Listening To Music Final Flashcards (Prof. Craig Wright)

Front 1

Gregorian Chant

Back 1

-unaccompanied vocal music
-setting sacred Latin texts for Western (Roman Catholic) Church
-from 0-1550AD
-no meter or regular rhythms
-monophony (all voices in harmony)
-syllabic and melismatic singing

Front 2

Ordinary of the Mass

Back 2

-chants sung every day
-brought by Machaut
-spread voices over 2.5 octaves
-polyphony

Front 3

plainsong

Back 3

another word for Gregorian chant

-unaccompanied vocal music
-setting sacred Latin texts for Western (Roman Catholic) Church
-from 0-1550AD
-no meter or regular rhythms
-monophony (all voices in harmony)
-syllabic and melismatic singing

Front 4

melismatic (chant)

Back 4

many notes sung to one syllable

Front 5

a cappella

Back 5

singing without instruments

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castrato

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a castrated man (before puberty) in the soprano, mezzo-soprano, contralto range

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falsetto voice

Back 7

above the modal voice register

Front 8

madrigal

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-1530 Europe
-4 or 5 solo voices
-vernacular poem to music (often about love)
-exemplifies humanist (word painting)

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motet

Back 9

a composition for choir or larger chorus setting a religious, devotional, or solemn text; often sung a cappella

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basso continuo

Back 10

a small ensemble of at least two instrumentalists who provide a foundation for the melody or melodies above; heard almost exclusively in Baroque music

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basso ostinato

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a motive or phrase in the bass that is repeated again and again

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concerto grosso

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a multi-movement concerto of the Baroque era that pits the sound of a small group of soloists (the concertino) against that of the full orchestra (the tutti)

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libretto

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the text of an opera

Front 14

The Four Seasons

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-Vivaldi early 1700s
-wrote a solo concerto to represent each season
-very expressive; word painting

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fugue

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a composition for three, four, or five parts played or sung by voices or instruments; begins with a presentation of a subject in imitation in each part and continues with modulating passages of free counterpoint and further appearances of the subject

Front 16

Art of Fugue

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Bach’s last project (1742–1750), an encyclopedic treatment of all known contrapuntal procedures, set forth in nineteen canons and fugues

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chorale

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the German word for the hymn of the Lutheran Church; hence a simple religious melody to be sung by the congregation

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episode

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a passage of free, nonimitative counterpoint found in a fugue

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oratorio

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a large-scale genre of sacred music involving an overture, arias, recitatives, and choruses, but sung, whether in a theater or a church, without costumes or scenery

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The Well-Tempered Clavier

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two sets of twenty-four preludes and fugues compiled by J. S. Bach in 1720 and 1742

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Water Music

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dance suite written for King George

Front 22

Lorenzo da Ponte

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wrote librettos for Don Giovanni

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pianoforte

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the original name for the piano

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sustaining pedal

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the right-most pedal on the piano; when it is depressed, all dampers are removed from the strings, allowing them to vibrate freely

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una corda pedal

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shifts action to right, so hammers only hit two instead of three strings

Front 26

sostenuto pedal

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-made by Steinway
-sustains notes that are only currently held down

Front 27

cadenza

Back 27

a showy passage for the soloist appearing near the end of the movement in a concerto; usually incorporates rapid runs, arpeggios, and snippets of previously heard themes into a fantasylike improvisation

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diminished triad

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made up entirely of minor thirds and producing a tense, unstable sound

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augmented triad

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two major thirds

Front 30

Heiligenstadt Testament

Back 30

something akin to Beethoven’s last will and testament, written in despair when he recognized that he would ultimately suffer a total loss of hearing; named after the Viennese suburb in which he penned it

Front 31

absolute music

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instrumental music free of a text or any preexisting program

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program music

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a piece of instrumental music, usually for symphony orchestra, that seeks to re-create in sound the events and emotions portrayed in some extramusical source: a story, a play, a historical event, an encounter with nature, or even a painting

