MUS 253 Exam 3 Vocabulary

Divertissement

(1) a lavishly choreographed diversionary interlude with occasional singing set within French ballet de cour, (2) an "entertainment" in an opera or ballet, only loosely connected to its surrounding scenes

Passacaglia

(1) a musical form involving continuous variations upon a basso ostinato, originating in the Baroque period and virtually synonymous with the chaconne; (2) originally separate and distinct bass melody, but during the seventeenth century it came to mean almost any repeating bass pattern of short duration

Antonio Stradivari

(1644 - 1737) violin maker from Cremona, Italy; invented the viola

Sinfonia

(Italian for "symphony") a one-movement (later three- or four-movement) orchestral work that originated in Italy in the seventeenth century

Orgelbüchlein

(Little Organ Book) a collection of forty-six pieces written by Bach mostly between 1708 and 1713; each of the forty-six pieces is a chorale prelude

Ballet de cour

(court ballet) a type of elaborate ballet with songs and choruses danced at the French royal court from the late 16th to the late 17th century in which members of the court appeared alongside professional dancers

Stile rappresentativo

(dramatic or theater style) a type of vocal expression somewhere between song and declaimed speech

Da camera

(of the chamber) a seventeenth-century designation for music that was not intended primarily for the church

Da chiesa

(of the church) a seventeenth century designation for music that was intended primarily for the church

Ricercar

(sixteenth century) an instrumental piece, usually for lute or keyboard, similar in style to the imitative motet

Courante*

A lively dance (French for "running") characterized by intentional metrical ambiguity created by means of hemiola - measures of two beats with triple subdivision 6/4 interplace with those of three beats with duple subdivision 3/2

Minuet

An elegant dance of French origin in triple meter and performed at a moderate tempo; the only Baroque dance to remain popular in the Classical period

Hornpipe

An energetic dance of English origin, derived from the country jig, in either 3/2 or 2/4

BWV (Bach Werke Verzeichnis)

Bach Work List; an identifying system for the works of Johann Sebastian Bach, which functions much like the "K" numbers used for Mozart's works

Senesino (Francesco Bernardi)

Castratto. Popular in London. Sang 20 roles for Handel, 17 of which were written for him.

Air de cour

French term for a simple, strophic song for a single voice or a small group of soloists

Royal Academy of Music

Handel's opera compay, one of two producing Italian opera in eighteenth-century London. Performances were at the King's Theatre in the Haymarket

Stile concertato

Italian for "concerted style"; a term broadly used to identify Baroque music marked by grand scale and strong contrast, either between voices and instruments, between separate instrumental ensembles, between separate choral groups, or even between soloist and choir

Tenebrae service

Latin for "darkness"; the morning offices of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday; called so because the service was sung in almost total darkness

Fiori musicali (Frescabaldi; 1635)

Musical Flowers; a collection of Mass music to serve St. Peter's and other churches that was published by Frescabaldi; includes organ music for Mass for most of the Sundays and feast days of the the church year

Allemande*

The name suggests the place and origin of this dance (French for "German"); a stately dance in 4/4 meter at a moderate tempo with an upbeat and gracefully interweaving lines that create an improvisatory-like style

Confraternity

a Christian society of laymen emphasizing religious devotion and charity; in Florence performing laude was an essential part of their fraternal life

Organ Mass

a Mass in which an organ alternates with, or entirely replaces, the choir

Simple recitative

a basic form of recitative in operas of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: narrative in text, speech-like in melody, and accompanied solely by keyboard or a minimal number of instruments; a recitative accompanied only by a basso continuo

Basso ostinato

a bass line that provided a never-ending (insistent) foundation, or "continuous" bass for the melody above.

Chamber cantata

a cantata performed before a select audience in a private residence; intimate vocal chamber music, principally of the Baroque era

Ritornello form

a carefully worked out structure for a concerto grosso, which employs regular reappearances of the ritornello

Concerto grosso

a concerto in which a group of instruments serve as the featured performers and are contrasted with a larger group

Solo concerto

a concerto in which an orchestra and a single performer in turn present and develop the musical material in the spirit of harmonious competition

Lament bass

a descending tetrachordal basso ostinato employed as a signifier of grief

French overture (Lully)

a distinctive type of instrumental prelude created by the composer Jean-Baptiste Lully; came to be understood as an overture in two sections, the first slow in duple meter with dotted note values, and the second fast in triple meter with light imitation

Equal temperament

a division of the octave into twelve equal half-steps, each with the ratio of approximately 18:17; first advocated by some musicians in the early sixteenth century

