Reading Comprehension

PT151 · S1 · P3 · Q15 Words & Operas

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Passage A Music does not always gain by association with words.

Passage A

Music doesn't necessarily get better by having words associated, but words can be improved by having music associated with them, since music is better able to express the deepest emotions.

In general, combining words and music is mixing two effects and diluting the purity and emotional power of each separate art form.

However, you can still do good stuff by combining them, as long as the words serve the music, which is the more expressive half. That's what's happening with opera. The words of the libretto aren't the main source of aesthetic value; the emotional range conveyed by the music is.

Passage B

There are two types of operas: music-dominant and music-balanced (music is the most important factor, but it's roughly balanced by other factors). The potential third type, music-subordinate, hasn't really ever taken hold.

No matter the type, when you're aesthetically evaluating opera, you shouldn't look at music or poetry in isolation. You judge the music by whether it serves the words and the words by whether it serves the music.

Opera's essence is that the effectiveness of the music and words are deeply intertwined.

Overlap / Disconnect

Both passages were discussing the relative impacts of words and music, including whether words are better w/o music and vice versa. Passage B cared way more about opera, whereas Passage A only barely addressed that topic.

They do seem to have a disconnect when it comes to opera. Passage A said that the aesthetic value does not depend on the words; it depends on the emotional range of the music.

Passage B thought the aesthetic value was more about how the words and the music function to enhance the other.

15.

The authors of both passages attempt to answer which one of the following questions?

  1. Is music inherently a more

    Not Passage B

    The easier way to eliminate this would be Passage B, since it barely mentions poetry at all. In the first sentence of its second paragraph, it says the word 'poetry' as a synonym for "the lyrics of an opera". But that's the only way in which it mentions poetry, to mean "the rhyming lyrics of a opera", not the separate genre of poetry on its own.

    7% picked this

  2. Is the emotive power of

    Not Passage B

    This question is somewhat covered in Passage A, but for reasons similar to choice (A), it would be hard to say that Passage B addresses this at all. Passage B is never discussing poetry in the general sense of, "Here's a poem. Would it be more emotive if we set it to music?" Passage B is all about opera. It's just asking questions about opera. The author is definitely talking about how within a good opera, the music "serves the particular situation in the opera in which it occurs", not whether music enhances the emotive power of poetry. The author of Passage B actually thinks it's a little silly to separate the poetry and the music of an opera, since a proper understanding of them involves how they cooperate. So this author is no considering whether a separate piece of poetry can be enhanced by being set to music.

    26% picked this

  3. Should opera be accorded the

    Neither Passage: accorded the same respect

    Neither passage is trying argue for opera's standing/prestige among all other forms of classical music.

    1% picked this

  4. Correct

    How important are words to

    Why this is right

    Passage A has a definitive answer in his last sentence: the aesthetic value of an opera depends not on words but on music. So this author would say, "words are not important to the artistic effectiveness (aesthetic value) of opera". Meanwhile Passage B is stressing how the words and music are an inextricable pairing in opera. Opera's unique character comes from the fact that words and music "are as united as hydrogen and oxygen are united in water". So this author would say that words are as important to the artistic effectiveness of opera as Oxygen is to the molecular essence of water. (i.e. VERY important)

    Skill tested: Primary Purpose · how this choice captures the passage's function is the move to repeat next time.

    64% picked this

  5. How is opera different from

    Not Passage A

    The last sentence of Passage B explains the uniqueness (the inimitable character) of opera, but Passage A barely mentions opera, and when it does mention it (in the last sentence), it doesn't compare opera to any other musical art form.

    2% picked this

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