Humanities Vocab: Baroque

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Baroque

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the prevailing seventeenth-century artistic and cultural style, characterized by an emphasis on grandeur, opulence, expansiveness, and complexity

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Florid Baroque style

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A variation of the Baroque style specifically identified with the Catholic Church’s patronage of the arts and used to glorify its beliefs

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Baldacchino

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An ornamental structure in the shape of a canopy, supported by four columns, built over a church altar, and usually decorated with statues and other ornaments

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Illusionism

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The use of painting techniques in Florid Barque art to create the appearance that decorated areas are part of the surrounding architecture, usually employed in ceiling decorations

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Classical Baroque style

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A secular variation of the Barque style that was identified with French kings and artists, was rooted in Classical ideals, and was used mainly to emphasize the power and grandeur of the monarchy

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Restrained Baroque style

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A variation of the Barque style identify with Dutch and English architects and painters who wanted to reduce Barque grandeur and exuberance to a more human scale

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Virtuoso

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An aristocratic person who experimented in science, usually as an amateur, in the seventeenth century, giving science respectability and a wider audience; later, in music, a person with great technical skill

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Opera

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A drama or play set to music and consisting of vocal pieces with orchestral accompaniment; acting scenery, and sometimes choruses and dancing are used to heighten the dramatic values of operas

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Bel canto

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Italian, “beautiful singing”; a style of singing characteristic of seventeenth-century Italian opera stressing ease, purity, and evenness of tone along with precise vocal technique.

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Clavier

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Any musical instrument having a keyboard, such as a piano, organ, or harpsichord; the term came into general usage with the popularity of Bach’s set of studies entitle The Well-Tempered Clavier

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Fugue

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In music, a composition for several instruments in which a theme is introduced by one instrument and then repeated by each successively entering instrument so that a complicated interweaving of themes, variations, imitations, an echoes results; this compositional technique began in the 15th century and reached its zenith in the Baroque period in works by Bach

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Subject

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In music, the main theme

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Countersubject

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in music, in the fugue, a contrasting variant to the subject, either below or above it

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Episode

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In music, a short transitional section played between the subject and the countersubject; used in fugal composition

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Trill

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In music, the rapid alternation of two notes, a step apart; used as a musical embellishment

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Oratorio

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A choral work based on religious events or scripture employing singers, choruses, and orchestra, but without scenery or staging and performed usually in a church or concert hall

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Refrain

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In music, a recurring musical passage or phrase; called ritornello in Italian

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Sonata

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In music, an instrumental composition, usually in three or four movements

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Concerto

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In music, a composition for one or more soloists and orchestra, usually in a symphonic form with three contrasting movements

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Program music

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Instrumental music that depicts a narrative, portrays a setting, or suggests a sequence of events; often based on other sources, such as a poem or a play

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Tremolo

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In music, the rapid repetition of two pitches in a chord, so as to produce a tremulous effect