MUSIC 120 FINAL
Tempo Rubato
"Borrowed time," common Romantic music, in which the performer hesitates here or hurries forward there, imparting flexibility to the written note values.
Leitmotif
"Leading motive," or basic recurring theme, representing a person, object, or idea, commonly used in Wagner's operas.
Primitivism
A belief in the value of what is simple and unsophisticated, expressed as a philosophy of life or through art or literature.
polychord
A single chord comprised of several chords, common in the 29th century music.
Expressionism
A style of visual art and literature in Germany and Austria in the early 20th century. The term is osmetimes also applied to music, especially composers of the Second Viennese School.
theremin
An early electronic instrument from the 1920's, named after its inventor Leon Theremin.
Sprechstimme
An expressionist vocal technique between singing and speaking.
Transcendental Etudes
Are a series of twelve compositions for solo piano by Franz Liszt. They were published in 1852 as a revision of a more technically difficult 1837 series, which in turn were the elaboration of a set of studies written in 1826.
Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel
Because of her gender, she was actively discouraged from pursuing music as a career. Although she wrote several large-scale works, including piano trio and string quartet, her output was dominated by Lieder, choral part songs, and piano music. Her music was set to be performed at family Sunday musical gatherings.
Stephen Foster
Began his career writing songs for blackface minstrel shows that were popular during his era. Later in his career he turned to ballads and love songs like "Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair." These songs evoked themes of lost youth and happiness. Perhaps the first American to make a living as a professional songwriter.
Franz Liszt
Considered to be the greatest pianist of his time, taught extensively and trained a generation of great concert pianists. Influenced Chopin.
Lied
German for "song"; most commonly associated with the solo art song of the nineteenth century, usually accompanies by piano.
Richard Wagner
He wrote all of the librettos himself, allowing him to unify music and drama more than anyone had before. His focus started from the drama of historical intrigue and shifted to idealized folk legend. Created the theory of Music Drama integrating theater and music completely. (The Ring of Nibelung and Tristan&Isolde)
Giuseppe Verdi
His favorite literary source was Shakespeare and drew upon Macbeth, Otello, and Falstaff. He enjoyed great operatic success throughout all of Europe.
Frederic Chopin
His works are central to the pianist's standard repertory, including the four ballades. Spent his early years in Paris being influenced by the most famous composers, writers, and artists in France including George Sand.
Program Music
Instrumental music endowed with literary or pictorial associations, especially popular in the nineteenth century.
Rhapsody in Blue
Is a 1924 musical composition by American composer George Gershwin for solo piano and jazz band, which combines elements of classical music with jazz-influenced effects.
Bright Sheng
Is a Chinese-American composer, conductor, and pianist. His compositions have been performed by most major American orchestras, as well as many European and Asian orchestras.
Appalachian Spring
Is a composition by Aaron Copland that premiered in 1944 and has achieved widespread and enduring popularity as an orchestral suite.
The Ring of Niebelung
Is a cycle of four epic operas by the German composer Richard Wagner (1813-1883). The works are based loosely on characters from the Norse sagas and the Nibelungenlied. The composer termed the cycle a "Bühnenfestspiel" (stage festival play), structured in three days preceded by a Vorabend ("ante-evening"). It is often referred to as the Ring Cycle, Wagner's Ring, or simply the Ring.
symphonic jazz
Is a jazz genre that developed in New York in the 1920s. The fusion of jazz's rhythmic and instrumental characteristics with the scale and structure of an orchestra, made orchestral jazz distinct from the musical genres that preceded its emergence.
Pierrot lunaire
Is a melodrama by Arnold Schoenberg. It is a setting of 21 selected poems from Otto Erich Hartleben's German translation of Albert Giraud's cycle of French poems of the same name. The narrator delivers the poems in the Sprechstimme style.
The Unanswered Question
Is a musical work by American composer Charles Ives. The three groups of instruments perform in independent tempos and are placed separately on the stage—the strings offstage.
The Moldau
Is a set of six symphonic poems composed between 1874 and 1879 by the Czech composer Bedřich Smetana. While it is often presented as a single work in six movements and - with the exception of Vltava - is almost always recorded that way, the six pieces were conceived as individual works.
Le Tombeau de Couperin
Is a suite for solo piano by Maurice Ravel, composed between 1914 and 1917, in six movements based on those of a traditional Baroque suite. Each movement is dedicated to a friend who died in WWI.
The Nutcracker
Is a two-act ballet, originally choreographed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov with a score by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (op. 71). The libretto is adapted from E.T.A. Hoffmann's story The Nutcracker and the Mouse King.
