Baroque Period Terms Flashcards
Period of music history from about 1600 to about 1750, overlapping the late Renaissance and early Classic periods.
Baroque
Objectified or archetypal emotions or states of mind, such as sadness, joy, fear, or wonder; one goal of much Baroque music was to arouse the affections.
Affections
(Italian, “first lady”); Claudio Monteverdi’s term for the style and practice of sixteenth-century polyphony, in contradistinction to the seconda pratica.
First practice (prima practice)
Monteverdi’s term for a practice of counterpoint and composition that allows the rules of sixteenth-century counterpoint (the prima practica) to be broken in order to express the feelings of text. Also called stile moderno.
Second practice (seconda practica)
(Italian, “continuous bass”); (1) system of notation and performance practice, used in the Baroque period, in which an instrumental bass line is written out and one or more players of keyboard, lute, or similar instruments fill in the harmony with appropriate chords or improvised melodic lines. (2) The bass line itself.
Basso continuo
A form of basso continuo in which the bass line is supplied with numbers or flat or sharp signs to indicate the appropriate chords to be played.
Figured bass
Performing (or creating a performable edition of) music whose notation is incomplete, as in playing a basso continuo or completing a piece left unfinished by its composer.
Realization
A temperament in which the octave is divided into twelve equal semitones. This is the most commonly used tuning for Western music today.
Equal temperament
The addition of embellishments to a given melody, either during performance or as part of the act of composition.
Ornamentation
(Italian, “cadence”); Highly embellished passage, often improvised, at an important cadence, usually occurring just before the end of a piece or section.
Cadenza
(Italian, “work”); Drama with continuous or nearly continuous music, staged with scenery, costumes, and action.
Opera
(Italian, “little book”); literary text for an opera or other musical stage work.
Libretto
(1) An accompanied solo song. (2) The musical texture of solo singing accompanied by one or more instruments.
Monody
(Italian, “air”); (1) In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, any section of an Italian strophic poem for a solo singer. (2) Lyrical monologue in an opera or other vocal work such as cantata and oratorio.
Aria
A passage or section in an opera, oratoria, cantata, or other vocal work in recitative style.
Recitative
(1) Generic term used throughout the seventeenth century for an abstract ensemble piece, especially one that serves as an introduction to a vocal work. (2) Italian opera overture in the early eighteenth century. (3) Early symphony.
Sinfonia
(Italian, “refrain”); (1) In a fourteenth century madrigal, the closing section, in a different meter form the preceding verses. (2) In sixteenth and seventeenth century vocal music, instrumental introduction or interlude between sung stanzas. (3) In an aria or similar piece, an instrumental passage that recurs several times, like a refrain. Typically, it is played at the beginning, as interludes (often in modified form), and again at the end, and it states the main theme. (4) In a fast movement of a concerto, the recurring thematic material played at the beginning by the full orchestra and repeated, usually in varied form, throughout the movement and at the end.
Ritornello
(Italian, “excited style”); Style devised by Claudio Monteverdi to portray anger and warlike actions, characterized by rapid reiteration of a single note, whether on quickly spoken syllables or in a measured sting tremolo.
Stile Concitato
(1) recitativo arioso. (2) Short, aria-like passage. (3) Style of vocal writing that approaches the lyricism of an aria but is freer in form.
Arioso
Male singers who were castrated before puberty to preserve their high vocal range, prominent in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, especially in opera.
Castrato
A Florentine scholar who edited several Greek dramas. He concluded that Greek music consisted of a single melody, sung by a soloist or chorus, with or without accompaniment. This melody could evoke powerful emotional effects in the listener through the natural expressiveness of vocal registers, rising and falling pitch, and changing rhythms and tempo.
Girolamo Mei
(Italian, “circle” or “association”); Circle of intellectuals and amateurs of the arts that met in Florence, Italy, in the 1570s and 1580s.
Florentine Camerata
A colleague of Girolamo Mei. Hosted an academy where scholars discussed literature, science, and the arts and musicians performed new music.
Count Bardi
The first public opera house. Opened in 1637 in Venice, Italy.
Teatro San Cassiano
(Italian, “persistent bass”); or ground bass. A pattern in the bass that repeats while the melody above it changes.
