I was sweating hard while reading this passage and even harder while solving the questions. What do you think of the below?
1) The author implies which of the following is a characteristic of "classicism"?
Let's start with the line mentioning classicism: Beethoven is not so much brevity for its own sake — and certainly not something called “classicism”
-> Beethoven's music is typically doesn't belong to classicism category.
nostalgia -
'If, however, we think of the Eight as a nostalgic return to the good old days, we misunderstand it" - the 8th symphony isn't a nostalgic return. it talks explicitly about 8th symphony and doesn't release to classicism
lack of focus - this is a misleading choice:
'What interests Beethoven is not so much brevity for its own sake — and certainly not something called “classicism” — as concentration' Beethoven is interested in concentration in his music, and not interested in classicism. It wouldn't be reasonable to conclude that the author implies lack of focus as a characteristic of classicism.
compromising -
'in one of his most uncompromising works, the F-minor String Quartet, Op. 95' - Fminor was an uncompromising work, but it doesn't mean classicism is compromising
dense saturation - describing 5th symphony specifically -
"It is as though he were picking up where he had left off in the densely saturated first movement of the Fifth Symphony"works on a smaller scale -
"Indeed, over the remaining years of his life he would confidently explore in opposite directions, writing bigger pieces than before and ones more compressed, ...., compositions that plumb the inexhaustible possibilities of the sonata style." - he is writing bigger pieces following sonata style. This statement doesn't describe one of his work but his style and since the passage mentions later that his work is not something belonging to classicism, I guess we could conclude that the elements describing sonata style are not describing classicism