Music History I Final

Chanson

French for “song”. Secular song with French words; used especially for polyphonic songs of the fourteenth through sixteenth centuries. Du Fay a major composer

Motet

Polyphonic vocal composition. Usually has Latin text and is used in a church setting. The specific definition has changed over time.

Madrigal

Fourteenth century Italian poetic form and its musical setting, having two or three stanzas followed by a ritornello. Renaissance music.

Cantus Firmus Mass

A polyphonic mass in which each movement is based on the same polyphonic work, using the tenor (sometimes the superius) as the cantus firmus.

Council of Trent

A meeting held by the council of the Catholic Church to respond to the reformation. They tried to make the church service more universal, eliminating local music traditions within the church. They purged chants of “barbarisms, obscurities, contrarieties, and superfluities".

San Marco (St. Mark’s)

The center of Venetian musical culture during the Renaissance. The chapelmaster position was of highest prestige. The church began to be known for polychoral works due to its two choir lofts and organs. Monteverdi was a chappelmeister here, and Gabrielli was a organist.

Monody

An accompanied solo song/the musical texture of solo singing with one or more instruments.

Sacred concerto (e.g. Gabrieli, Schütz)

A sacred vocal work with instruments, popular in the Baroque era.

Da capo aria

An aria form with two sections. The form is ABA, as it goes back to the head (Italian for “from the head”.

Allemande

French for “German Dance”. Highly stylized dance in binary form, in a moderately slow quadruple meter with almost continuous movement. Popular during the Renaissance and Baroque eras, often the first movement of a suite.

Courante

A dance in binary form in compound meter at a moderate tempo and with an upbeat. Standard movement of a Baroque dance suite.

Sarabande

In French Baroque music, a slow dance in binary form and triple meter. Standard movement of a suite.

Gigue

French for “gig”. Fast dance movement in a suite, in binary form with a compound meter. Features wide melodic leaps and continuous triplets. The two sections usually begin with imitation.

Fugue

A composition or section of a composition in imitative texture that is based on a single subject and begings with successive statements of the subject in voices.

Castrato

A male singer castrated before puberty for opera/church music to sing higher notes without a female voice. Roles originated in operas specifically for the castrato voice. Prominent in the 17th and early 18th centuries.

French overture

A type of overture that opens with a slow, homophonic, and majestic section, and followed by a faster second section that begins with imitation.

concerto grosso

A concerto performed by a small group of soloists accompanied by the orchestra. Contrasts the different textures of small group ensembles with the large orchestra.

Prince Nicholas Esterházy

Prince of the most powerful noble family in Hungary. The Esterházys had previously hired Haydn to compose at court, but after the death of his brother, Nicholas (an avid music lover) commissioned even more works from Haydn.

Contenance angloise

An artistic quality of early-fifthteenth century English music. Includes pervasive concoinance and frequent usage of harmonic thirds and sixths, typically in parallel motion.

Oratorio

Genre of dramatic music originated in the 17th century. Has narrative, dialogue, and commentary through recitatives, ensembles, choruses, and instrumental music. Like an unstaged opera on a religious/biblical subject.

Chorale

A strophic hymn sung in the Lutheran tradition. Intended to be sung by the congregation.

Lute tablature

Music for the lute in tablature form. Notation shows the player what finger should play on which string and which fret.

Ritornello form, as found in Vivaldi’s Violin Concerto in A minor

Standard form for fast movements at the first half of the eighteenth century, featuring a ritornello for full orchestra that alternates with episodes characterized by virtuosic material played by one or more soloists.

Opera seria

Opera with serious themes without comic characters or scores. Popular in the 18th century.

Simple recitative

A style of recitative for voice and basso continuo. Used for setting dialogue or monologue with music in a speechlike fashion.

Accompanied recitative

A recitative that uses orchestral accompaniment to dramatize the text.

Mannheim orchestra

Under the direction of violinist/composer Johann Stamitz, he made this orchestra one of the most prominent orchestras in Europe. They were known for their discipline and technique. They revolutionized the crescendo and dynamic contrast.

Sonata form

Common form consisting of an exposition, development, and recapitulation section. Usually in the first two movements of sonatas, common in chamber works and symphonies of the Classic and Romantic periods.

Concerto first-movement form

The form of the first movement of a concerto: exposition, development, and recapitulation.

Cadenza

A highly embellished/improvised passage at an important cadence.

Minuet and trio

A form that combines two binary-form minuets to create an ABA pattern, where A is the minuet and B is the trio.

Scherzo

A joking/fast movement in minuet and trio form.

Guillaume Du Fay

A Renaissance composer, very well known for his scared works. The leading composer of his time, worked for two separate periods in the papal chapel.

