Terms Flashcards
Synemmenon
The fifth type of tetrachord for Aristoxenus
Stretto
In FUGUE, the procedure of beginning a second statement of the subject before the preceding statement has finished
Ars Nova
14th century polyphony (opposite of 13th century polyphony = ars antiqua). Based on new notational techniques in Vitry’s “Ars Nova” (c. 1322)
Ausführung
Realization (the score itself) and Composing out (cf. Schenker). Also the second stage in Koch and Sulzer’s compositional plan Anlage-Ausfuhrung-Ausarbeitung
Fauxbourdon
Similar to organum, but favors imperfect intervals as opposed to perfect ones (parallel 6/3 chords). British origins, but developed by the French in the 15th century
Organum
A type of medieval polyphony (the earliest type, precursor to counterpoint in general). From the 12th century [on] it was used specifically to refer to music with a sustained-note tenor (usually a pre-existing part) and more mobile upper part or parts.
The Law of Prägnanz
Wertheimer and the Gestalt school. We perceive the best and simplest organization afforded by the circumstances
Metalepsis (transumption)
A figure of speech in which a word or a phrase from figurative speech is used in a new context. The “troping of a trope” (Bloom).
Noema
- A rhetorical figure to do with texture
- A homophonic passage within a contrapuntal piece (rhetorical definition)
- In phenomenology (Husserl), “a thing as we actually encounter it in lived experience”, “the things themselves”
Mehrdeutigkeit
Multiple meaning
Vogler: Modulation may exploit the “multiple meaning” of chords in two ways (pivot chord and enharmonic modulation)
Weber: the cognitive processes an “ideal listener” faces when closely attending to a (new) progression
expressive genre
- Robert Hatten, “Musical Meaning in Beethoven” (1994)
- Genres that imply changes of state, narrative, drama, topoi,
- e.g. Pastoral, Romance
Daseian notation
The type of musical notation used in the ninth century anonymous musical treatises Musica enchiriadis and Scolica enchiriadis (the first examples of written polyphony)
Mese
The equivalent of the note “a”, the middle point of the Boethian double octave
Zwischendominante
Secondary dominants, applied dominants
sedes troporum
- Contractus’s doctrine to do with modal species
- extension of Guido’s modi vocum
- taking the graves, finales, superiores, excellentes tetrachords and adding notes on either side to span a sixth
Diapente
medieval name for the perfect fifth
Pythagorean comma (a.k.a. Ditonic comma)
- 23.46 cents, slightly bigger than syntonic comma
- the difference between twelve 5ths and seven octaves.
- the total amount of temperament on a modern piano sums to this (each P5 is tempered by 1/12 of a P. comma)
Syntonic comma
- The difference between 81:64 (Pythagorean major third) and 80:64 (just-tuned major third)
- It’s about 1/9th of a whole tone (a whole tone = 9:8)
- the difference between a just major 3rd and four just perfect 5ths less two octaves,
- 21.51 cents
Extra-motival rows
- What Babbitt calls “contextual”
- Term developed by Ernst Krenek and Richard Hill
- rows that are not just motives on the surface, but actually structural at a deep level
Partimento
“preluding”, improvising and expanding on unfigured bass lines
Übergreifen
Reaching over (cf. Schenker)
double-tonic complex
term employed by Robert Bailey (1977) in the context of Wagnerian analysis
Ars musica
The “harmonics tradition”: ancient Greek theory
Prima pratica VS Seconda pratica
- Monteverdi’s battle with Artusi in the very early 17th century (beginnings of the baroque period)
- Prima pratica refers to the old style of Palestrina, where dissonances are properly prepared and resolved
- Seconda pratica refers to the new style, the freer, rhetorically expressive style of the northern Italian concertato