8. Glossary

Antiphonal – a genre of sacred music featuring multiple choirs, or a choir that has been divided into different groups that can perform call and responses.

Aria – homophonic compositions featuring a solo singer over orchestral accompaniment. Arias are very melodic primarily utilized in operas, cantatas, and oratorios.

Basso Continuo – continuous realization of harmony throughout a musical piece, usually played by a harpsichord and/or cello. The Basso continuo provides a framework/template for harmonic accompaniments.

Cantata – a major composite church choral form of music from the Baroque period that involves soloist, choir, and orchestra. Cantatas have several movements and last for fifteen to thirty minutes. Cantatas are performed without staging but they utilize narration, arias, recitatives, choruses, and smaller vocal ensembles.

Chorale – originally the result from the German protestant church’s reformation, the chorale is the hymn (tune) in a four-part homophonic work that is sung by the church congregation. Some chorales became the foundation for cantatas and chorale preludes for organ.

Concerto – a musical composition for a soloist and orchestra.

Concerto Grosso – a musical composition for a small group of soloists and orchestra.

Cori Spezzati – a divided choir that is utilized to perform in a polychoral style—able to perform “call and response”. Large churches were designed with multiple choir seating sections to perform such works.

Fugue – perfected by J.S. Bach during the baroque period, fugues are a form written in an imitative contrapuntal style in multiple parts. Fugues are based upon their original tune that is called the subject. The subject is then imitated and overlapped by the other parts called the answer, countersubject, stretto, and episode.

Homophony – music where the melody is supported by a chordal accompaniment. Homophony is generally the opposite of polyphony where the voices are imitative and weave with each other.

Libretto – the text or actual words of an opera, musical, cantata, or oratorio, written or compiled by a librettist.

Melisma – more than one note sung to one syllable of the text. The melismatic style was used extensively in Gregorian chant.

Motor Rhythm – the constant repeated subdivision of the beat. The motor rhythm provides unity and stability within a musical piece.

Movement – a subsection or independent section/piece of a larger work.

Opera – a staged musical drama for voices and orchestra. Operas are fully blocked and performed in costume with sets. Operas utilize arias and recitatives with no narration.

Oratorio – a major work with religious or contemplative characters for solo voices, chorus, and orchestra. Oratorios do not utilize blocking, costumes, or scenery.

Polychoral – a compositional style where the chorus/choir is divided into two or more groups that can perform independently or independently with each other (see antiphonal).

Polyphony – musical texture that simultaneously features two or more relatively independent and important melodic lines

Program Music – instrumental music written to portray an non-musical idea. A descriptive piece.

Recitative – an operatic number of speech-like melodies and rhythms, performed in a flexible tempo to sparse accompaniment which is most often provided by the basso continuo. Recitatives are often performed before arias and have texts that tend to be descriptive and narrating.

Ritornello – repeated sections found in between the solo sections of a concerto grosso.

Sectional Form – a form of distinct sections that can be identified because of the changes in texture, or other musical elements and compositional techniques.

Solo – a musical piece that features one musician either with or without accompaniment. In a larger scored piece, the solo is the main part that should be brought out while performing.

Sonata – a musical composition in multiple movements for solo instrument, usually accompanied by the piano.

Stylized Dance – a piece of music that sounds like a dance but is not designed for dancing. In other words, a stylized dance uses the distinct characteristics of a dance and would be recognized as a dance but might be too long or too complicated to dance to.

Subject – the main melody or tune of a fugue.

Suite – a multi-movement instrumental composition of baroque music—usually in dance form.

Terraced Dynamics – distinct, abrupt changes in volume without gradual transitions.

Through-Composed – songs or musical compositions in which new music is composed for each stanza or section with no repetition.

Tutti – where the entire musical ensemble performs together as a whole.

Word Painting – the musical depiction of specific images from the text of vocal music.