Music Terms Final

A Cappella

Choral music performed without instrumental accompaniment.

Aria

Lyric song for solo voice with orchestral accompaniment, generally expressing intense emotion; found in opera, cantata, and oratorio.

Ballet

A dance form featuring a staged presentation of group or solo dancing with music, costumes, and scenery.

Basso Continuo

Italian for "continuous bass." Also refers to performance group with a bass, chordal instrument (harpsichord, organ), and one bass melody instrument (cello, bassoon).

Bel Canto

"Beautiful singing"; elegant Italian vocal style characterized by florid melodic lines delivered by voices of great agility, smoothness, and purity of tone.

Cadenza

Virtuosic solo passage in the manner of an improvisation, performed near the end of an aria or a movement of a concerto.

Cantata

Vocal genre for solo singers, chorus, and instrumentalists based on a lyric or dramatic poetic narrative. It generally consists of several movements, including recitatives, arias, and ensemble numbers.

Castrato

Male singer who was castrated during boyhood to preserve his soprano or alto vocal register; prominent in seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century opera.

Chamber Music

Ensemble music for up to about ten players, with one player to a part.

Coda

The last part of a piece, usually added to a standard form to bring it to a close.

Concerto

Instrumental genre in several movements for solo instrument (or instrumental group) and orchestra.

Concerto Grosso

Baroque concerto type based on the opposition between a small group of solo instruments (the concertino) and orchestra (the ripieno).

Counterpoint

The art of combining in a single texture two or more melodic lines.

Dynamics

Element of musical expression relating to the degree of loudness or softness, or volume, of a sound.

Equal Temperament

Tuning system based on the division of the octave into twelve equal half steps; the system used today

Form

Structure and design in music, based on repetition, contrast, and variation; the organizing principle of music.

Fugue

Polyphonic form popular in the Baroque era, in which one or more themes are developed by imitative counterpoint.

Gregorian Chant

Monophonic melody with a freely flowing, unmeasured vocal line; liturgical chant of the Roman Catholic Church. Also plainchant or plainsong.

Improvisation

The creation of music while it is being performed, as in Baroque embellishment, cadenzas of concertos, jazz, and some non-Western musics.

Incidental Music

Music written to accompany dramatic works.

Leitmotif

"Leading motive," or basic recurring theme, representing a person, object, or idea; widely used in Wagner's music dramas.

Libretto

Text or script of an opera, oratorio, cantata, or musical.

Lied (Art Song)

German for "song"; most commonly associated with the solo art song of the nineteenth century, usually accompanied by piano.

Madrigal

Renaissance secular work originating in Italy for voices, with or without instruments, set to a short, lyric love poem; also popular in England.

Mass

Central serive of the Roman Catholic Church.

Minimalism

Contemporary musical style featuring the repetition of short melodic, rhythmic, and harmonic patterns with little variation.

Movement

Complete, self-contained part within a larger musical work.

Musique Concrete

Music made up of natural sounds and sound effects that are recorded and then manipulated electronically.

Nocturne

"Night piece"; introspective work common in the nineteenth century, often for piano.

Opera

Music drama that is generally sung throughout, combining the resources of vocal and instrumental music with poetry and drama, acting and dancing, scenery and costumes.

Oratorio

Large-scale dramatic genre originating in the Baroque, based on a text of religious or serious character, performed by solo voices, chorus, and orchestra; similar to opera but without scenery, costumes, or action.

Overture

An introductory movement, as in an opera or oratorio, often presenting melodies from arias to come. Also an orchestral work for concert performance.

Program Music

Instrumental music endowed with literary or pictorial associations, especially popular in the nineteenth century.

Recitative

Solo vocal declamation that follows the inflections of the text, often resulting in a disjunct vocal style; found in opera, cantata, and oratorio.

Requiem Mass

Roman Catholic Mass for the Dead.

Ritornello

Short, recurring instrumental passage found in both the aria and the Baroque concerto.

Rubato

"Borrowed time," common in Romantic music, in which the performer hesitates here or hurries forward there, imparting flexibility to the written note values.

Serialism

Method of composition in which various musical elements may be ordered in a fixed series; also called twelve-tone music.

Sonata-Allegro Form

The opening movement of the multi-movement cycle, consisting of themes that are stated in the first section (exposition), developed in the second section (development), and restated in the third section (recapitulation). Also called sonata form.

Sprechstimme

A vocal style in which the melody is spoken at approximate pitches rather than sung on exact pitches; developed by Arnold Schoenberg.

Symphonic Poem

One-movement orchestral form that develops a poetic idea, suggests a scene, or creates a mood, generally associated with the Romantic era. Also tone poem.

Symphony

Large work for orchestra, generally in three or four movements.

Tempo

The rate of speed or pace of music.

Texture

The interweaving of melodic (horizontal) and harmonic (vertical) elements in the musical fabric.

Theme

Melodic idea used as a basic building block in the construction of a piece.

Theme and Variations

Compositional procedure in which a theme is stated and then altered in successive statements; occurs as an independent piece or as a movement of a multimovement cycle.

Tutti

"All"; the opposite of solo.

Virtuoso

Performer of extraordinary technical ability.

Whole-Tone Scale

Scale pattern that's built entirely of whole-step intervals, common in music of the French Impressionists.

Word-Painting

Musical pictorialization of words as an expressive device; a prominent feature of the Renaissance madrigal.