its driver ominously ringing a bell. A giant trap door with a cross painted on it is raised open as a herd of people are rushed through it by the forces of the title figure, who sits atop an emaciated brown horse and wields a giant scythe. FTP, name this painting showing the demise of the world, a work by Pieter Bruegel the Elder.
ANSWER: The Triumph of Death
13. In Act II, the title character becomes the subject of a wager, and receives a meaningless kiss from Afra’s fiance. Her anger can be seen in the aria “NeMai Dunque AvroPace?,”and in her request that Gellner kill the man who spurned her. Based on a novel by Wilhelmine von Hillern, this opera ends with the title character realizing her love for the hunter, Hagenbach, and throwing herself into a fatal avalanche after he is swept away. FTP, identify this opera chiefly remembered for the soprano aria “Ebben? Ne Andro Lontana,” a work by Alfredo Catalani.
ANSWER: La Wally
14. This title describes a 2000 compilation album of 24 of the artist’s rare recordings, including the opening track, a rendition of “Tiny’s Tempo,” and the artists’ own “Moose the Mooch” and “Cool Blues.” The song was an improvisation upon “How High the Moon,” and was first recorded in early 1946, during the artist’s first gigs as bandleader of an eponymous quintet and septet, which featured a young Miles Davis on trumpet. Featuring an outtake called “Bird Lore,” it ranks along with “Yardbird Suite” as one of creator’s most popular saxophone recordings. FTP, identify this Charlie Parker piece whose name refers to the study of birds.
ANSWER: “Ornithology”
15. Three of his first four opuses, Five Songs, a setting of “Flee on Gentle Boats,” and Five Songs from “The Seventh Ring,” were set to poems by Stefan George. His cantata The Light of the Eyes and his Three Songs on Viae Inviae were the product of his close friendship with the poet Hildegard Jone, and he also wrote lieder on poems by Goethe and Rilke. Mahler’s influence can be seen his early Passacaglia, one of the only works in which he used key signatures, written before his development as a serialist composer of instrumental works like Six Pieces for Orchestra. FTP, name this Austrian, who, along with Alban Berg, made his name as a successor to his teacher, Arnold Schoenberg.
ANSWER: Anton von Webern
16. The subject of this painting would have been the aunt of Elizabeth Browning had she not died of tuberculosis after its completion. Standing up and leaning forward on one bow-decorated black shoe, the title character raises her left arm and holds her hand directly in front of the neckline of her dress; her other arm rests near her waist, and is only visible to the elbow. Her position atop a grassy hill gives the illusion that she is towering above the landscape and into the cloud-covered dark blue sky, with her trademark dress and ribbons on her hat blowing to the right into the wind. Located in the Huntington Gallery across from a Gainsborough portrait, this is, FTP, what Thomas Lawrence painting and companion piece of the Blue Boy, in which 12 year old Sarah Barrett Moulton is nicknamed for the color of the outfit she wears?
ANSWER: Pinkie (accept an answer mentioning “Sarah Barrett Moulton” on an early buzz)
17. Its theater serves the double function of a connecting wing between the residential Prellerhaus section and its main workshop. Similarly, the administrative offices are located on the two story bridge that connects the workshop and its educational center. This building’s uniformly flat roof departed from traditional penthouse roof designs, and was constructed for utilitarian purposes, like avoiding the use of fire-prone timber rafters and allowing the possibility or using its space as an outside meeting or recreational area. On its side, white, vertically descending letters spell out its title in a serif-free font, but do not shun the use of capital letters that its eponymous movement would later advocate. FTP, identify this building in Dessau and school of architecture led by Walter Gropius.
ANSWER: Bauhaus
18. Its second movement takes the form of a muted chorale with plucked strings providing extensive accompaniment to the soloist, and a switch into the key of B major and the tempo Adagio un Poco Moto. No pause precedes the start of its third and final movement, a brisk Allegro rondo that returns this piece to its main key of E flat major. The solo piano is introduced immediately in the first movement, responding to each of the three opening orchestral chords with a cadenza-like series of ascending arpeggios and trills. Gaining its popular title from the critic Johann Cramer and not a desire of the composer to honor Napoleon, this is, FTP, what majestically nicknamed final piano concerto of Ludwig von Beethoven?
