Final Exam

Question 1

orchestral suite

Answer 1

late 17th-century German suite for orchestra patterned after the groups of dances in French (Lully) ballets and opera

Question 2

sonata

Answer 2

(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

Question 3

conservatory

Answer 3

school that specializes in teaching music (early 18th-century Naples had four conservatories for orphaned and poor boys-male equivalent of Venetian ospedali?)

Question 4

castrato

Answer 4

male singers who were castrated before puberty to preserve their high vocal range, prominent in the 17th and early 18th- centuries, especially in opera

Question 5

concerto

Answer 5

(1) in the 17th 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

Question 6

ritornello form

Answer 6

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 (3) characterized by virtuosic material
played by one or more soloists

Question 7

baroque violin bow

Answer 7

The curve of the Baroque bow results in less tension on the bowhairs, and the shorter length makes it lighter and more agile

Question 8

character piece/pièces de caractère

Answer 8

a piece of characteristic music, especially one for piano (eg. Couperin’s harpsichord pieces with evocative titles depicted in the music, often suggesting a mood, scene, or personality, like a character in a play)

Question 9

Concert Spirituel and other public concerts

Answer 9

a French public concert serious founded in 1725; publich concerts to which one subscribed or paid admission first occurred in England in 1672, but the practice did not become widespread in Europe until the later 1700s

Question 10

basso continuo

Answer 10

(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

Question 11

modulation

Answer 11

in tonal music, a gradual change from one key to another within a section of a movement

Question 12

kapellmeister

Answer 12

music director (Bach was appointed as Kapellmeister in Cöthen in 1717)

Question 13

prelude and fugue

Answer 13

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; 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

Question 14

The Well-Tempered Clavier

Answer 14

• explores the possibilities of playing in all keys on an instrument tuned in equal temperament
• pedagogical aims, technical abilities (like etudes)

Question 15

The Musical Offering

Answer 15

contains a three- and a six-part ricercare for keyboard and ten canons, all based on a theme proposed by Frederick the Great of Prussia

Question 16

collegium musicum

Answer 16

an association of amateurs, popular during the Baroque period, who gathered to play and sing together for their own pleasure

Question 17

Lutheran cantata

Answer 17

its musical scheme
incorporated all the great traditions of the recent past—the chorale, the solo
song, the concertato medium—and added to these the dramatically powerful elements of operatic recitative and aria

Question 18

Passion setting

Answer 18

• Bach wrote two surviving Passions, telling the story of Jesus’s crucifixion, for performance at Vespers on Good Friday in Leipzig
• employ recitatives, arias, ensembles, choruses, chorales sung by the chorus, and orchestral accompaniment
• drawing on elements from opera,
  cantata, and oratorios
• tenor narrates the biblical story in the style of recitative, soloists play the parts of Jesus and other figures, and the chorus sings the words of the disciples, the crowd, and other groups

Question 19

Giulio Cesare

Question 20

Messiah

Question 21

recitativo semplice (simple recitative)/recitativo secco

Answer 21

style of recitative scored for solo voice
and basso continuo, used for setting dialogue or monologue in as speech-like a fashion as possible, without
dramatization

Question 22

accompanied recitative/recitative accompagnato

Answer 22

recitative that uses orchestral
accompaniment to dramatize the text

Question 23

prima donna

Answer 23

a soprano singing the leading female role in an opera

Question 24

coloratura

Answer 24

florid vocal ornamentation (seen in Handel’s scores)

Question 25

impresario

Answer 25

during the Baroque period, a businessman who managed and oversaw the production of operas;
today, someone who books and stages operas and other musical events

Question 26

oratorio

Answer 26

• 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

Question 27

libretto

Answer 27

literary text for an opera
or other musical stage work

Question 28

borrowing

Answer 28

• common practice
• Handel borrowed more than most
• When such instances of borrowing were discovered in the nineteenth
  century, Handel was charged with plagiarism, because audiences and critics of that time valued originality and demanded original themes. In Handel’s time, simply presenting another composer’s work as one’s own was condemned, but borrowing,
  transcribing, adapting, rearranging, and parodying were universal and accepted practices. When Handel borrowed, he more often than not repaid with interest, finding new potential in the borrowed material.

