Syllabus is reproduced by kind permission of NCCA via Curriculum Online, entire syllabus can be downloaded here.
See also Performing, Composing and the entire category for Music.
Aural
- Prescribed works
- Irish music
- Aural skills
Prescribed Works
- Identify the range of musical features used
- Study musical style and place historical context
- Analyse patterns and changes in music
Higher only
- Comparative judgments
- Performance and evaluate in light of experience
For both levels
The prescribed works changes every three years.
Leaving Cert 2010, Group B
Leaving Cert 2011, 2012, 2013, Group A
Group A
- J.S. Bach, Cantana Jesu, der du meine Seele / Jesus, by Thy Cross and Passion, BWV 78, Eulenburg
- Tchaikovsky, Fantasy Overture Romeo and Juliet, Boosey and Hawkes or Eulenburg
- Gerald Barry, Piano Quartet, OUP
- Freddie Mercury/Queen, Bohemian Rhapsody, IMP
Group B
- Mozart, Piano Concerto No. 23 in A Major, K.488, Boosey and Hawkes
- Berlioz, The Ball (second movement) and March to the Scaffold (fourth movement) from Symphonie Fantastique, Eulenburg
- Raymond Deane, Seachanges (with Danse Macabre), and flute in G, percussion, piano, violin for piccolo and cello, Contemporary Music Centre
- Lennon and McCartney/The Beatles, Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, She’s Leaving Home and When I’m Sixty Four, Wise Publications
Irish Music
- Identify the variety of modern Irish music
- Irish musical idioms and influences
Higher
- Traditional and modern performing styles
- Irish folk music influence in North America
Aural Skills
- Working knowledge of musical notation
- Identify melody and rhythm
- Vocal and instrumental timbres
- Idiomatic features, melodic or rhythm
- Musical structures
- Binary
- Ternary
- Variation
- Rondo
Higher
- Follow music with semi-quaver movement and in music compound time
- Stylistic features affecting musical texture
- Identify perfect, imperfect, plagal and uninterrupted cadences
Higher elective
Choose one of the following:
- Art music from specific time period, e.g. Medieval, Romantic
- Contemporary music
- Traditional or ethnic
Topic should be
- Self-contained
- Broad enough to allow for comparative judgments
- Enable students to focus in the musical substance
- Encourage a personal response to music
- Illustrate musical features through listening
List of suggested topics
- Plainchant
- English Renaissance madrigals
- The concerto grosso
- The Classical symphony
- German lieder c.1800-c.1850
- Italian opera c.1850-c.1900
- Russian ballet music
- Impressionist piano music
- American popular song c.1918-c.1950
- Film music from c.1968 to the present
- Early jazz music
- Popular Irish music of today
- Music by contemporary Irish composers
- String quartets by mainstream contemporary composers
- Ethnic music from Asia
