Observation

This question was popular among the candidates and most of these candidates performed below average. This was due to inadequate preparation for the examination by the candidates. They should have responded thus:

1. Ground  Bass - It is a short, recurring melodic pattern in the bass part of a composition that serves as the principal structural element. In other words, it is a bass line that repeats cyclically, over which an evolving harmonic-melodic structure is laid. Prototypical instances are found in 13th century French vocal motets as well as in 15th century European dances, where a recurrent melody served as a cantus firmus, or fixed theme. With the rise of idiomatic instrumental music in the 16th century, the practice of improvising or composing new melodies above a repeated bass pattern became widely popular, especially in music for the lute and guitar (especially in Italy, England and Spain) and harpsichord (especially in England). All such grounds used unchanging harmonic patterns (each note of the ground serving as the basis for a different chord) that in turn served as an essential framework for improvisation. Examples of forms that use ground bass are the chaconne and passacaglia.          
2. Da Capo Aria – It is an aria form that appeared shortly before 1650 and which dominated operatic music until about 1750. To indicate the repeated A section, composers simply wrote the direction da capo (Italian, “from the beginning”) after the B section. The da capo aria developed into a long musical structure with the B section usually in a contrasting but related key. An instrumental introduction usually preceded the A section, and an instrumental interlude separated the A and B sections. Singers took advantage of the repeated A section as a vehicle for virtuosic improvised variations. Alessandro Scarlatti, the celebrated Italian opera composer, helped establish the nearly universal use of the da capo aria. Later the 18th century German-born composer George Frederic Handel used it extensively in his operas and oratorios, and his contemporary Johann Sebastian Bach used it in his oratorios and cantatas.         
3. The Art Song – The Art Song is a composition for one or two voices, frequently with instrumental accompaniment. It is mainly a song that is the product of a trained musician, consisting of melodies and accompaniments primarily of the musician’s invention. Usually, a short lyric or narrative text is set to the music. The music often reproduces the mood of and lends a heightened emotional expression to the song’s text, which is often a poem.                                                                           
4. Recitative – It is a style of musical composition for solo voice, in which the melodic contours and note values are based largely on the natural inflections and rhythms of speech. The form occurs primarily in opera and oratorio, where it contrasts with the aria, in which the melodies and rhythms have a more purely musical structure.
5. Pedal Point – It is also called organ point, a term used in organ music to describe a bass note of indefinite length, usually at the end of a piece. The pedal point establishes the final key, and a performer often improvises an elaborately decorated cadence over it. The term also applies to piano music of a similar kind and to a long-held bass note in orchestral music – for example, in the symphonies of Finnish composer Jean Sibelius.