Music 112 Final Exam

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What is Gregorian Chant?

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a large body of monophonic vocal music set to Latin texts, composed for the Western Church over the course of many centuries, 800-1500

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What is the Ordinary of the Mass?

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the five sung portions of the Mass for which the texts are unvariable

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What is plainsong?

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A variety of Gregorian chant in which a single unaccompanied melodic line is sung in free rhythm. Uses the lengthy reverberations and the resonant modes of cathedrals to create harmonies.

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What is the quadrivium?

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A curriculum of four scientific disciplines (math, geometry, astronomy, and music) taught in medieval schools and universities

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What is a cappella?

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a term applied to unaccompanied vocal music

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What is castrato?

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A male adult singer who had been castrated as a boy to keep his voice from changing so that it would remain in the soprano or alto register

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What is falsetto voice?

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a high soprano-like voice produced by adult male singers when they sing in head voice and not in full chest voice

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What is a madrigal?

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a popular genre of secular vocal music that originated in Italy during the Renaissance, in which usually four or five voices sing love poems

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What is a motet?

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A capella composition for choir or larger chorus setting a religious devotional text- Josquin wrote many

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What is basso continuo and basso ostinato? What is the difference?

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

Basso ostinato is a motive or phrase in the bass that is repeated again and again, also characteristic of baroque music

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What is 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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What is a libretto?

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the text of an opera

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What is The Seasons?

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an oratorio by Joseph Haydn divided into four parts corresponding to the seasons - not to be confused with Vivialdi's four seasons. This one is filled with tone painting that also

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What is the tutti?

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part of a concerto grosso: 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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What is the Art of Fugue?

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an Incomplete masterpiece by Back composed in 1740s. 14 fugues in D minor, counterpart to Well Tempered Clavier, same key and subject in all of them

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What is a 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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What is the da capo aria?

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an aria in two sections, with an obligatory return to and repeat of the first; hence an aria in ternary form ABA

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What is an episode?

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a passage of free, nonimatative counterpoint found in a fugue

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What is an 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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What is the Well-Tempered Clavier?

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A collection of solo keyboard music composed by Bach in 1722 - book of fugues in all 24 major and minor keys

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Who was Antonio Salieri?

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An italian composer and conductor from Venice. Famous composer of opera and chamber music
period: Late 1700s, Classical Era

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Pianoforte

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the original name for the piano, first built around 1700. used leather covered hammers and thin harpsichord like strings. range about 4 octaves, used by mozart

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What do the pedals of the piano do? sustaining pedal, una corda pedel, sostenuto pedal?

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the sustaining pedal is the rightmost pedal that removes the dampers from all the strings and allows them to continue vibrating. The sostenuto pedal is a similar device that sustains only notes which are depressed at the time the pedal is depressed, allowing future notes to be unaffected, in the middle. The una corda pedal is the leftmost pedal which shifts the hammers so that they only strike one string instead of two or three, which softens the note and tone.

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what is a cadenza?

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

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diminished triad

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a triad consisting of a minor third and a diminished fifth above the root, considered dissonant

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augmented triad

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a triad chord consisting of two major thirds

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Heiligenstadt Testament

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A letter written by Beethoven to his brothers carl and Johann in 1802. Written in Heiligenstadt, Vienna) It reflects his despair over his increasing deafness and his desire to overcome his physical and emotional ailments in order to complete his artistic destiny.

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absolute music vs program music

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absolute music is music written for the sake of music, while program music is written with the intent of telling a story

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What is tempo rubato

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means stolen time - slight speeding up or slowing down of the tempo of a piece at the discretion of the soloist or the conductor.

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What is Dies irae

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Dies Irae (Day of Wrath) is a famous thirteenth century Latin hymn thought to be written by Thomas of Celano.[1] It is a medieval Latin poem characterized by its accentual stress and its rhymed lines.
The hymn is best known from its use as a sequence in the Roman Catholic Requiem Mass. used by berlioz in his symphonie fantastique

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idee fixe

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a "fixed idea" more specifically, an obsessive musical theme as first used in Berlioz's symphonie fantastique

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Harriet Smithson

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Henrietta Constance (Harriet) Smithson (1800 - 3 March 1854) was an Anglo-Irish actress, the first wife of Hector Berlioz, and the inspiration for his Symphonie Fantastique.

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What is the english horn

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The cor anglais, or English horn, is a double-reed woodwind instrument in the oboe family. Used by Haydn in the 1750s

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What is a 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

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Liebestod

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The famous aria sung by the expiring Isolde at the end of Wagner's opera Tristan und Isolde

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What is the ring cycle?

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a cycle of four interconnected usic dramas by Wager that collectively tell the tale of the Germanic legend Der Ring des Nibelungen

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Bayreuth Festival Theater

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an opera house in the town of Bayreuth, Germany, construced exclusively for the music dramas of RIchard Wagner

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bel canto opera

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italian for beautiful singing - a style of singing and a type of italian opera developed in the ninteenth century that features the beautiful ton and brilliant technique of the human voice - la traviatta

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recitative

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musically heightened speech, often used in an opera, oratorio or cantata to report report dramatic action and advance the plot

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accompanied recitative

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a recitative accompanied by the orchestra instead of merely the harpsichord; the opposite of secco recitative

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pentatonic scale

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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 the lines 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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dominant seventh chord

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Of all the seventh chords, perhaps the most important to understand is the 'dominant seventh' About this sound play (help·info), a major triad with a minor seventh. It was the first seventh chord to appear regularly in Western music.

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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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Arnold Schoenberg

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Arnold Schoenberg (pronounced [ˈaːrnɔlt ˈʃøːnbɛrk]) (13 September 1874 – 13 July 1951) was an Austrian and later American composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School. Developed the twelve tone technique

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What is the Ballets russes

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a russian ballet company of the early twentieth century led by Sergi Diaghilev

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Sergi Diaghilev

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Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev (Russian: Серге́й Па́влович Дя́гилев / Sergei Pavlovich Dyagilev Russian pronunciation: [sʲɪˈrɡʲej ˈpavlovʲɪtɕ ˈdʲæɡʲɪlʲɪf]), also referred to as Serge, (31 March 1872 – 19 August 1929) was a Russian art critic, patron, ballet impresario and founder of the Ballets Russes from which many famous dancers and choreographers would later arise.he company included the best young Russian dancers, among them Anna Pavlova, Adolph Bolm, Vaslav Nijinsky, Tamara Karsavina and Vera Karalli, and their first night on 19 May 1909 was a sensation.

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Ellen Taaffe Zwilich

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Ellen Taaffe Zwilich (born April 30, 1939, in Miami, Florida) is an American composer, the first female composer to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music. Her early works are marked by atonal exploration, but by the late 1980s she had matured to a post-modernist, neo-romantic style.

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orchestral lied

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German for song - the genre of art song, for voice and piano accompaniment that originated in Germany