Poeme electronique
Is an 8-minute piece of electronic music by composer Edgard Varèse, written for the Philips Pavilion at the 1958 Brussels World's Fair.
George Crumb
Is an American composer of avant-garde music.[1] He is noted as an explorer of unusual timbres, alternative forms of notation, and extended instrumental and vocal techniques. His music contains an intense humanism.
Jennifer Higdon
Is an American composer of classical music. She has received many awards including the 2010 Pulitzer Prize in Music for her Violin Concerto and the 2009 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Classical Composition for her Percussion Concerto.
Avro Part
Is an Estonian composer of classical and sacred music.[1] Since the late 1970s, he has worked in a minimalist style that employs his self-invented compositional technique, tintinnabuli. His music is in part inspired by Gregorian chant.
Summertime
Is an aria composed by George Gershwin for the 1935 opera Porgy and Bess. The song soon became a popular and much recorded jazz standard, described as "without doubt ... one of the finest songs the composer ever wrote ... Gershwin's highly evocative writing brilliantly mixes elements of jazz and the song styles of blacks in the southeast United States from the early twentieth century".
Carmen
Is an opera in four acts by the French composer Georges Bizet. The libretto was written by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on a novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée. The opera, written in the genre of opéra comique with musical numbers separated by dialogue, tells the story of the downfall of Don José, a naïve soldier who is seduced by the wiles of the fiery Gypsy, Carmen.
Porgy and Bess
Is an opera, first performed in 1935, with music by George Gershwin, libretto by DuBose Heyward, and lyrics by DuBose Heyward and Ira Gershwin. "American Folk Opera."
Wozzeck
Is the first opera by the Austrian composer Alban Berg. It was composed between 1914 and 1922 and first performed in 1925. The opera is based on the drama Woyzeck.
Second Viennese school
Is the group of composers that comprised Arnold Schoenberg and his pupils and close associates in early 20th century Vienna. Their music was initially characterized by late-Romantic expanded tonality and later, following Schoenberg's own evolution, a totally chromatic expressionism without firm tonal centre.
Bitonality
Is the use of only two different keys at the same time. Polyvalence is the use of more than one harmonic function, from the same key, at the same time.
Symbolist poetry
Literary movement that paralleled Impressionism, in which poetic images were invoked through suggestion or symbol rather than literal description.
Absolute Music
Music that has no literary, dramatic, or pictorial program.
Word Painting
Musical pictorialization of words from the text as an expressive device; a prominent feature of the Renaissance madrigal.
"chords with no names"
Not atonal but there is no tonality.
Symphonic/Tone Poem
One movement orchestral form that develop a poetic idea, suggests a scene, or creates a mood, generally associated with the Romantic era.
Nicolo Paganini
One of the first solo performers (violinist) to become a "star" who was idolized by the public.
Franz Schubert
One of the most famous Vienna Choir Boys. Composer of "Elfking." His music marks the confluence of the Classical and Romantic eras.
Verismo
Operatic "realism," a style popular in Italy in the 1890's, which tried to bring naturalism into the lyric theater.
Virtuoso
Performer of extraordinary technical ability.
prepared piano
Piano whose sound is altered by the insertion of various materials (metal, rubber, leather, and paper) between the strings; invented by John Cage.
tonality
Principle of organization around a tonic, or home, pitch, based on a major or minor scale.
Tempo
Rate of speed or pace of music.
Moguchaya Kuchka (The Mighty Handful)
Refers to a circle of composers who met in Saint Petersburg, Russia, in the years 1856-1870: Mily Balakirev (the leader), César Cui, Modest Mussorgsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Alexander Borodin. The group had the aim of producing a specifically Russian kind of art music, rather than one that imitated older European music or relied on European-style conservatory training.
Tristan and Isolde
Richard Wagner fled the revolution to Switzerland and began developing his theory of Music Drama (opera that integrated theater and music completely). This was one of his first six Music Dramas.
Carmen (the character)
She is a new type of operatic heroine representing a new kind of love, not the innocent kind associated with the "spotless soprano" school, but something altogether more vital and dangerous. Her capriciousness, fearlessness and love of freedom are all musically represented.
Arioso
Short, aria-like passage.
Strophic Form
Song structure in which the same music is repeated with every stanza (strophe) of the poem.
Through-Composed form
Song structure that is composed from beginning to end, without repetitions of large sections.
