Glossary

Words in bold within a definition can be cross-referenced to their own entry.

12-tone music

Works in which each note of the chromatic scale is ascribed the same amount of importance, eliminating any concept of key or tonality. Developed by Arnold Schoenberg and others in the 1920s. See also serialism.

a cappella

Unaccompanied singing by a soloist or a group.

alto

The highest male and lowest female voice; also a term describing an instrument that is lower in pitch than a treble instrument.

aria

Literally “air” (Italian), a vocal piece, usually for one voice, in an opera or oratorio, more formally organized than a song. Arias written in the 17th and 18th centuries usually take the form of “da capo arias,” with a three-part structure.

arpeggio

A chord in which the notes are played separately from top to bottom or vice-versa.

atonal, atonality

Any music without a recognizable tonality or key, such as serial music; the opposite of tonality.

Baroque

Music composed between 1600 and 1750; describes pieces from the period before the Classical.

bass

The lowest in pitch: describes the lowest male voice, the lowest part of a chord or piece of music, or the lowest instrument in a family.

basso continuo

Harmonic accompaniment, usually by a harpsichord or organ and bass viol or cello, extensively used in the Baroque period.

bel canto

Meaning “beautiful song” in Italian; an 18th- and early 19th-century school of singing characterized by a concentration on beauty of tone, virtuosic agility, and breath control.

cantata

A programmatic piece, generally for solo voices, choir, and orchestra, designed to tell a story.

castrato (pl. castrati)

Literally “castrated” (Italian); a male singer castrated before puberty so as to retain his high alto or soprano voice. Castrati were especially popular in 17th- and early 18th-century Italian opera, but castration for the purposes of art was banned by the late 18th century.

chamber music

Pieces composed for small groups of two or more instruments, such as duets, trios, and quartets.

chord

A simultaneous combination of notes. The most frequently used are called “triads,” which consist of three distinct notes built on the first, third, and fifth notes of a scale. For example, in the key of C major the notes of the scale are C, D, E, F, G, A, and B; the C major triad consists of the notes C, E, and G.

chromatic

Literally “of color” (Latin), based on the scale of all 12 semitones in an octave, as opposed to diatonic, based on a scale of seven notes.

Classical

Music composed between 1750 and 1830; describes pieces from the period after the Baroque.

concerto

A large piece for solo instrument and orchestra, designed to showcase the soloist’s skills; the Baroque concerto grosso, however, has a more equal interplay between the smaller orchestra (ripieno) and a group of soloists (concertino).

concerto grosso

See concerto.

consort

An instrumental ensemble popular during the 16th and 17th centuries in England; also used to describe the music played by these ensembles as well as the performance itself.

contralto

A term describing the lowest of the female voices (alto) in an opera context.

contrapuntal

Using counterpoint, the simultaneous playing or singing of two or more equally important melodic lines.

counterpoint

See contrapuntal.

diatonic

Based on a scale in which the octave is divided into seven steps, such as major and minor scales.

dissonance

Notes being played together to produce discord (sounds unpleasing to the ear).

Formalism

In the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc countries, a catch-all criticism aimed at those who did not write music that sought to glorify the Soviet state.

fugue

From the Italian fuga, “chase” or ”flight”; a highly structured contrapuntal piece, in two or more parts, popular in the Baroque era. The separate voices or lines enter one by one imitatively.

gamelan

The traditional ensemble music of Indonesia, featuring predominantly percussion instruments such as gongs, xylophones, and drums.

grand opera

French development of opera, characterized by historical plots, large choruses, crowd scenes, ornate costumes, and spectacular sets.

intermezzo

A light-hearted interlude performed between the acts of an opera seria. The intermezzo developed from the intermedio, a short musical drama performed between the acts of spoken plays in the 15th and 16th centuries.

inversion

A chord or line of music is said to be inverted when its component notes have been reshuffled in a different order.

key

The tonal center of a piece of music, based on the first note of the scale.

leitmotif

Literally “leading motif” (German); a short musical phrase that recurs through a piece to indicate the presence of a character, emotion, or object.

libretto (pl. libretti)

The text of an opera or other vocal dramatic work.

Lied (pl. Lieder)

A traditional German song, popularized by Schubert.

madrigal

A secular a cappella song popular in Renaissance and early Baroque England and Italy; it was often set to a love poem.

Mass

The main service of the Roman Catholic Church, highly formalized in structure, comprising specific sections—known as the “Ordinary”—performed in the following order: Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus with Hosanna and Benedictus, and Agnus Dei with Dona nobis pacem.

mezzo-soprano

Literally “half soprano”; the lowest soprano voice; between soprano and contralto.

