Musicologists Concerned With the “London Pianoforte School,” the Group of Composers

Reading Passage Question

Musicologists concerned with the “London Pianoforte school,” the group of composers, pedagogues, pianists, publishers, and builders who contributed to the development of the piano in London (5) at the turn of the nineteenth century, have long encountered a formidable obstacle in the general unavailability of music of this “school” in modern scholarly editions. Indeed, much of this repertory has more or less vanished from our historical (10) consciousness. Granted, the sonatas and Gradus ad Parnassum of Muzio Clementi and the nocturnes of John Field have remained familiar enough (though more often than not in editions lacking scholarly rigor), but the work of other leading representatives, like (15) Johann Baptist Cramer and Jan Ladislav Dussek, has eluded serious attempts at revival.
Nicholas Temperley’s ambitious new anthology decisively overcomes this deficiency. What underscores the intrinsic value of Temperley’s editions (20) is that the anthology reproduces nearly all of the original music in facsimile. Making available this cross section of English musical life—some 800 works by 49 composers—should encourage new critical perspectives about how piano music evolved in (25) England, an issue of considerable relevance to our understanding of how piano music developed on the European continent, and of how, finally, the instrument was transformed from the fortepiano to what we know today as the piano.
(30) To be sure, the concept of the London Pianoforte school itself calls for review. “School” may well be too strong a word for what was arguably a group unified not so much by stylistic principles or aesthetic creed as by the geographical circumstance that they worked at (35) various times in London and produced pianos and piano music for English pianos and English markets. Indeed, Temperley concedes that their “variety may be so great as to cast doubt on the notion of a ‘school.’”
The notion of a school was first propounded by (40) Alexander Ringer, who argued that laws of artistic survival forced the young, progressive Beethoven to turn outside Austria for creative models, and that he found inspiration in a group of pianists connected with Clementi in London. Ringer’s proposed London (45) Pianoforte school did suggest a circumscribed and fairly unified group—for want of a better term, a school—of musicians whose influence was felt primarily in the decades just before and after 1800. After all, Beethoven did respond to the advances of the (50) Broadwood piano—its reinforced frame, extended compass, triple stringing, and pedals, for example—and it is reasonable to suppose that London pianists who composed music for such an instrument during the critical phase of its development exercised no small (55) degree of influence on Continental musicians. Nevertheless, perhaps the most sensible approach to this issue is to define the school by the period (c. 1766–1873) during which it flourished, as Temperley has done in the anthology.

“Musicologists concerned with the “London Pianoforte school,” the group of composers.”- is a GMAT reading comprehension passage with answers. Candidates need a strong knowledge of English GMAT reading comprehension.

This GMAT Reading Comprehension consists of 8 comprehension questions. The GMAT Reading Comprehension questions are designed for the purpose of testing candidates’ abilities in understanding, analyzing, and applying information or concepts. Candidates can actively prepare with the help of GMAT Reading Comprehension Practice Questions.

Solution and Explanation

1. Which one of the following most accurately states the author’s main point?

(A) Temperley has recently called into question the designation of a group of composers, pedagogues, pianists, publishers, and builders as the London Pianoforte school.
(B) Temperley’s anthology of the music of the London Pianoforte school contributes significantly to an understanding of an influential period in the history of music.
(C) The music of the London Pianoforte school has been revived by the publication of Temperley’s new anthology.
(D) Primary sources for musical manuscripts provide the most reliable basis for musicological research.
(E) The development of the modern piano in England influenced composers and other musicians throughout Europe.

2. It can be inferred that which one of the following is true of the piano music of the London Pianoforte school?

(A) The nocturnes of John Field typify the London Pianoforte school style.
(B) The Gradus ad Parnassum of Muzio Clementi is the best-known work of these composers.
(C) No original scores for this music are extant.
(D) Prior to Temperley’s edition, no attempts to issue new editions of this music had been made.
(E) In modern times much of the music of this school has been little known even to musicians.

3. The author mentions the sonatas of Muzio Clementi and the nocturnes of John Field as examples of which one of the following?

(A) works by composers of the London Pianoforte school that have been preserved in rigorous scholarly editions
(B) works that are no longer remembered by most people
(C) works acclaimed by the leaders of the London Pianoforte school
(D) works by composers of the London Pianoforte school that are relatively well known
(E) works by composers of the London Pianoforte school that have been revived by Temperley in his anthology

4. Which one of the following, if true, would most clearly undermine a portion of Ringer’s argument as the argument is described in the passage?