Opera

a dramatic work, or play, set to music; in it the lines of the actors and actresses are sung, not spoken, and music, poetry, drama, scenic design, and dance combine to produce a new power art form

Bourree

a fast dance in 4/4 (or in cut time) with a quarter-note upbeat that usually follows a slower dance in 3/4 such as the sarabande

Gigue*

a fast dance in 6/8 or 12/8 with a constant eighth-note pule that produces a galloping sound; imported to the Continent from England, sometimes lightly imitative and often used to conclude a suite

Tonal answer

a following voice that imitates the subject at the interval of a fifth above or fourth below and changes the subject so as to keep the music in the home tonality

Oratorio

a genre of religious music developed in the seventeenth century to satisfy the desire for dramatic music during Lent; a musical setting of a dramatic text in Latin or Italian or, later, other languages that usually elaborates upon an event in the Old Testament; uses the essential processes of opera but without lavish sets, costumes, or acting

The Four Seasons

a group of four violin concertos by Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi, each of which gives musical expression to a season of the year. These were composed around 1718−1720, when Vivaldi was the court chapel master in Mantua. (WORD PAINTING)

Florentine camerata (Giovanni de' Bardi)

a group of humanists, musicians, poets and intellectuals in late Renaissance Florence who gathered under the patronage of Count Giovanni de' Bardi to discuss and guide trends in the arts, especially music and drama.

Chorale fantasia

a lengthy composition for organ that takes a chorale tune as a point of departure but increasingly gives free rein to the composer's imagination

Concerted madrigal

a madrigal in the concertato style with strong contrasts in textures and timbres involving voices and instruments

Style brisé

a modern term for a type of discontinuous texture in which chords are broken apart and notes enter one by one; such a style in inherent in lute music because the sounds of the lute are delicate and quickly evaporate

Concerted motet

a motet in the concertato style with strong contrasts in textures and timbres involving voices and instruments

Ode

a multi-movement hymn of praise to a person or ideal usually lasting about twenty minutes and containing an instrumental introduction, choruses, duets, and solo arias, but no recitative because there is no story

Recitative

a musically heightened speech, often used in an opera, oratorio, or cantata to report dramatic action and advance the plot

Cremona (ch 33)

a northern Italian town known for the origination of the violin

Oratory

a prayer hall set aside just for praying, preaching, and devotional singing

Concerto

a purely instrumental piece for ensemble in which one or more soloists both complement and compete with a full orchestra

Ritornello

a return or refrain

ritornello

a return or refrain

Pastoral aria

a slow aria with several distinctive characteristics: parallel thirds that glide mainly in step-wise motion, a lilting rhythm in compound meter, and a harmony that changes slowly and employs many subdominant chords

Sarabande*

a slow, stately dance in 3/4 with a strong accent on the second beat

Solo sonata

a sonata played by a single melody instrument such as a violin, flute or oboe usually accompanied, in the Baroque era, by a basso continuo.

Semi-opera

a spoken play in which the more exotic, amorous, or even supernatural moments in the story were sung or danced

Binary form

a structure consisting of two complementary parts, the first moving to a closely related key and the second beginning in that new key but soon returning to the tonic (AB)

Récitatif ordinaire (Lully)

a style of recitative, developed by French composer Jean- Baptiste Lully, noteworthy for its length, vocal range, and generally dramatic quality

Cadenza

a technically demanding, rhapsodic, improvisatory passage for a soloist near the end of a movement

Alternatim technique

a technique in which the verses of a chant are assigned to alternating performing forces, such as an organ and a choir

Stile concitato

an agitated style particularly suited to warlike music; Claudio Monteverdi used this term for a new style of music he created that was more direct and insistent than previous martial music

da capo aria

an aria in two sections with an obligatory return to and repeat of the first (hence ABA); the reprise was not written out but signaled by the inscription "da capo" meaning "take it from the top"

Strophic variation aria

an aria in which the same melodic and harmonic plan appears, with slight variation, in each successive strophe

Masque

an elaborate courtly entertainment using music, dance, and drama to portray an allegorical story that shed a favorable light on the royal family

Aria

an elaborate, lyrical song for solo voice more florid, more expansive, and more melodious than a recitative or arioso; usually sets a short poem made up of one or more stanzas

Arioso style

an expressive manner of singing somewhere between a recitative and a full-blown aria

Abendmusik

an hour-long concert of sacred music with arias and recitatives- something akin to a sacred opera or oratorio; a single religious theme unfolded in music over the course of five late-afternoon performances on the Sundays immediately before and during Advent in the city of Lübeck, Germany

