Music History chapter 3

Pastoral Drama

A form of theatrical presentation combining spoken dialogue with music and songs, often set in an idealized rural landscape.

Intermedi

A form of musical entertainment interspersed between acts of a play, featuring elaborate costume and staging. (Music interludes between play acts; direct precursor to opera).

Oratorio

A large-scale musical work for orchestra and voices, typically based on a sacred theme and performed without staging or acting.

Cantata

A vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often including arias and choruses, and used in both sacred and secular contexts.

Historia

A type of musical drama that combines music, singing, and theatrical elements to tell a narrative, often religious in nature. (Lutheran setting of a biblical narrative)

Passions

Musical settings of Christ’s suffering and death.

Second practice (Segonda Pratica)

Coined by Monterverdi: a new style of music that emphasized the expressive power of the text over the strict rules of counterpoint, allowing for greater dissonance and freedom in compositions for dramatic effect.(Text-driven style with freer dissonance (clashing notes used more flexibly))

Strophic Aria

An aria in strophic form, where the same music is repeated for each stanza of text, often with variations.

Recitative

A style of vocal writing that imitates the rhythms and pitch fluctuations of speech, used in opera, oratorio, and cantata to advance the plot. (Speech-Like singing for narrative/dialogue).

Lament

A composition expressing grief or sorrow, often characterized by a descending tetrachord base tune.

AIr de Cour

A popular type of secular vocal music in France during the 17th century, typically a homophonic song for one or more voices with lute accompaniment. (French secular court song for solo voice + Lute).

Concerted Madrigal

A madrigal that combines voices with instruments, often contrasting different groups of singers and instruments, popular in the Baroque era. (Madrigal with instrumental accompaniment).

Sacred Concerto

A genre of sacred vocal music from the Baroque era, combining voices with instruments, often in a dramatic and expressive style, for liturgical use.

Toccata

A virtuoso piece of music, typically for a keyboard instrument, characterized by its free form, imitative sections, and rapid, improvisatory passages.

Ricercare

An instrumental piece, often involving imitation, that developed into the fugue. It can also refer to a type of preludial piece.

Fugue

A contrapuntal compositional technique in two or more voices, built on a subject (theme) that is introduced at the beginning in imitation and then developed throughout the piece.

Chacone (Chaconne)

A Baroque dance form, typically a slow, stately dance in triple meter, based on a repeating harmonic progression or ground bass.

Passacalle (Passacaglia)

A Baroque dance form similar to the chaconne, often built over a ground bass, typically in triple meter

Concerto Medium

A Baroque style of music where different groups of voices and/or instruments are juxtaposed and combined, creating contrast and dialogue. (Contrasting groups of voices/instruments with basso continuo).

Polychoral Motet

A motet for two or more choirs singing in alternation or together, often used in large churches during the Renaissance and Baroque periods, particularly in Venice.

Style Brise

A French Baroque harpsichord style characterized by broken chords and arpeggiated figures, giving the impression of improvisation. 

Cantus Mollis

(“Soft Song”) In medieval and Renaissance theory, refers to compositions using a “flat” key signature, often associated with more lyrical or sorrowful moods. (Flat key signature; softer affect.)

Cantus Durus

(“Hard Song”) In medieval and Renaissance theory, refers to compositions using a “natural” or “sharp” key signature, often associated with more direct or joyful moods. (Sharp/Natural key signature; brighter affect.)

Tonality

The organization of pitches around a central pitch (tonic) and its associated scale and chords, giving a sense of key and harmonic direction.

Ostinato Basso (Basso Ostinato)

A repeating bass line or melodic pattern, often found in Baroque music, providing a harmonic and rhythmic foundation. (Repeated bass pattern supporting variations).

Fiori Musical

A collection of organ masses and liturgical pieces published by Girolamo Frescobaldi in 1635, famous for its contributions to organ music. (Frescobaldi’s 1635 organ mass collection).

French Overture

A Baroque orchestral form consisting of two parts: a slow majestic opening with dotted rhythms, followed by a faster, imitative section. Used to open operas and oratorios. (Two-Part overture: slow dotted rhythm, then fast imitative). 

Divertissements

Interludes a ballet, song, and spectacle in French Baroque opera, often serving to entertain and provide a break from the main plot. (Light musical/dance interludes in opera/ballet.)

Agrements

Ornaments or graces in French Baroque music, such as trills, mordents, and appoggiaturas, used to embellish melodies. (French Baroque ornaments/grace notes).

Florentine Camerata

A group of intellectuals, poets, and musicians in the late 16th-century Florence who discussed art, science, and ancient Greek drama, leading to the development of opera. (Circle of Florentine intellectuals who pioneered monody/opera).