Basso ostinato
(Italian, “to be sung”); (1) In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a vocal chamber work with continuo, usually for solo voice, consisting of several sections or movements that include recitatives and arias and setting a lyrical or quasi-dramatic text. (2) Form of Lutheran church music in the eighteenth century, combining poetic texts with texts drawn from chorales or the Bible, and including recitatives, arias, chorale settings, and usually one or more choruses. (3) In later eras, a work for soloists, chorus, and orchestra in several movements but smaller than an oratorio.
Cantata
Genre of dramatic music that originated in the seventeenth century, combining narrative, dialogue, and commentary through arias, recitatives, ensembles, choruses, and instrumental music, like an unstaged opera. Usually on a religious or biblical subject.
Oratorio
In Lutheran music of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, a musical setting based on a biblical narrative.
Historia
A musical setting of one of the biblical account of Jesus’ crucifixion, the most common type of historia.
Passion
(Italian, “to seek out” or “to attempt”); (1) In the early to mid-sixteenth century, a prelude in the style of an improvisation. (2) From the late sixteenth century on, an instrumental piece that treats one or more subjects in imitation.
Ricercare
(Italian, “song”); (1) Sixteenth century Italian genre, an instrumental work adapted from a chanson or composed in a similar style. (2) In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, an instrumental work in several contrasting sections, of which the first and some of the others are in imitative counterpoint.
Canzona
(Italian, “sounded”); (1) A piece to be played on one or more instruments. (2) Baroque instrumental piece with contrasting sections or movements, often with imitative counterpoint. (3) Genre in several movements for one or two solo instruments.
Sonata
Baroque term for a set of variations on a melody or bass line.
Partite
(French, “lyric tragedy”); French seventeenth and eighteenth century form of opera, pioneered by Jean-Baptiste Lully, that combined the French classic drama and ballet traditions with music, dances, and spectacles. (Tragedie en musique)
Tragedie lyrique
Type of overture used in tragedie en musique and other genres, that opens with a slow, homophonic, and majestic section, followed by a faster second section that begins with imitation.
French overture
In tragedie en musique, a long interlude of ballet, solo airs, choral singing, and spectacle, intended as entertainment.
Divertissement
(French, “unequal notes”); Seventeenth century convention of performing French music in which passages notated in short, even durations, such as a succession of eighth notes, are performed by alternating longer notes on the beat with shorter offbeats to produce a lilting rhythm.
Notes inegales
Performing practice in French Baroque music in which a dotted not is held longer than written, while the following short note is shortened.
Overdotting
(r. 1643-1715); succeeded to the throne at age five on the death of his father. Until he was 23, France was ruled by his mother. “The Sun King.” He centralized the arts and sciences, establishing royal academies of sculpture and painting, dance, literature, the sciences, opera, and architecture, and granting each academy the authority to oversee endeavors in its field.
Louis XIV
Included singers, organists, and other instrumentalists who performed for religious services.
Music of the Royal Chapel
Primarily string, lute, harpsichord, and flute players, provided music for indoor entertainments.
Music of the Chamber
Comprised wind, brass, and timpani players, who played for military and outdoor ceremonies and sometimes joined that chapel or indoor music, adding instrumental color.
Music of the Great Stable
(Simple recitative)
Recitatif simple
(Measured recitative)
Reitatif mesure
(Twenty-Four Violins of the King); which typically played music in five-part texture: six soprano violins, tuned like the modern violin, on the melody; twelve alto and tenor violins tuned like the modern viola, divided among three inner parts; and six bass violins, tuned a whole tone lower than the modern cello, on the bass line. Established by Louis XIII.
Vingt-quatre Violons du Roi
Aria form with two sections. The first section is repeated after the second section’s close, which carries the instruction da capo (Italian, “from the head”), creating and ABA form.
Da capo aria
Common instrumental genre during the Baroque period, a sonata for two treble instruments (usually violins) above a basso continuo. A performance featured four or more players if more than one was used for the continuo part.
Trio sonata
(Chamber sonata); Baroque sonata, usually a suite of stylized dances, scored for one or more treble instruments and continuo.
Sonata da camera
(Church sonata); Baroqu instrumental work intended for performance in church; usually in four movements – slow, fast, slow, fast – and scored for one or more treble instruments and continuo.
Sonata da chiesa
(from Italian, “to reach agreement”); (1) In the seventeenth century, ensemble of instruments or of voices with one or more instruments, or a work for such an ensemble. (2) Composition in which one or more solo instruments (or instrumental group) contrasts with an orchestral ensemble.
Concerto
Instrumental work that exploits the contrast in sonority between a small ensemble of solo instruments (concertino), usually the same forces that appeared in the trio sonata, and a large ensemble.