Falsobordone

an improvisatory technique used by church singers that originated in Spain and Italy around 1480; at first three voices chanted along with the psalm tone making simple chant sound more splendid; by the seventeenth century, psalm tone and improvisation were abandoned and it became a newly composed piece for four or five voices but with the same simple, chordal style

Organ verset

an independent organ section in an alternatim organ Mass; a short piece that replaces a liturgical item otherwise sung by the choir

Tombeau

an instrumental piece commemorating someone's death

Toccata

an instrumental piece, for keyboard or other instruments, requiring the performer to touch the instrument with great technical dexterity; designed to show off the creative spirit of the composer as well as the technical skill of the performer

Dance suite

an ordered set of dances for solo instrument or ensemble, all written in the same key and intended to be performed in a single sitting

Choral prelude

an ornamental setting of a per-existing chorale tune intended to be played on the organ before the singing of the chorale by the full congregation

Gavotte

another dance of French origin marked by a moderate tempo, duple meter, and four-bar phrases

Trio sonata

comprised a line for two treble instruments (usually two violins) and basso continuo

Doctrine of Affections

early-seventeenth-century aesthetic theory that held that different musical moods could and should be used to influence the emotions, or affections, of the listener

Subject

in a fugue, the theme

Académie royale de musique (Handel)

in effect, a French national opera company directly licensed and indirectly financed by the king; it performed in the center of Paris at the Palais Royal

Note inégales

in which a succession of equal notes moving rapidly up or down the scale are played somewhat unequally, such as "long-short, long-short"

Program music

instrumental music that explicitly embodies extra-musical content

The Well-Tempered Clavier (Bach)

is two sets of preludes and fugues in all 24 major and minor keys for keyboard by Johann Sebastian Bach. In the composer's time clavier, meaning keyboard, referred to a variety of instruments, most typically the harpsichord or clavichord but not excluding the organ

Counter-Reformation

movement that fostered reform in the Roman Catholic Church in response to the challenge of the Protestant Reformation and led to a conservative, austere approach to art

Cori spezzati

music for two, three, or four choirs placed in different parts of a building

Colossal Baroque

name for the style of large-scale sacred music employing multiple choirs of voices and instruments and sung in largest churches in Rome, Venice, Vienna, and Salzburg

Multiple stops

on a violin (or other bowed string instrument) playing two or more notes simultaneously as chords

Sonata

originally, "something sounded" on an instrument as opposed to something sung (a "cantata"); later, a multi-movement work for solo instrument, or instrument with keyboard accompaniment

Overdotting

practice in which a dotted note is made longer than written, while its complementary short note is made shorter

Le nuove musiche (The New Music, 1602)

published by Giulio Caccini; an anthology of solo madrigals and strophic solo songs gathered over time, rather than all new music as was implied; the preface contains invaluable information on vocal performance of the early Baroque era

Opera seria

serious, not comic, opera; the term is used to designate the heroic, fully sung Italian opera that dominated the stage at the courts of Europe during the eighteenth century

Ground bass

the English term for basso ostinato

Ripieno

the larger of the two ensembles in the Baroque concerto grosso

Stile antico

the name given to the conservative music emanating from the papal chapel in the seventeenth century (Italian "old style")

Monody

the overarching term for solo madrigals, solo arias, and solo recitatives written during the early Baroque era

Cappella Pontificia Sistina

the pope's private vocal ensemble as it came to be called in the early seventeenth century and that sang in the Sistine Chapel

Cantata

the primary genre of vocal chamber music in the Baroque era; it was "something sung" as opposed to a sonata, which was "sounded" in an instrument; in its mature state it consisted of several movements, including one or more arias and recitatives; can be on secular subjects, but those of JS Bach are primarily sacred in content

Concertino

the small group of solo performers in a concerto grosso

Tragédie lyrique

the term used to designate French opera in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, which was a fusion of classical French tragedy with traditional French ballet (ballet de cour)

Libretto

the text of an opera or an oratorio written in poetic verse

Clarino register

the very high register of the trumpet; playing in this register was a special technique of Baroque trumpeters that was exploited by Baroque composers

Vingt-quatre violons du roi

twenty-four instruments of the violin family that formed the string core of the French court orchestra under Louis XIV (six violins, twelve violas, and six basse de violons)

Cantate francaise (Lully)

virtually identical to the late seventeenth-century Italian chamber cantata except that it set a French rather than an Italian text

Vincenzo Galilei

wrote Dialogue of Ancient and Modern Music (1581) to attack counterpoint and to argue that only a single line of melody, with pitches and rhythms appropriate to the text, could express poetry. lute player, singer, composer, theorist, father of astronomer Galileo, and member of Florentine Camerata