ANSWER: Emperor Concerto or Piano Concerto No. 5
19. A grid of long wooden sticks blocks the entrance of the study at right, which contains a pair of sandals that have been set aside and a sloping desk with a skull and a red book on top of it. A castle atop a hill and a field where a crane and a donkey stand appear in the distance, though the foreground is dominated by a stone cave, outside of which the titular saint stands barefoot in his brown robe holding his arms out and looking up at the sky. FTP, name this Giovanni Bellini painting showing the rapture of a man from Assisi.
ANSWER: St. Francis in Ecstasy or The Ecstasy of St. Francis
20. A year after he wrote Gertrude of the Valley, he made his singing debut as Dulcamara in The Elixir of Love at Odenburg. Returning to composing, he set works like The Mariner’s Return in his native Dalmatia, and also wrote the comic operas The Beautiful Galatea and Boccacio. His 1860 two-act piece, Das Pensionat, is labeled as the first Viennese operetta, though his operas, such as Morning, Noon, and Night in Vienna, are primarily recognized for their overtures. FTP, name this composer of Light Cavalry and Poet and Peasant.
ANSWER: Franz von Suppe
21. Her first producing gig was The Foundling, and she both acted as producer and starred opposite Douglas Fairbanks as the lead in The Taming of the Shrew. Earlier that year she had entered a new phase in her career by cutting her hair for her Oscar-winning performance in Coquette. After that, she had the lead role in Kiki and in Secrets before seeing her acting career end due to the onset of talkie films. FTP, name this prolific silent film star born Gladys Smith in Canada, but still known as “America’s Sweetheart.”
ANSWER: Mary Pickford or Gladys Louis Smith
22. Preceding the sudden, powerful increase in dynamics that marks the final chorus are lyrics describing how the singer must endure with his body left bare because of the addressee’s wicked games. An apostrophe in the opening stanza describes how the titular entity is always waxing and waning like the moon. The final chorus opens with the verse “Sors salutis / et virtutis / mihi nunc contraria,” in which the singer laments that the titular entity, and its power to distribute prosperity and strength, are now against him. FTP, name this Medieval Latin poem addressed to fate, which was set to music as the first song of Carmina Burana.
ANSWER: “O Fortuna!” (prompt on “Fortuna imperatrix mundi” or “Fortune, Empress of the World,” which is the first section of Carmina Burana)
23. This artist’s painting The Quay at Bougivaland the pastel-drawn The Village of Maurecourt are examples of an oft-overlooked passion for landscapes. Among the portrait subjects of this artist are Alice Gamby, the artist’s cousin Maria Boursier, and a little girl known as Mademoiselle MT, who was painted next to a green parrot. The most prolific models for this artist were daughter Julie, famously depicted daydreaming, and sister Edma, once painted while playing hide and seek. FTP, name this French Impressionist, who herself was a model for the paintings of her brother-in-law, Edouard Manet.
ANSWER: Berthe Morisot
24. A passage from a 1624 treatise by Sir Henry Wotton is the source of the phrase “firmness, commodity, and delight,” its inscribed motto. James Stirling and Luis Barragan were two of the earliest recipients, while Pierre de Meuron and Jacques Herzog simultaneously became the first winners of the new millennium. First issued by the Hyatt foundation in 1979 to Phillip Johnson and named for the Hyatt hotel chain’s founder, this is, FTP, what annual award nicknamed “the Nobel Prize of architecture?”
ANSWER: Pritzker Prize
25. Benjamin Cosyn and Elizabeth Rogers both produced eponymous compilations of pieces for this instrument. A double version can be produced by attaching a smaller ottavino, which can be played separately or added on for effect. They are classified into muselar and spinet varieties depending on where the attached strings are plucked and where the keyboard is placed. William Byrd also compiled music for, FTP, what harpsichord-like instrument likely named because it was commonly played by young girls?