Front 33

tempo rubato

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(Italian for "robbed") in musical notation, a tempo mark indicating that the performer may take, or steal, great liberties with the tempo

Front 34

Dies irae

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a Gregorian chant composed in the thirteenth century and used as the central portion of the Requiem Mass of the Catholic Church

Front 35

idee fixe

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literally, a "fixed idea"; more specifically, an obsessive musical theme as first used in Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique

Front 36

Harriet Smithson

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-actress, Paris Hilton-esque
-Berlioz obsessed with her and inspired to write Symphonie fantastique
-eventually married

Front 37

English horn

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an alto oboe, pitched at the interval a fifth below the oboe, much favored by composers of the Romantic era

Front 38

nocturne

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a slow, introspective type of music, usually for piano, with rich harmonies and poignant dissonances intending to convey the mysteries of the night

Front 39

Liebestod

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(German for "love death") the famous aria sung by the expiring Isolde at the end of Richard Wagner’s opera Tristan und Isolde

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leitmotif

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a brief, distinctive unit of music designed to represent a character, object, or idea; a term applied to the motives in the music dramas of Richard Wagner lento:

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Ring cycle

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a cycle of four interconnected music dramas by Richard Wagner that collectively tell the tale of the Germanic legend Der Ring des Nibelungen

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Bayreuth Festival Theater

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still controlled by the descendants of Wagner, a festival that continues to stage the music dramas of Wagner—and only Wagner—at the Bayreuth Festival Theater, an opera house built especially for that purpose beat:

Front 43

bel canto opera

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(Italian for "beautiful singing") a style of singing and a type of Italian opera developed in the nineteenth century that features the beautiful tone and brilliant technique of the human voice

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verismo opera

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"realism" opera; the Italian term for a type of late-nineteenth century opera in which the subject matter concerns the unpleasant realities of everyday life

Front 45

simple recitative

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recitative accompanied only by a basso continuo or a harpsichord, and not the full orchestra

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accompanied recitative

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a recitative in which the orchestra (or selected members of the instrumental ensemble) play an active role, rather than simply sustaining chords to provide a harmonic foundation for the singer.

Front 47

Lied

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(German for "song") the genre of art song, for voice and piano accompaniment, that originated in Germany c1800

Front 48

etude

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an instrumental musical composition, usually short and of considerable difficulty, usually designed to provide practice material for perfecting a particular musical skill.
-Chopin, Liszt, Debussy

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Lisztomania

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the sort of mass hysteria, today reserved for pop music stars, that surrounded touring Romantic-era pianist Franz Liszt

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pentatonic

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a five-note scale found often in folk music and non-Western music

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whole-tone scale

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a six-note scale each pitch of which is a whole tone away from the next

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parallel motion

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a musical process in which all of the lines or parts move in the same direction, and at the same intervals, for a period of time; the opposite of counterpoint

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glissando

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a device of sliding up or down the scale very rapidly

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seventh chord

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a chord spanning seven letter names and constructed by superimposing three thirds

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twelve-tone composition

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a method of composing music, devised by Arnold Schoenberg, that has each of the twelve notes of the chromatic scale sound in a fixed, regularly recurring order

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atonal music

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music without tonality; music without a key center; most often associated with the twentieth century avant-garde style of Arnold Schoenberg

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Arnold Schoenberg

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-leader of "Second Viennese School", new innovative composers
-influenced by Wagner
-created atonal music, without tonality or key center

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Ballets russes

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a Russian ballet company of the early twentieth century led by Sergei Diaghilev

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polychord

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the stacking of one triad or seventh chord on another so they sound simultaneously

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irregular meters

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suggests non-Western origin

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Sergei Diaghilev

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legendary impresario (producer) of Russian opera and ballet

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Ellen Taaffe Zwilich

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-first Composer's Chair at Carnegie Hall
-American "traditional modernist"

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minimalism

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a style of modern music that takes a very small amount of musical material and repeats it over and over to form a composition

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Nixon in China

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most famous minimalist opera