CCEA A-Level Music A2 Unit 3 Responding to Music: a complete overview of the Areas of Study, the aural test and score study

What this unit demands

A2 Unit 3 Responding to Music is the examined listening and analysis unit of the A2 year. It tests listening and appraising at a higher level than AS, against three compulsory Areas of Study, through a test of aural perception, and with the new demand of unprepared score study. The unit asks that you know the styles and set works deeply enough to analyse them, and that you can hear and read music with greater fluency than at AS.

This guide ties together the three A2 Areas of Study, the aural test and score study, and the analytical language they demand. Each topic has a matching dot-point page with practice questions; this overview shows how they fit and how the unit is examined.

The three Areas of Study

At A2 the three compulsory areas extend the AS material in time and complexity:

• Music for Orchestra in the Twentieth Century. Orchestral styles after the Romantic era: impressionism (Debussy: colouristic, whole-tone and parallel harmony, free form), neoclassicism (Ravel, Stravinsky: revived older forms with modern harmony), nationalism (Bartok: folk melody and rhythm) and modernism (Bernstein and others: dissonance, complex rhythm, jazz influence).
• Sacred Vocal Music (Mass and Requiem). The Mass Ordinary (Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus and Benedictus, Agnus Dei) and the Requiem Mass, with settings from unaccompanied Renaissance polyphony (Byrd) through accompanied tonal Classical and Romantic writing (Mozart, Faure) to modern idioms (Chilcott).
• Secular Vocal Music (1600 to the present day). Solo and ensemble secular song across four centuries: recitative and aria, the German Lied and the art song, the voice-accompaniment relationship and word setting.

The test of aural perception and score study

The A2 aural test extends the AS skills (intervals, chords, cadences, metre, rhythm, dictation, devices) with harder material, including hearing modulation and following more complex harmony and texture. The unit adds unprepared score study: analysing an unfamiliar score under exam conditions to identify key, harmony, cadences, modulations, structure and style. A reliable method works in order: orient, harmony, structure, style and devices.

The set works

Each area is studied through set works that illustrate its styles. For the twentieth-century orchestral area these have included Debussy, Ravel, Bartok and Bernstein; for the Mass and Requiem, Byrd, Mozart, Faure and Chilcott. Close study of the set works supports the written analysis. Always confirm the prescribed set works for your exam series in the current CCEA materials.

How this unit is examined

A typical A2 Responding to Music profile:

• Advanced aural recognition. Harmony, modulation, cadences, texture and devices from extracts.
• Dictation. Notating melodies and rhythms at a higher level.
• Set-work analysis. Describing and analysing the prescribed works in detail.
• Unprepared score study. Analysing an unfamiliar score for key, harmony, structure and style.

Check your knowledge

A mix of recall and analytical questions across the unit. Plan your answers, then check them.

1. Name the three compulsory Areas of Study at A2. (3 marks)
2. State two harmonic features of impressionism. (2 marks)
3. Name the five movements of the Mass Ordinary. (5 marks)
4. Which movements does a Requiem Mass omit? (1 mark)
5. Distinguish recitative from aria. (2 marks)
6. What is a Lied, and what is the role of the piano in it? (2 marks)
7. In what order should you analyse an unprepared score? (2 marks)