Minimalism

A predominantly American school of music, favoring a sound-world involving an almost hypnotic texture of repeated short patterns.

mode

A type of seven-note scale with distinct melodic characteristics; most commonly heard in folk music and plainsong.

motet

A polyphonic choral composition based on a sacred text, usually unaccompanied.

nocturne

“Night piece.” As a solo, one-movement piano piece, the nocturne originated with John Field, but was developed to a great degree by Chopin.

octave

The interval between one pitch and another with double or half its frequency; on a piano there is an octave between high C and the next-highest C note.

opera

A drama in which all or most characters sing and in which music is an important element; usually all dialogue is sung.

opera buffa

A type of comic opera that became popular in the 18th century; the opposite of opera seria.

opéra comique

An exclusively French type of opera that, despite its name, is not always comic, nor particularly light; also includes spoken dialogue.

opera seria

Literally “serious opera,” the direct opposite of opera buffa; characterized by heroic or mythological plots, and formality in both music and action.

operetta

Italian for “little opera,” sometimes known as “light opera”; a lighter 19th-century style including spoken dialogue.

oratorio

A sacred work for vocal soloists and choir with instrumental accompaniment; differs from an opera in that an oratorio is a concert piece, not a drama.

overture

From the French for “opening”; an instrumental introduction to an opera or ballet, in which some of the main musical themes are presented.

pitch

The position of one sound in relation to the range of tonal sounds—how high or low it is—which depends on the frequency of sound waves.

plainsong

Medieval church music also known as plainchant; consists of a unison, unaccompanied vocal line in free rhythm, like speech, with no regular bar lengths.

pizzicato

A style of playing stringed instruments that are usually played with a bow, by plucking the strings with the fingers.

polyphony

Literally “many sounds,” this refers to a style of writing in which all parts are independent and of equal importance, and therefore implies contrapuntal music. Forms that typify this style include the fugue and motet.

prelude

A short piece of music generally intended as the introduction to a longer composition, although sometimes used for stand-alone pieces.

programmatic, program music

Any music written to describe a nonmusical theme, such as an event, landscape, or literary work.

recitative

A style of singing in opera and oratorio closely related to the delivery of dramatic speech in pitch and rhythm; often used for dialogue and exposition of the plot between arias and choruses.

Romantic

The cultural epoch heralded in music by Beethoven, which dominated the 19th century.

rondo

A piece of music based on a recurring theme with interspersed material; follows a form such as ABACADAE.

scale

A series of notes that define a tune and, usually, the key of the piece. Different scales give music a different feeling and “color.”

semitone

The smallest musical interval between notes in Western tonal music. There are two semitones in a whole note and 12 semitones in an octave.

serialism, serial music

A system of atonal composition developed in the 1920s by Arnold Schoenberg and others, in which fixed sequences of music are used as a foundation to create a more complex whole work.

Singspiel

Literally “song play” (German), generally refers to a comic opera with spoken dialogue in lieu of recitative, as typified in Mozart’s The Magic Flute.

sonata

A popular instrumental piece for one or more players; originated in the Baroque period, when the term referred to a short piece for a solo or small group of instruments accompanied by a basso continuo. The Classical sonata adhered to a three- or four-movement structure for one or two instruments (although the trio sonata was often popular).

sonata form

A structural form popularized in the Classical period. From this period onwards, the first movements of sonatas, symphonies, and concertos were mainly written in this form.

song cycle

A group of songs that tells a story or shares a common theme; designed to be performed in a sequence as a single entity.

soprano

The highest of the four standard singing voices—above alto, tenor, and bass; term for a female or a young boy singing in this vocal range.

stave

The grid of five horizontal lines on which music is written; also called a “staff.”

suite

A multi-movement work—generally instrumental—made up of a series of contrasting dance movements, usually all in one key.

symphonic poem

An extended single-movement symphonic work, usually of a programmatic nature, often describing landscape or literary works. Also known as a tone poem.

symphony

A large-scale work for full orchestra; Classical and some Romantic symphonies both contain four movements—traditionally an allegro, a slower second movement, a scherzo, and a lively finale. The first movement is often in sonata form, and the slow movement and finale may follow a similar structure. Later symphonies can contain more or fewer movements.

tenor

The highest natural adult male voice; also a term describing an instrument in this range.

timbre

The particular quality (literally “stamp”), or character, of a sound that enables a listener to distinguish one instrument (or voice) from another; synonymous with “tone color.”

tonal, tonality

A system of major and minor scales and keys; forms the basis of all Western music from the 17th century until Schoenberg in the early 20th century.

tone poem

See symphonic poem.

treble

The highest unchanged male voice, or the highest instrument or part in a piece of music.

triad

See chord.

verismo

A post-Romantic style of opera with thematic material and presentation rooted firmly in reality.

vibrato

The rapid, regular variation of pitch around a single note for expressive effect.