MUSIC 120B Midterm - People Flashcards
Pope Gregory the Great
standardized & codified Latin/Gregorian chant
MEDIEVAL ERA
Hildegard von Bingen
medieval abbess, dramatist, composer, essayist, mystic, poet & author on health & science
First major composer for whom we have biographical info.
Alleluia, o virga mediatrix
MEDIEVAL ERA
Anonymous IV
14th-century monk & commentator on:
Leonin
Perotin
MEDIEVAL ERA
Leonin
13th-century composer at Notre Dame
MEDIEVAL ERA
Perotin
Best 13th-century composer of three- and four-part organum.
MEDIEVAL ERA
Guillaume de Machaut
b. 1300, his Missa Notre Dame establishes the “mass” as the ultimate musical genre for Renaissance-era composition. Leading figure of Ars Nova innovations in notation, etc.
RENAISSANCE ERA
Josquin de Prez
Renaissance master: motet, “Ave Maria . . .”; critical feature is a contrapuntal technique: points of imitation.
“Ave Maria . . .” also presents shifts in texture, from polyphonic to homophonic. Composer of “El Grillo,” a frotolla, i.e., a secular song in homophonic style.
RENAISSANCE ERA
Giovanni Palestrina
legend has it that his Pope Marcellus Mass “saved polyphony” in liturgical music from banishment by The Council of Trent. Palestrina’s approach to polyphony was the first musical style established as pedagogical foundation (“Palestrina counterpoint”)
RENAISSANCE ERA
Jacques Arcadelt
Belgium-born composer of Renaissance Italian madrigals. Madrigals could be rich in text or word painting and double-entendres, including Arcadelt’s “greatest hit,” “Il bianco e dolce cigno” (“The White and Sweet Swan”
RENAISSANCE ERA
John Farmer
composer of English madrigals, a Renaissance a cappella genre that contributed to the invention of opera. Fair Phyllis
RENAISSANCE ERA
Claudio Monteverdi
Early Baroque composer who wrote the music for the first operatic masterpiece, L’ Orfeo. Monteverdi’s opera was informed by his madrigal composition AND by Camerata theories. Monteverdi worked for Count Gonzaga at his Mantua court.
BAROQUE ERA
From L’Orfeo - Orfeo, Euridice
Orfeo: world’s greatest musician; see “Tu se morta,” an expressive recitative, rich in word painting. Euridice: Orfeo’s bride. La Musica: strophic aria prologue
Henry Purcell
English, masque/opera “Dido & Aeneas”;
“Dido’s Lament” aria for singer and string orchestra. Basic musical structure and form is based on a descending ground/ostinato lament bass.
Performed at girl’s school in Chelsea.
BAROQUE ERA
Dido
queen of Carthage sings a paired recitative & “lament” aria: basso ostinato despair & fated death.
BAROQUE ERA
Antonio Vivaldi
“the red priest” wrote ca. 450 concerti (solo & grosso).
His “laboratory” for composition was at a girl’s school in Vienna; the Pieta orchestra.
The Four Seasons, four concertos for solo violin and strings;
La Primavera, Baroque programmatic work; each movement prefaced by sonnet.
BAROQUE ERA
Arcangelo Corelli
first major composer specializing in instrumental works (e.g., Baroque sonatas; inspiration to Vivaldi)
BAROQUE ERA
Jean Baptiste Lully
Early Baroque Italian-born French composer at court of Louis XIV; Director of Royal Orchestra; an autocrat who closely coordinated violin & string sections; stabbed his own damned foot.
BAROQUE ERA
Joseph Fux
an 18th-century composer who penned Gradus & Parnassum, a widely published & influential instruction book on counterpoint in the Palestrinian style.
BAROQUE ERA
Johann Sebastian Bach
J.S. Bach represents the culmination of Baroque style; synthesizer of international styles – Italian, French (suites), and German Lutheran tradition.
Composer of Chorale Cantata No. 140 (“Wachet Auf . . .” ), fugues, and concerti, and of all major Baroque forms, except Italian opera.
“Sleepers Awake”: a tenor “aria” based on chorale melody and text.
BAROQUE ERA
George Handel
German-born English composer: master of Italian opera & originator of English Oratorio. [Oratorio: originated in Rome; sacred text and subjects; has plots & characters but no costumes or scenery, as per opera; does have aria, recitative, ensemble, orchestra, continuo – all operatic musical forms. A critical feature is a narrator, called a historicus.
BAROQUE ERA
Joseph Haydn
One of the Viennese Classical School, Haydn established the string quartet and symphony as principal Classical-era instrumental genres. Haydn was composer of over 100 symphonies. Working at Esterhaza Palace for Nicholas “the Magnificent,” Haydn’s was “forced to become original.”
CLASSICAL ERA
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
wunderkind wonder performer; master of all “Classical” genres, including both Italian & German operatic forms, string quartet, symphony, and concerto.
CLASSICAL ERA
Don Giovanni
anti-hero of Mozart’s opera of the same name; murderous Spanish nobleman who seduces women.
Ludwig van Beethoven
the first free-lance composer, Beethoven comes on the cusp of the Classical and Romantic eras. Beethoven influenced all of Romantic period and beyond. Nine symphonies (cf. Haydn’s over a hundred symphonies).
CLASSICAL ERA - cusp of Romantic
Napoleon Bonaparte
French Revolutionary war hero, general, and later First Consul (dictator); the original dedicatee of Beethoven’s Eroica (“Heroic’)
Symphony No. 3.
CLASSICAL ERA
Friedrich Schiller
Beethoven’s favorite poet and author of “Ode to Joy,” whose text was set to music in the finale of Beethoven’s last symphony, Symphony No. 9, “The Choral”
CLASSICAL ERA
