Musical Terms Flashcards
What is the term for a keyboard (organ, harpsichord) composition in free, idiomatic keyboard style?
Toccata
What is a composition for solo voice?
Aria
What is a short light piece, usually for piano
Bagatelle
A piece intended to be played slow is known as what?
Adagio
What is the name of a composition that features drum rolls, fanfares, etc
Battaglia
What is a musical composition for voices with musical accompaniment across several movements?
Cantata
What is a composition for orchestra and solo instrument
Concerto
In a musical piece what do you call two or more melodic lines that sound simultaneously
Counterpoint
What is the name for a piece performed between acts of an opera or play
Entr’acte
What is a musical composition, usually instrumental, intended mainly for the practice of some point or technique, sometimes designed purely for study, sometimes also for public performance?
Etude
What is a polyphonic composition based upon one or more themes enunciated by several voices or parts in turn, subjected to contrapuntal treatment, and gradually built up into a complex form having somewhat distinct divisions or stages of development and a marked climax at the end?
Fugue
In Baroque suites, what is one of the four standard dance movements, often the final one; evolved from the Irish or English jig.
Gigue
What term was Coined by Wagner to designate certain motifs used in association with certain characters, ideas, or situations in his music?
Leitmotif
What is the text of an opera or oratorio?
Libretto
Name a French country dance introduced at the court of Louis XIV around 1650.
Minuet
What was an important form of polyphonic music during the Middle Ages and Renaissance, usually an unaccompanied choral composition based on a Latin sacred text?
Motet
What is the name for an extended musical composition with a text more or less dramatic in character and usually based upon a religious theme, for solo voices, chorus, and orchestra, and performed without action, costume, or scenery?
Oratorio
What is the name for a constantly recurring melodic fragment?
Ostinato
An instrumental composition irregular in form and suggestive of improvisation?
Rhapsody
What is the name of the musical style of the middle 18th century, marked by a generally superficial elegance and charm and by the use of elaborate ornamentation and stereotyped devices.
Rococo?
What is the name for a work or movement, often the last movement of a sonata, having one principal subject that is stated at least three times in the same key and to which return is made after the introduction of each subordinate theme.
Rondo
What is the name of a movement, usually the third, of sonatas, symphonies, and quartets (rarely concertos) that Beethoven first used to replace the minuet? It is generally characterized by a quick tempo, vigorous rhythm, and elements of surprise.
Scherzo
In the Baroque period what was the name for orchestral pieces of Italian origin, designed to serve as an introduction to an opera or operatic scene, an orchestral suite, or a cantata.
Symphony
What is the name for a composition of usually three or four movements for solo instrument, often with piano accompaniment. The normal scheme for the movements is allegro, adagio, scherzo (or minuet), and allegro. A slow introduction sometimes precedes the opening allegro.
Sonata
What is the name for a keyboard (organ, harpsichord) composition in free, idiomatic keyboard style. From about 1600 the name was also used for a festive brass fanfare.
Toccata
What is a musical composition when a solo instrument plays with an orchestra?
Concerto
