WEEK 1 TERMS Flashcards
Monophony
Music for a single voice part; for example, used in plainchant and unaccompanied solo song
Polyphony
A term used to describe music in more than one part, music in many parts, and the style in which all or several of the musical parts move to some extent independently.
Homophony
Polyphonic music in which all melodic parts move together at more or less the same pace, and a primary part is supported by one or more additional strands that provide the harmony.
chant
Monophonic unison vocal pieces (originally unaccompanied) of the Christian church services: usually to liturgical or Biblical texts in Latin.
Humanism
(A term introduced in the 19th century) a set of intertwined beliefs driving the European Renaissance, whereby humans are at the center of the universe (while human values were still thought inextricable from faith or religious interests), and art is for humanity’s sake, for art’s sake; humanism this implies self-determinism and new beliefs in the power of the human intellect and beauty of the human body.
Mass Ordinary (or Ordinary of the Mass)
Part of the Roman mass; comprises five chants whose texts remain the same through the church year (Kyrie eleison, Gloria in excelsis Deo, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei)
Ordinary Chants
Chants whose texts remain constant from day to day in the services of the Western Church, as distinct from those whose texts vary; a term chiefly used to refer to the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei, the part of the Mass Ordinary which are most often set polyphonically.
Mass Proper (or Proper of the Mass
Includes the scriptural texts that change daily with the liturgical calendar
Cantus firmus
A term, associated particularly with Medieval and Renaissance music, that designates a pre-existing melody used as the basis of a new polyphonic composition; the melody may be taken from plainchant or monophonic secular music, or from one voice of a sacred or secular polyphonic work, or it may be freely invented
Secular
Unrelated to the Church or religious affiliations; not concerning religion or spirituality
Franco-Flemish Musicians (Franco-Flemish School, ca. 14440-1550)
Several generations of major north European composers who dominated the musical scene with their craftsmanship and scope; marked a new internationalization of musical style.
Melismatic
an elaborate style of text-setting (as, for example, in most Kyries and alleluias) where one syllable of text is set to florid groups of notes called melismas
Syllabic
a simple style of text-setting (for example in most Credo Chants) where one syllable of text is generally set to one note
Mode (or Church mode)
one of eight scalar arrangements of whole and halftones that European musicians used before the wider adoption of diatonic tonality and its two scales (major or minor); these church modes were different from the major and minor scales in that they were free from the dictates of Western tonal harmony.
Text-painting (or word-painting)
sing specific musical gesture(s) to directly reflect the text being set; such literal or figurative representation of words ‘descendit de caelis’.
Counterpoint
refers to the compositional technique involved in the handling of melodic lines, such as those found in polyphonic music
Species Counterpoint
An approach to strict counterpoint (counterpoint where there are rules about consonance & dissonance within the part-writing) that proceeds methodically from note-against-note setting of the cantus firmus to more complex combinations of parts; the five commonly distinguished ‘species’ or types of setting, were formulated by Fux in the Gradus ad Parnassum; for example, first species counterpoint is note against note, (e.g., if there is a whole note in the cantus firmus, there is a whole note in the counterpoint) while second species is two notes against one (e.g., if there is a whole note in the cantus firmus, there would be two half notes in the counterpoint)