(A) Musicians in Austria composed innovative music for the Broadwood piano as soon as the instrument became available.
(B) Clementi and his followers produced most of their compositions between 1790 and 1810.
(C) The influence of Continental musicians is apparent in some of the works of Beethoven.
(D) The pianist-composers of the London Pianoforte school shared many of the same stylistic principles.
(E) Most composers of the London Pianoforte school were born on the Continent and were drawn to London by the work of Clementi and his followers.

5. It can be inferred that the author uses the word “advances” (line 49) to refer to

(A) enticements offered musicians by instrument manufacturers
(B) improvements in the structure of a particular instrument
(C) innovations in the forms of music produced for a particular instrument
(D) stylistic elaborations made possible by changes in a particular instrument
(E) changes in musicians’ opinions about a particular instrument

6. It can be inferred from the passage as a whole that the author’s purpose in the third paragraph is primarily to

(A) cast doubt on the usefulness of Temperley’s study of the London Pianoforte school
(B) introduce a discussion of the coherency of the London Pianoforte school
(C) summarize Ringer’s argument about the London Pianoforte school
(D) emphasize the complex nature of the musicological elements shared by members of the London Pianoforte school
(E) identify the unique contributions made to music by the London Pianoforte school

7. The author of the passage is primarily concerned with

(A) explaining the influence of the development of the pianoforte on the music of Beethoven
(B) describing Temperley’s view of the contrast between the development of piano music in England and the development of piano music elsewhere in Europe
(C) presenting Temperley’s evaluation of the impact of changes in piano construction on styles and forms of music composed in the era of the London Pianoforte school
(D) considering an alternative theory to that proposed by Ringer concerning the London Pianoforte school
(E) discussing the contribution of Terperley’s anthology to what is known of the history of the London Pianoforte school

8. It can be inferred that Temperley’s anthology treats the London Pianoforte school as

(A) a group of pianist-composers who shared certain stylistic principles and artistic creeds
(B) a group of people who contributed to the development of piano music between 1766 and 1873
(C) a group of composers who influenced the music of Beethoven in the decades just before and just after 1800
(D) a series of compositions for the pianoforte published in the decades just before and just after 1800
(E) a series of compositions that had significant influence on the music of the Continent in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries

Suggested GMAT Reading Comprehension Samples

• Citing the Fact that the Real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita was Higher in 1997
• The General Density Dependence Model can be Applied to Explain the Founding of Specialist Firms
• In the 1980's, Astronomer Bohdan Paczynski Proposed a Way of Determining Whether the Enormous Dark Halo Constituting the Outermost Part of the Milky Way Galaxy
• The United States Hospital Industry is an Unusual Market in that Nonprofit and For-Profit Producers Exist Simultaneously.
• Although the Industrial Union Organizations that Emerged Under the Banner of the Congress of Industrial Organizations
• According to P. F. Drucker, The Management Philosophy Known as Total Quality Management
• The Professionalization of the Study of History in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century
• Conventional Wisdom has it that Large Deficits in the United States Budget Cause Interest Rates to Rise.
• In a New Book About the Antiparty Feeling of the Early Political Leaders of the United States
• The System of Patent-Granting, Which Confers Temporary Monopolies for the Exploitation of New Technologies
• Traditional Social Science Models of Class Groups in the United States are Based on Economic Status
• Solar Ponds are Bodies of Water in Which Circulation is Incomplete and There is a Very High Salt Concentration that Increases with Depth
• Ethnohistoric Documents from Sixteenth-Century Mexico Suggesting that Weaving and Cooking were the Most Common Productive Activities for Aztec Women
• A Recent Study has Provided Clues to Predator-Prey Dynamics in the Late Pleistocene Era.
• The Black Death, a Severe Epidemic that Ravaged Fourteenth Century Europe
• The United States Government has a Long-Standing Policy of Using Federal Funds to Keep Small Business Viable.
• Comparable Worth, as a Standard Applied to Eliminate Inequities in Pay
• Some Historians Contend that Conditions in the United States During the Second World War
• More Selective than Most Chemical Pesticides in that they Ordinarily Destroy only Unwanted Species
• Historians have Identified Two Dominant Currents in the Russian Women's Movement of the Late Tsarist Period.