Western Music
Terms
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a cappella
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(Italian, "in chapel style") Manner of choral singing without instrumental accompaniment.
- Absolute Music
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Music that is independent of words, drama, visual images, or any kind of representational aspects.
- Accidental
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Sign that calls for altering the pitch of a note: a sharp (♯) raises the pitch a semitone, a flat (♭) lowers it a semitone, and a natural (♮) cancels a previous accidental
- Accompanied Recitative
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Recitative that uses orchestral accompaniment to dramatize the text
- Act
- Main division of an opera. Most operas have two to five acts, although some have only one.
- Affections
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Objectified or archetypal emotions or states of mind, such as sadness, joy, fear, or wonder; one goal of much baroque music was to arouse the affections.
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Agnus Dei
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(Latin, "Lamb of God") Fifth of the five major musical items in the Mass Ordinary, based on a litany.
- Agrément
- (French, charm"; pronounced ah-gray-MANH) Ornament in French music, usually indicated by a sign.
- Air
- English or French song for solo voice with instrumental accompaniment, setting rhymed poetry, often strophic, and usually in the meter of a dance.
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Air de cour
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(French, "court air") Type of song for voice and accompaniment, prominent in France from about 1580 through the seventeenth century.
- Alberti bass
- Broken-chord accompaniment common in the second half of the eighteenth century and named after Domenico Alberti, who used the figuration frequently
- Alleluia
- Item from the Mass Proper, sung just before the Gospel reading, comprising a respond to the text "Alleluia," a verse, and a repetition of the respond. Chant alleluias are normally melismatic in style and sung in a responsorial manner, one or mor
- allemande
- (French for "German") Highly stylized dance in binary form, in moderately fast quadruple meter with almost continuous movement, beginning with an upbeat. Popular during the renaissance and baroque; appearing often as the first dance in a suite.<
- alto
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(from altus) (1)Relatively low female voice, or high male voice. (2) Part for such a voice in an ensemble work
- altus
- (Latin, "high") In fifteenth and sixteenth-century polyphony, a part in a range between the tenor and the superius; originally contratenor altus.
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Ambrosian chant
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A repertory of ecclesiastical chant used in Milan
- answer
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In the exposition of a fugue, the second entry of the subject, normally on the dominant if the subject was on the tonic, and vice versa. Also refers to subsequent answers to the subject
- anthem
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A polyphonic sacred work in English for Anglican religious services.
- antiphon
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(1)A liturgical chant that precedes and follows a psalm or canticle in the office. (2)In the mass, a chant originally associated with antiphonal psalmody; specifically, the communion and the first and final portion of the introit
- antiphonal
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Adjective describing a manner of performance in which two or more groups alternalte
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Aquitanian polyphony
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Style of polyphony from the twelfth century, encompassing both discant and florid organum
- aria
- (Italian, "air") (1)In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, any section of an Italian strophic poem for a solo singer. (2) Lyrical monologue in an opera or other vocal work such as a cantata and oratorio
- arioso
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(1) Recitativo arioso. (2) Short, aria-like passage. (3)Style of vocal writing that approaches the lyricism of an aria but is freer in form
- arpeggio
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(from Italian arpa, "harp") Broken-chord figure.
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Ars Nova
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(Latin, "new art") Style of polyphony from fourteent-century France, distinguished from earlier styles by a new system of rhythmic notation that allowed duple or triple division of note values, syncopation, and great rhythmic flexibility.
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Ars Subtilior
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(Latin, "more subtle art") Style of polyphony from the late fourteenth or very early fifteenth centuries in souther France and northern Italy, distinguished by extreme complexity in rhythm and notation
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art music
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Music that is (or is meant to be) listened to with rapt attention, for its own sake. Compare popular music
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art song
- A song intendd to be appreciated as an artistic statement rather than as entertainment, featuring precisely notated music, usually through composed, and requiring professional standards of performance. Compare popular song.