Concerto grosso
A small ensemble of solo instruments.
Concertino
(Italian, “all”); (1) In both the concerto and the concerto grosso, designates the full orchestra. (2) Instruction to an ensemble that all should play.
Tutti or ripieno
(1) An association of amateurs, popular during the Baroque period, who gathered to play and sing together for their own pleasure. (2) Today, an ensemble of university students that performs early music.
Collegium musicum
(Italian, “flight”); Composition or section of a composition in imitative texture that is based on a single subject and begins with successive statements of the subject in voices.
Fugue
(1) In a fugue, a set of entries of the subject. (2) In sonata form, the first part of the movement, in which the main themes are stated, beginning in the tonic and usually closing in the dominant (or relative major).
Exposition
Relatively short setting for organ of a chorale melody, used as an introduction for congregational singing or as an interlude in a Lutheran church service.
Chorale prelude
(ca. 1644-1737); A great violin maker of Cremona in northern Italy in the late seventeenth century (Stradivarius). Was the most prominent member of his universally renowned family of instrument-makers.
Antonio Stradivari
Public concerts of sacred vocal music at St. Mary’s on five Sunday afternoons each year before Christmas. Dieterich Buxtehude was famous for them. They attracted musicians from all over Germany.
Abendmusiken
Standard form for fast movements in concertos of the first half of the eighteenth century, featuring a ritornello (4) for full orchestra that alternates with episodes characterized by virtuosic material played by one or more soloists.
Ritornello form
Term coined by Jean-Philippe Rameau to indicate the succession of the roots or fundamental tones in a series of chords.
Fundamental bass
The most famous and widely admired of the castrato singers. His voice was legendary for its range, spanning more than three octaves, and for his breath control, which enabled him to sustain a note for a full minute before having to inhale. (ca. 1705-1782)
Carlo Broschi Farinelli
(The red priest) Antonio Vivaldi. (ca. 1678-1741)
il Preta Rosso
One of four “hospitals” in Venice, homes for orphaned, illegitimate, or poor boys and girls, which were run like restrictive boarding schools and provided excellent instruction in music to those girls who showed talent. Antonio Vivaldi was a teacher, composer, conductor, and superintendent there.
Pio Ospedale Della Pieta
A concerto by Antonio Vivaldi for Pio Ospedale Della Pieta. It was published in Amsterdam along with nine other collections of his collections. It was printed at the publisher’s expense instead of being subsidized by the composer or a patron as was common and was, therefore, given a fanciful title to attract buyers.
L’estro Armonico
A rich tax collector and became Jean-Philippe Rameau’s patron in the mid-1730s.
Jean-Joseph de la Poupliniere
(Treatise on Harmony, 1722); one of the most influential theoretical works ever written by Jean-Philippe Rameau.
Traite de l’harmonie
Introductory piece for solo instrument, often in the style of an improvisation, or introductory movement in a multimovement work such as an opera or suite.
Prelude
Relatively short setting for organ of a chorale melody, used as an introduction for congregational singing or as an interlude in a Lutheran church service.
Chorale prelude
Style of recitative scored for solo voice and basso continuo, used for setting dialogue or monologue in as speechlike a fashion as possible, without dramatization.
Simple recitative
Recitative that uses orchestral accompaniment to dramatize the text.
Accompanied recitative
(Italian, “first lady”); A soprano singing the leading female role in an opera.
Prima donna
Florid vocal ornamentation.
Coloratura
A composition by J.S. Bach where the systematic, comprehensive approach show in the Goldberg Variations is evident.
Well-Tempered Clavier
Was composed in the final decade of J.S. Bach’s life. It systematically demonstrates all types of fugal writing. Written in score though intended for keyboard performance, it consists of eighteen canons and fugues in the strictest style and arranged in a general order of increasing complexity. The last fugue, left incomplete at Bach’s death, has four subjects, including one spelling Bach’s name: B-A-C-H in German nomenclature, B and H being the German terms for B-flat and B-natural respectively.
Art of Fugue
Its poetry brought together the Lutheran’s faith’s Orthodox and Pietistic tendencies. Its musical scheme incorporated all the great traditions fo the past– the chorale, the solo song, the concertato medium– and added to these the dramatically powerful elements of operatic recitative and aria. It figured prominently in the Lutheran liturgy of Leipzig.
Church cantata
A new genre devised by Handel in the 1730s.
English oratorio