Suite for Violin and Piano, III (William Grant Still and the Afro-American orchestra)
Still based each movement on a different art work by African-American artists. All of the movements are bluesy in flavor, with modal harmonies and melodies featuring lowered thirds and sevenths, typical of the blues. This piece inspired many young African-Americans.
Libretto
Text or script of an opera, oratorio, cantata, or musical, written by a librettist.
Rigoletto
The epitome of Romantic drama and passion, Giuseppe Verdi's music communicates each dramatic situation with profound emotion.
Hemiola
The ratio 3:2; three beats of equal value in the time normally occupied by two beats.
polyrhythmic texture
The simultaneous use of several rhythmic patterns or meters, common in the 20th century music and in certain African musics.
polytonality
The simultaneous use of two or more keys, common in the 20th century music.
Theatre des Champs-Elysees
The theater is named not after the famed Avenue des Champs-Elysees, but rather after the neighborhood which it is situated in, the Quartier des Champs-Elysees. a venue suitable for contemporary music, dance and opera, in contrast to traditional, more conservative, institutions like the Paris Opera. Hosted the Rise of Spring.
La Donna e Mobile
This is the Duke of Mantua's canzone from the beginning of act 3 of Giuseppe Verdi's opera Rigoletto (1851). The almost comical-sounding theme of this piece is introduced immediately, and runs as illustrated.
"Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair"
This song was written by Stephen Foster with a bittersweet tone, wishing for days gone by. The song is strophic and set for a solo voice and piano, thereby meeting the growing need for parlor music appropriate for amateurs.
sound masses
This type of composition "minimizes the importance of individual pitches in preference for texture, timbre, and dynamics as primary shapers of gesture and impact." Explored by Charles Ives and Henry Cowell in the early part of the twentieth century.
atonality
Total abandonment of tonality. This type of music moves from one level of dissonance to another without areas of relaxation.
Extended Techniques
Unconventional, unorthodox, or non-traditional methods of singing or of playing musical instruments employed to obtain unusual sounds or timbres.
Bederich Smetana
Was a Czech composer who pioneered the development of a musical style which became closely identified with his country's aspirations to independent statehood. He is thus widely regarded in his homeland as the father of Czech music.
Antonin Dvorak
Was a Czech composer. Following the nationalist example of Bedřich Smetana, he frequently employed aspects, specifically rhythms, of the folk music of Moravia and his native Bohemia.
Maurice Ravel
Was a French composer known especially for his melodies, masterful orchestration, richly evocative harmonies and inventive instrumental textures and effects. He was one of the most prominent figures associated with Impressionist music.
Georges Bizet
Was a French composer of the romantic era. Best known for his operas in a career cut short by his early death, he achieved few successes before his final work, Carmen, which has become one of the most popular and frequently performed works in the entire opera repertoire.
Claude Debussy
Was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures associated with Impressionist music, though he himself disliked the term when applied to his compositions. He was among the most influential composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and his use of non-traditional scales and chromaticism influenced many composers who followed.
Stephane Mallarme
Was a French poet and critic. He was a major French symbolist poet, and his work anticipated and inspired several revolutionary artistic schools of the early 20th century, such as Cubism, Futurism, Dadaism, and Surrealism.
Edgard Varese
Was a French-born composer who spent the greater part of his career in the United States. His music emphasizes timbre and rhythm and he coined the term "organized sound" in reference to his own musical aesthetic. His use of new instruments and electronic resources led to his being known as the "Father of Electronic Music".
Johannes Brahms
Was a German composer and pianist. He is sometimes grouped with Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven as one of the "Three Bs". His music is firmly rooted in the structures and compositional techniques of the Baroque and Classical masters.
Pierre Boulez & Karlheinz Stockhausen
Was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. He is known for his groundbreaking work in electronic music, aleatory (controlled chance) in serial composition, and musical spatialization.
Bela Bartok
Was a Hungarian composer and pianist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century; he and Liszt are regarded as Hungary's greatest composers. Through his collection and analytical study of folk music, he was one of the founders of comparative musicology, which later became ethnomusicology.
Igor Stravinsky
Was a Russian (and later, a naturalized French and American) composer, pianist and conductor. He is widely considered to be one of the most important and influential composers of the 20th century.
Sergei Diaghilev
Was a Russian art critic, patron, ballet impresario and founder of the Ballets Russes, from which many famous dancers and choreographers would arise.
Nadezhda von Meck
Was a Russian business woman who became an influential patron of the arts, especially music. She is best known today for her artistic relationship with Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, supporting him financially for thirteen years, so that he could devote himself full-time to composition, while stipulating that they were never to meet.
