Uoft Music 204

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Concertino: a solo instrument or solo instruments playing with an orchestra

Ripieno: a body of instruments accompanying the concertino in Baroque music

Ritornello: An orchestral passage, the ritornello has three main functions: return of the familiar tune, defining the tonal structure (key) and confirming the contrast between big and small groups. It serves as introductory and as a structural pillar in pieces.

Episode: Material between the statements of the ritornello. Often played by fewer instruments, characterized by many sequences, scales, some complexity and a sound lacking the fullness of the ritornello.

Fugue: A contrapuntal piece that features imitative counterpoint, where a short melody or phrase (the subject) is introduced by one part and successively taken up by others and developed by interweaving the parts. It is for choir instruments and always opens with a fugal exposition.

Fugal exposition: Each voice plays its own adaptation of the theme, in either a subject or an answer; they also provide countersubjects (counterpoints) to the following voices as they enter. Usually ends on either a I or V chord, and is then followed by the body.

Sequence: Taking a bit of a melody and moving to another pitch. Melodies are built on sequences in Baroque music.

Basso Continuo: Played by one of the harpsichord (thoroughbass), guitar or lute, this is the bass line that is very important in Baroque music. It takes on the bass line, as well as some upper parts at times, and is often improvised.

“il prete rosso”: The red priest. This was Vivaldi’s nickname because he was a red head and a priest (common at the time- being a priest, not a ginger).

Ospedale della Pietà: Where Vivaldi was music master in Venice, Italy.

French overture style (ouverture): Characterized by a grand beginning, this style is slow and grand, is slow in dotted rhythms (jagged pattern), fast in the fugal form and includes a little flourish. With two parts, the overture is enclosed by double bars and repeat signs.

Chorale: The melody to which the church hymn is sung by the congregation (in SATB). In Bach’s Cantata # 140, the chorale acts as a structural pillar for the piece.

Cantata: Vocal composition with instrumental accompaniment, in several movements and involving a choir often times. Originates from Italian music, where it would normally be a chamber work.

Cantus Firmus texture: One line sticks out with remaining voices singing contrapuntally. An existing melody forming the basis for a polyphonic composition.

Imitation: repetition of a melody in a polyphonic texture shortly after its first appearance in a different voice, usually at a different pitch.

Recitative – secco (dry) or accompagnato (accompanied): singing style where the rhythm is speech-like and determined by conversational rhythm, or verbal text, as opposed to traditionally set metre. The recitative is usually sung by the tenor voice (narrator in Lutheran music) and accompanied by the basso continuo (organ in church) and introduces the aria.

Aria: Features extended notes and ample repetition of words and phrases, sung expressively by a singer.

Major mode: The type of scale in which a piece is set. Consonant, not dissonant, in sound.

Minor mode: The type of scale in which a piece is set. Dissonant, not consonant, in sound.

Cantional style: straightforward four-part harmonizations of hymns and psalm settings. The melody in top voice, this style is also homophonic.

Bar form: musical form in the pattern of AAB.

Modulation: the process of changing from one key to another.Obbligato: Describes a functional change from a basso continuo part (in which the player decided how to fill in the harmonies unobtrusively) to a fully written part of equal importance to the main melody part.Cadenza: At the climactic point at the end of movement or aria, it begins with a chord on the dominant (5th note) of the scale and leads, irresistibly, to the tonic (1st notes of the scale). Tonic, dominant: The tonic is the first note of a scale and the dominant is the fifth. The cadenza is dominated by the polarity of tonic-dominant relationship.Motive (motif): A short musical idea, the motif is thematically significant to the piece of music. It is salient and recurring and can be a succession of notes or small idea.