Ottaviano Petrucci

A businessman/craftsman who created an efficient method to print music, making printed works more accessible across Europe.

Palestrina and his Pope Marcellus Mass

Palestrina was a deeply religious composer who wrote a majority of sacred works. His Pope Marcellus Mass saved polyphony from condemnation by the Council of Trent by composing a six-voice mass that did not obscure the words.

Monteverdi and L’Orfeo

Monteverdi was a Renaissance composer who only wrote vocal works. His first opera was L’Orfeo, based on the story of Orpheus and Eurydice. He composed this work from his experience composing madrigals with text expression.

William Byrd

Leading English composer of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century (late Renaissance). He was a Catholic, yet composed works for the Anglican church when Catholicism was outlawed. His main patron was Queen Elizabeth while composing for the Chapel Royal. He wrote many motets, 3 masses, 4 services, as well as secular works.

Rameau and Traité de l’harmonie

Rameau was the most significant music theorist of the Baroque era, and was a leading composer in France. He was made famous by his ballets and operas. His Traité de l’harmonie (1722) was a book he published that won him renown as a music theorist.

Alessandro Scarlatti and Griselda

A late Baroque composer, he wrote 600 cantatas. Important for the usage of Da Capo arias. Large composer of vocal works in general. La Griselda was Scarlatti’s last opera, and it shows his rich contrasts as a composer in his different sections.

J.S. Bach

A composer of the Baroque era, he is now regarded as one of the greatest composers of all time, but of his era, he was much more modest. He worked at many different churches as organists and music directors, but his most prestigious position was at the cantor and civic music director at St. Thomas’s School in Leipzig, Germany.

Well-Tempered Clavier

A book written by J.S. Bach, it was published in 1722, when the new (and modern) system of tuning had been brought to keyboards. The book consisted of 24 prelude and fugue parts, one for major and minor, to show the possibility of playing in all 12 keys. It also included pedagogical aspects and how to improve playing.

J.S. Bach, Prelude and Fugue in A Minor, BWV 543

A keyboard piece written by Bach with influence by Vivaldi. The lines in the prelude written for the keyboard are very violinistic, like rapid moving between notes on a moving line. The fugue subject is much like a ritornello.

Pietro Metastasio

Metastasio was an Italian poet/librettist, who wrote dramas which were set to hundreds of different works of music. He became court poet in Vienna. His works feature meaningful lessons learned and are typically opera seria.

Lorenzo da Ponte

Librettist who wrote the librettos for most famous comic operas: The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, and Cosi fan tutte. He was the poet for the imperial court theatre. His comic works were inspired by opera buffa, but featured more serious characters with greater depth and growth.

Johann Stamitz

Violinist and composer who led the Mannheim orchestra, an orchestra known for its great discipline and introduction of large dynamic contrasts. He was the first composer to popularize the standard 4-movements in a symphony.

Johann Stamitz, Symphony in E-flat

A work written by Stamitz that utilizes the famous Mannheim crescendo in the transition to the dominant, builds tension through tremolos the progress from piano to fortissimo.

Haydn

A composer of the classical period, at his time he was hailed as the greatest composer alive. His music and lifestyle were largely influenced by the Enlightenment, with kindness and good character. His early career included freelance composing and serving as a music director at court. The position that launched his career and made him famous was his work with the Esterházy family, where he worked as a composer and leader of music operations.

Haydn, London Symphonies

After the death of Nickolous Esterházy, his son disbanded the orchestra at court. From there, Haydn was released of his duties and was given a pension to live in Vienna, yet he took two extended stays in London from 1791-1795. From there, he conducted orchestras, taught lessons, and wrote his last 12 symphonies, known as the London symphonies and taken with high acclaim.

Beethoven

A late classical composer that paved new ideas that shaped the romantic period of music. He is famous especially for his symphonies, concertos, string quartets, and piano sonatas. After going deaf, he continued to compose, and persevered through those challenges despite having intentions to take his own life.

Beethoven, Symphony No. 3 “Eroica”

His first work that fully exemplifies his new approach to writing after his onset of deafness. The “heroic” struggle in this piece is thought to be an interpretation with Beethoven’s own struggles in life worked into the music.

What is Bach’s catalogue?

BWV

What is Haydn’s catalogue?

Hoboken (Hob.)

What is Mozart’s catalouge?

Köchel (K.)

Madrigals

Invented in Italy, a setting of an Italian poem. Almost always secular, some are sacred. Text painting extremely important.

When was the Renaissance era

1400-1600

When was the Baroque era

1600-1750

When was the classical period

1750-1820