Genres

Question 1

Gregorian chant (plainsong)

Answer 1

monophonic religious music setting Latin texts and intended for use in the Roman Catholic Church; the music sung daily at the eight canonical house of prayer and at Mass

Question 2

trope

Answer 2

An addition of music or text (or both) to a pre-existing chant to more fully explain the theology inherent in the chants to which they are added.
Most tropes were added to chants in the Proper of the Mass, esp. the Introit.

Question 3

sequence

Answer 3

An addition of music with text to a pre-existing chant. A sequence follows a chant, specifically the Alleluia of the Mass.

Features:

• syllabic chant
• double verse structure (exemplifies antiphonal singing)

Question 4

liturgical drama

Answer 4

A religious play with music intended to be inserted into the liturgy, usually before Mass. The most famous is Hildegard’s Ordo virtutum (Play of the Virtues).

Question 5

cantiga

Answer 5

A medieval Spanish or Portuguese monophonic song.

Cantigas de Santa Maria - an anthology compiled about 1270 by Alfonso the Wise.

Question 6

organum

Answer 6

(pl. organa) The term that came to be used generally to connote all early polyphony of the church.

Question 7

parallel organum

Answer 7

Organum in which all voices move in lockstep, up or down, with the intervals between voices remaining the same.

Question 8

sustained tone organum

Answer 8

Organum when the bottom voice holds a note while the faster-moving top voice embellishes it in a florid fashion.

Question 9

Conductus

Answer 9

An extra-liturgical piece written for one, two, three, or occasionally four voices. Texts are metrical Latin poems arranged in successive stanzas. All voices were newly composed.

Conductus were often used to accompany the mof the clergy from one place to another in and around the church.

Question 10

Motet

Answer 10

13th Century

Originally a discant clausula to which sacred words were added. Each upper voice uses its own text that comments on the significance of the single Latin word being sung by the tenor.

Intended for the “literati” and not necessarily for the church; certainly not for the masses.

Later connotated a sacred choral composition.

Question 11

ballade

Answer 11

One of the French formes fixe.

Form: AAB for each stanza

1-3 stanzas (strophes) with a refrain.

Question 12

rondeau

Answer 12

One of the lighter, less serious French formes fixe.

Form: ABaAabAB. Uses retrograde motion in the contratenor.

1 stanza.

Question 13

virelai

Answer 13

The second less serious French formes fixe.

Form: AbbaA

May have more than one stanza.

Question 14

Italian trecento madrigal

Answer 14

Secular music in trecento Italy.

Form: AAB

Music was added to a poem in Italian. Contained two or three 2-line stanzas followed by a two-line ritornello (refrain).

Question 15

caccia

Answer 15

Secular music in trecento Italy.

A piece involving a musical canon in the upper two voices supported by a slower moving tenor.

caccia = hunt. Many pieces depicted and recreated hunting scenes.

Question 16

ballata

Answer 16

Secular music in trecento Italy; a dance song with a choral refrain. Similar to the French virelai.

Replaced madrigal as the most popular Italian musicala genre in the second half of the trecento.

Question 17

cyclic mass

Answer 17

A Mass where all movements are linked together by a common musical theme.

First example was Machaut’s Mass of Our Lady.

Question 18

rondellus

Answer 18

English musical practice of phrase exchange.

Example: Summer Canon (Sumer is i cumen in)

Question 19

faburden

Answer 19

Strict style of English discant using parallel 6/3 chords.

One voice sang above plainsong chant at a 4th, the other below by a 3rd.

Chant is the middle voice.

Question 20

fauxbourdon

Answer 20

Related style to the faburden found in the Continental countries. Music was improvised a fourth and a sixth below a given plainsong. Also produces parallel 6/3 chords.

Chant is the top voice.

Question 21

motet-chanson

Answer 21

Hybrid genre. Vernacular text in an upper voice sung simultaneously with a Latin chant in the tenor.

Question 22

cantus firmus Mass

Answer 22

A cyclic Mass in which the Ordinary movements are unified by a cantus firmus (well-established, previously existing melody).

First know - Dufay’s Missa L’Homme arme; late 1450’s.

Question 23

mensuration canon

Answer 23

When two voices perform the same music at different rates of speed. Usually noted through different meter signatures.

Question 24

frottola

Answer 24

Italian popular music that thrivevd from 1470-1530. A catch-all word used to describe a polyphonic setting of a wide variety of strophic Italian poetry.

Question 25

sixteenth-century madrigal

Answer 25

Another catch-all term to describe settings of Italian verse.

16th century madrigal is through-composed (new music for every line of text) instead of strophic.

Uses a variety of textures and compositional techniques. for a wider range of expression than the strophic frottola.

Question 26

pavane

Answer 26

A slow, gliding dance performed by couples in duple rather than triple. Replaced the earlier basse danse as the primary slow dance of the court.

Still used occasionally today as wedding music and processional music in churches.

Question 27

galliard

Answer 27

A fast leaping dance in triple meter. Involves quick steps and leaps.

Question 28

canzona

Answer 28

Late 16th century.

A freely composed instrumental piece, usually for organ or instrumental ensemble, which imitated the lively rhythms and lightly imitative style of the Parisian chanson.

Question 29

chorale

Answer 29

A monophonic spiritual melody or religious folk song. Also known as a hymn today.

Started gaining popularity with Martin Luther to make music more accessible for all people in church.

Question 30

points of imitation

Answer 30

When a motive is assigned to a phrase of text which appears, in turn, in each voice. Used by Palestrina in his Sanctus.

Question 31

anthem

Answer 31

A sacred vocal composition similar to a motet, but sung in English. Honors the Lord or invokes the Lord to preserve and protect the English king or queen. Most were composed for Morning Prayer or Evensong.

Question 32

Toccata

Answer 32

“Touched thing”

An instrumental showpiece that requires performers to use technical dexterity.

Question 33

Recitative

Answer 33

Musically heightened speech. “recited style”

Simple recitative is accompanied only by basso continuo.

Question 34

Aria

Answer 34

Aria = song. More florid and expansive and contain more melismas.

Question 35

Arioso

Answer 35

A manner of singing halfway between a recitative and an aria. More rhythmically flexible by not has song-like as an aria.

Question 36

Strophic variation aria

Answer 36

Uses same melodic and harmonic plan with slight variations in each verse.