Question 29

galant style

Answer 29

18th-century musical style that featured songlike melodies, short
phrases, frequent cadences, and light accompaniment

Question 30

Enlightenment

Question 31

popularization of learning

Question 32

enpfindsam style

Answer 32

close relative of the galant style, featuring surprising turns of harmony, chromaticism, nervous rhythms, and
speech-like melodies

Question 33

opera buffa

Answer 33

18th-century genre of Italian comic opera, sung throughout

Question 34

intermezzo

Answer 34

18th-century genre of Italian comic opera, performed between acts of a serious opera or play

Question 35

La serva padrona

Question 36

opera seria

Answer 36

18th-century genre of Italian opera, on a serious subject but normally with a happy ending, usually without comic characters and scenes

Question 37

ensemble finale

Answer 37

at the end of an act, all the characters
were gradually brought on stage while the action continued, becoming more
and more animated until it reached a climax with all the singers taking part

Question 38

Querelle des bouffons

Answer 38

• the battle between critics on the relative merits of French and
  Italian music
• Lullistes attacking Rameau for his baroque-styled operas, calling it “difficult, forced, grotesque, thick, mechanical, and unnatural”
• eventually his newer style became widely accepted

Question 39

opera comique

Answer 39

in the 18th century, light French comic opera, which used spoken dialogue instead of recitatives

Question 40

ballad opera

Answer 40

genre of 18th-century English comic
play featuring songs in which new words are set to borrowed tunes

Question 41

singspiel

Answer 41

German genre of opera, featuring spoken dialogue interspersed with songs, choruses, and instrumental music

Question 42

opera reform

Answer 42

• opera underwent changes that reflected Enlightenment thoughts
• sought to make the entire design more “natural”—that is, more flexible in structure, more expressive, less ornamented with coloratura, and more varied in musical resources

Question 43

fortepiano

Answer 43

type of piano from the 18th or early 19th centuries, distinguished from later pianos by a variety of features, notably a smaller range and strings attached to a wooden rather than metal frame

Question 44

natural horn

Answer 44

associated with hunting style (Mozart’s Sonata K332)

Question 45

classical clarinet

Answer 45

single-reed wind instrument invented around 1710

Question 46

string quartet

Answer 46

(1) standard chamber ensemble consisting of two violins, viola, and cello (2) multimovement composition for this ensemble

Question 47

symphony

Answer 47

large work for orchestra, usually in four movements

Question 48

sonata form

Answer 48

• typically used in first movements of sonatas, instrumental chamber works, and symphonies during the Classic and Romantic periods
• expansion of rounded binary form
• consisting of an exposition, development, and recapitulation based on a limited number of themes

Question 49

binary form

Answer 49

• form composed of two complementary sections, each of which is repeated
• first section usually ends on the dominant or the relative major, although it may end on the tonic or other key; the second section
  returns to the tonic

Question 50

minuet and trio

Answer 50

form that joins two binary-form
minuets to create an ABA pattern, where A is the minuet
and B the trio

Question 51

variations

Answer 51

form that presents an uninterrupted series of variants (each called a variation) on a theme; the theme may be a melody, a bass line, a harmonic plan, or other musical subject

Question 52

scherzo

Answer 52

a joking or particularly fast
movement in minuet and trio form

Question 53

rondo

Answer 53

form in which the first or main section recurs, usually in the tonic, between subsidiary sections or episodes.

Question 54

London Symphonies

Question 55

Haydn Quartets, Op. 33

Question 56

The Creation

Question 57

music publishing

Question 58

freelance music-making

Answer 58

mozart

Question 59

musical topic/musical figure

Answer 59

in Baroque music, a melodic pattern or
contrapuntal effect conventionally employed to convey the meaning of a text

Question 60

Eine kleine Nachtmusik

Question 61

Don Giovanni