Mystery Score #2: Terms Flashcards
English song, usually on a religious subject, with several stanzas and a BURDEN, or REFRAIN. From the fifteenth century on, most carols are POLYPHONIC. (page 168)
carol
POLYPHONIC vocal COMPOSITION; the specific meaning changes over time. The earliest motets add a text to an existing DISCANT CLAUSULA. Thirteenth-century motets feature one or more voices, each with its own sacred or secular text in Latin or French, above a TENOR drawn from CHANT or other MELODY. Most fourteenth- and some fifteenth-century motets feature ISORHYTHM and may include a CONTRATENOR. From the fifteenth century on, any polyphonic setting of a Latin text (other than a MASS) could be called a motet; from the late sixteenth century on, the term was also applied to sacred compositions in German and later in other languages.
Motet (from French mot, “word”)
Secular song with French words; used especially for POLYPHONIC songs of the fourteenth through sixteenth centuries.
Chanson (French, “song”; pronounced shanh-SONH)
English style of IMPROVISED POLYPHONY from the late Middle Ages and RENAISSANCE, in which a CHANT in the middle voice is joined by an upper voice moving in parallel a perfect fourth above it and a lower voice that follows below the chant mostly in parallel thirds, moving to a fifth below to mark the beginning and end of phrases and the ends of most words. (page 168)
faburden
Continental style of POLYPHONY in the early RENAISSANCE, in which two voices are written, moving mostly in parallel sixths and ending each PHRASE on an octave, while a third unwritten voice is sung in parallel perfect fourths below the upper voice. (page 179)
fauxbourdon (pronounced FOH-boor-donh)
Mass Ordinary Cycle One composer? A musical work setting the texts of the ORDINARY of the Mass typically KYRIE, GLORIA, CREDO, SANCTUS, and AGNUS DEI.
Mass Ordinary Cycle
An existing MELODY, often taken from a GREGORIAN CHANT, on which a new POLYPHONIC work is based; used especially for MELODIES present in long NOTES.
Cantus Firmus (Latin, “fixed melody”)
POLYPHONIC MASS in which the same CANTUS FIRMUS is used in each MOVEMENT, normally in the TENOR. (page 181) A mass ordinary cycle in which the composer uses the same chant melody (a cantus firmus) in the tenor voice of each movement.
cantus-firmus mass
POLYPHONIC MASS in which each MOVEMENT is based on the same MONOPHONIC MELODY, normally a CHANT, which is PARAPHRASED in most or all voices rather than being used as a CANTUS FIRMUS in one voice. (page 207)
paraphrase mass
Using musical gestures to reinforce or suggest images in a text, such as rising on the word “ascend.” (page 207)
text depiction word-painting
POLYPHONIC MASS in which each MOVEMENT is based on the same polyphonic model, normally a CHANSON or MOTET, and all voices of the model are used in the mass, but none is used as a CANTUS FIRMUS. (page 209)
imitation mass, parody mass
STROPHIC HYMN in the Lutheran tradition, intended to be sung by the congregation. (page 216)
chorale (pronounced ko-RAL)
Metric, rhymed, and STROPHIC vernacular translation of a PSALM, sung to a relatively simple MELODY that repeats for each strophe. (page 220)
metrical psalm
A POLYPHONIC sacred work in English for Anglican religious services. (page 224)
anthem
Type of POLYPHONIC song in Spanish, with several stanzas framed by a REFRAIN; originally secular, the FORM was later used for sacred works, especially associated with Christmas or other important holy days. (page 243)
villancico (from Spanish villano, “peasant”; pronounced vee-yan-SEE-co or vee-yan-THEE-co)
Sixteenth-century GENRE of Italian POLYPHONIC song in mock-popular style, typically SYLLABIC, HOMOPHONIC, and DIATONIC, with the MELODY in the upper voice and marked rhythmic patterns. (page 244)
frottola (pl. Frottole)
(1) Fourteenth-century Italian poetic form and its musical setting, having two or three stanzas followed by a RITORNELLO.
(2) Sixteenth-century Italian poem having any number of lines, each of seven or eleven syllables.
(3) POLYPHONIC or CONCERTATO setting of such a poem or of a sonnet or other nonrepetitive VERSE form.
(4) English polyphonic work imitating the Italian GENRE. (page 245)
madrigal (sixteenth century Italian) (Italian madrigale, “song in the mother tongue”)
(Italian, “little dance”) Sixteenth-century Italian (and later English) song GENRE in a simple, dancelike, HOMOPHONIC style with repeated sections and “fa-la-la” refrains. (page 260)
ballett
English GENRE of solo song with LUTE accompaniment. (page 261)
lute song
RENAISSANCE brass instrument, an early form of the trombone. (page 267)
sackbut
Spanish relative of the LUTE with a flat back and guitar-shaped body. (page 268)
vihuela
Keyboard instrument popular between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries. The loudness, which depends on the force with which a brass blade strikes the strings, is under the direct control of the player. (page 269)
clavichord
(1) English name for HARPSICHORD, used for all types until the seventeenth century.
(2) Type of HARPSICHORD that is small enough to place on a table, with a single keyboard and strings running at right angles to the keys rather than parallel with them as in larger harpsichords. (page 269)
virginal
(1) Instrumental COMPOSITION that resembles an IMPROVISATION or lacks a strict FORM.
(2) IMITATIVE instrumental piece on a single SUBJECT. (page 279)
fantasia, fantasy (improvisation) (Italian, “fantasy”), fantasy
(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. (page 279)
ricercare, ricercar (Italian, “to seek out” or “to attempt”)
(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. (page 281)
canzona, canzon (sixteenth century) (Italian, “song”)
For more than one CHOIR. (page 283)
polychoral
POLYPHONIC MASS in which the MOVEMENTS are linked primarily by sharing the same opening MOTIVE or PHRASE.
Motto Mass
Odhecaton (1501)
Lutheran Reformation
Catholic Reformation
Council of Trent
Church of England
The practice of replacing the text of a vocal work with a new text while the music remains essentially the same; or the resulting piece.
Contrafacta (Latin, “counterfeit; pl. contrafacta)
A particularly evocative–or, if used in a disparaging sense, a thoroughly conventional-instance of TEXT DEPICTION or WORD-PAINTING; so called because of the prominent role of word-painting in MADRIGALS.
Madrigalism
Musica Transalpina
The strongest intellectual movement of the Renaissance. From the Latin phrase: “studia humanitatis” Movement in the RENAISSANCE to revive ancient Greek and Roman culture and to study things pertaining to human knowledge and experience.
Humanism
In the fourteenth through sixteenth centuries, term for loud instruments such as CORNETTS and SACKBUTS.
Haut instruments (French, “high”; pronounced OH)
Bas instruments
Double-reed instrument, similar to the oboe, used in the medieval RENAISSANCE, and BAROQUE PERIODS.
Shawm
RENAISSANCE wind instrument, with a double reed enclosed in a cap so the player’s lips do not touch the reed.
Rackett
Crummhorn
Michael Praetorius, Syntagma Musicum
St. Mark’s in Venice
