Renaissance Period Exam Terms

Question 1

psalter

Answer 1

A published collection of metrical psalms.

Question 2

madrigal

Answer 2

Sixteenth-century Italian poem having any number of lines, each of seven or eleven syllables; Polyphonic or concertato setting of such a poem or of a sonnet or other non-repetitive verse form.

Question 3

Meistersinger

Answer 3

Type of German amateur singer and poet-composer of the fourteenth through seventeenth centuries, who was a member of a guild that cultivated a style of monophonic song derived from minnelieder.

Question 4

Académie de Poésie de Musique

Answer 4

founded in 1570, to revive the ethical effects of ancient Greek music; attempted creating musicque mesurée

Question 5

Musicque mesurée

Answer 5

Late sixteenth-century French style of text-setting, especially in chansons, in which stressed syllables are given longer notes than unstressed syllables (usually twice as long).

Question 6

German Mass

Answer 6

(Deutsche Mass) published by Luther in 1526; followed main outlines of Roman mass but differed from it in many details and replaced most elements of the Proper and Ordinary with German hymns; adopted by smaller churches

Question 7

Great Service

Answer 7

A setting of Anglican liturgical music, encompassing specific portions of Matins, Holy Communion, and Evensong. This particular one is a melismatic, contrapuntal setting of these texts.

Question 8

Short Service

Answer 8

A setting of Anglican liturgical music, encompassing specific portions of Matins, Holy Communion, and Evensong. This particular one sets the same text in syllabic, chordal style.

Question 9

chorale

Answer 9

Strophic hymn in the Lutheran tradition, intended to be sung by the congregation.

Question 10

full anthem

Answer 10

A polyphonic sacred work in English for Anglican religious services; this type is for unaccompanied choir in contrapuntal style. (English equivalent of choral motet.)

Question 11

verse anthem

Answer 11

A polyphonic sacred work in English for Anglican religious services; this type contains passages for solo voice(s) with accompaniment that alternate with passages for full choir doubled by instruments.

Question 12

Harmonice musices odhecaton A

Answer 12

First volume anthology of secular songs published by Petrucci, including some of his own works.

Question 13

viola da gamba

Answer 13

Bowed, fretted string instrument popular from the mid-fifteenth to the early eighteenth centuries, held between the legs.

Question 14

sackbut

Answer 14

Renaissance brass instrument, and early form of the trombone.

Question 15

crumhorn

Answer 15

Renaissance wind instrument, with a double reed enclosed cap so the player’s lips do not touch the reed.

Question 16

lute

Answer 16

Plucked string instrument popular from the late Middle Ages through the Baroque Period, typically pear or almond-shaped with a rounded back, flat fingerboard, frets, and one single and five double strings.

Question 17

vihuela

Answer 17

Spanish relative of the lute with a flat back and guitar-shaped body.

Question 18

point of imitation

Answer 18

Place in the music where the voices stagger entrances on the same material; the beginning of the imitative section.

Question 19

contenance angloise

Answer 19

Characteristic quality of early fifteenth-century English music, marked by pervasive consonance with frequent use of harmonic thirds and sixths, often in parallel motion. Also homorhythmic texture; primarily syllabic text setting; simple melodies; regular phrasing

Question 20

fauxbourdon

Answer 20

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.

Question 21

plainsong mass

Answer 21

A mass in which each movement is based on a chant to the same text (the Kyrie is based on a chant Kyrie, the Gloria on a chant Gloria, and so on.

Question 22

imitation or parody mass

Answer 22

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.

Question 23

motto mass

Answer 23

Polyphonic mass in which the movements are linked primarily by sharing the same opening motive or phrase.

Question 24

cori spezzati

Answer 24

divided choirs; used in polychoral motets (motet for two or more choirs)

Question 25

text expression

Answer 25

Conveying or suggesting through musical means the emotions expressed in a text.

Question 26

humanism

Answer 26

Movement in the Renaissance to revive ancient Greek and Roman culture and to study things pertaining to human knowledge and experience.

Question 27

motet (early 1200s)

Answer 27

polyphonic piece derived from discant clausula, with words added to the upper voice

Question 28

motet (1200s-1300s)

Answer 28

polyphonic piece with one or more upper voices, each with sacred or secular text in Latin or French, above tenor from chant or other source

Question 29

motet (1310-1450)

Answer 29

isorhythmic motet: tenor structured isorythm

Question 30

motet (1400s on)

Answer 30

used for polyphonic setting of a Latin text, especially a liturgical text, other than a mass cycle

Question 31

motet (mid-1500s on)

Answer 31

used for some polyphonic settings of sacred texts in other languages