Peter Tchaikovsky
Was a Russian composer whose works included symphonies, concertos, operas, ballets, chamber music, and a choral setting of the Russian Orthodox Divine Liturgy. He was the first Russian composer whose music made a lasting impression internationally.
Rimsky-Korsakov
Was a Russian composer, and a member of the group of composers known as The Five.[a 2] He was a master of orchestration. His best-known orchestral compositions—Capriccio Espagnol, the Russian Easter Festival Overture, and the symphonic suite Scheherazade—are staples of the classical music repertoire, along with suites and excerpts from some of his 15 operas.
Modest Mussorgsky
Was a Russian composer, one of the group known as "The Five". He was an innovator of Russian music in the romantic period. He strove to achieve a uniquely Russian musical identity, often in deliberate defiance of the established conventions of Western music.
Symphony of the New World
Was a symphony orchestra based in New York City. It was the first racially integrated orchestra in the United States.
William Grant Still
Was an African-American classical composer who wrote more than 150 compositions. He was the first African-American to conduct a major American symphony orchestra, the first to have a symphony (his first symphony) performed by a leading orchestra, the first to have an opera performed by a major opera company, and the first to have an opera performed on national television.
George Gershwin
Was an American composer and pianist. His compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known.
John Corigliano
Was an American composer of classical music. His scores, now numbering over one hundred, have won him the Pulitzer Prize, five Grammy Awards, Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition, and an Oscar.
Aaron Copland
Was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later in his career a conductor of his own and other American music. Instrumental in forging a distinctly American style of composition, in his later years he was often referred to as "the Dean of American Composers" and is best known to the public for the works he wrote in the 1930s and 1940s in a deliberately accessible style often referred to as Populist and which the composer labeled his "vernacular" style.
John Cage
Was an American composer, music theorist, writer, and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, he was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde. Critics have lauded him as one of the most influential American composers of the 20th century.
Charles Ives
Was an American modernist composer. He is one of the first American composers of international renown, though his music was largely ignored during his life, and many of his works went unperformed for many years. He combined the American popular and church-music traditions of his youth with European art music, and was among the first composers to engage in a systematic program of experimental music.
Frank Zappa
Was an American musician, bandleader, songwriter, composer, recording engineer, record producer, and film director. In a career spanning more than 30 years, he composed rock, jazz, orchestral and musique concrète works.
Jimi Hendrix
Was an American musician, guitarist, singer, and songwriter. Although his mainstream career spanned only four years, he is widely regarded as one of the most influential electric guitarists in the history of popular music, and one of the most celebrated musicians of the 20th century.
Arnold Schoenberg
Was an Austrian composer and painter, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School. He was known early in his career for simultaneously extending the traditionally opposed German Romantic styles of Brahms and Wagner.
Alban Berg
Was an Austrian composer. He was a member of the Second Viennese School with Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern, and produced compositions that combined Mahlerian Romanticism with a personal adaptation of Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique.
Ralph Vaughn Williams
Was an English composer of symphonies, chamber music, opera, choral music, and film scores. He was also a collector of English folk music and song; this collecting activity influenced both his editorial approach to the English Hymnal, in which he included many folk song arrangements as hymn tunes, and several of his own original compositions.
Giacomo Puccini
Was an Italian composer whose operas are among the important operas played as standards.
Les Ballets Russes
Was an itinerant ballet company based in Paris that performed between 1909 and 1929 throughout Europe and on tours to North and South America. The company never performed in Russia, where the Revolution disrupted society.
The Beatles
Were an English rock band that formed in Liverpool, in 1960. With John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, they became widely regarded as the greatest and most influential act of the rock era.
Symphonie Fantastique
Written by Hector Berlioz, this symphony has a recurrent theme, called an idee fixe (fixed idea) which symbolizes the beloved; it becomes a musical thread unifying the five diverse movements, though its appearances are varied in harmony, rhythm, meter, tempo, etc.
Pictures at a Exhibition
is a suite in ten movements (plus a recurring, varied Promenade) composed for piano by Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky in 1874. The suite is Mussorgsky's most famous piano composition and has become a showpiece for virtuoso pianists.
Anton Webern
was an Austrian composer and conductor. He was a member of the Second Viennese School. As a student, significant follower of, and influence on Arnold Schoenberg, he became one of the best-known exponents of the twelve-tone technique. He was affiliated with German Romanticism and Expressionism.
