For those who are unfamiliar with The Divine comedy, its roots in the sagas of Aeneas and ulysses, and the Greco roman culture generally,
the Silmarillion is a good introduction to the role of music in the phenomena.
Tolkien desired to create a mythology for English speaking people and so after the success of the Hobbit he wrote the Silmarillion which was rejected by publishers for being too mystical.
The Silmarillion is about the creation of the universe through music and in this way it is somewhat like Dante.
You are not cheating if you access the internet for the last section of the test, but only to look up the songs in the questions.

In case the Silmarillion seems too long, try this intro..FROM WIKIPEDIA:
The first section of The Silmarillion, Ainulindalë ("The Music of the Ainur"[7]), takes the form of a primary creation narrative. Eru ("The One"[8]), also called Ilúvatar ("Father of All"), first created the Ainur, a group of eternal spirits or demiurges, called "the offspring of his thought". Ilúvatar brought the Ainur together and showed them a theme, from which he bade them make a great music. Melkor – whom Ilúvatar had given the "greatest power and knowledge" of all the Ainur – broke from the harmony of the music to develop his own song. Some Ainur joined him, while others continued to follow Ilúvatar, causing discord in the music. This happened thrice, with Eru Ilúvatar successfully overpowering his rebellious subordinate with a new theme each time. Ilúvatar then stopped the music and showed them a vision of Arda and its peoples. The vision disappeared after a while, and Ilúvatar offered the Ainur a chance to enter into Arda and govern over the new world.