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| An extended musical setting of a sacred text made up of dramatic, narrative and contemplative elements. Similar to an opera but lacking the theatrical elements and with more emphasis on the chorus. |
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| Lines sung by any crowd in an oratorio, such as the disciples, the Jews, etc. |
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| Musical declamation of the kind usual in the narrative and dialogue parts of opera and oratorio, sung in the rhythm of ordinary speech with many words on the same note. |
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| An aria in ternary form (three sections), where the third section is an ornamented repetition of the first. |
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| The evocation, through music, of awe and astonishment. |
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| Melodic or harmonic configuration that creates a sense of resolution. |
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| A term given to multi-movement works during the classical period, generally in three parts: an allegro introduction of the theme, a slower andante or adagio middle, and an allegro or presto closer. |
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| An extended musical composition, generally for orchestra. |
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| A way of viewing a musical phrase in a manner similar to a written sentence. A period is generally eight measures long and split into two parts: antecedent and consequent. |
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| A musical structure consisting of three main forms: an exposition, a development, and a recapitulation. |
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| Tonality is the arrangement of pitches and/or chords of a musical work in a hierarchy of perceived relations, stabilities, attractions and directionality. In this hierarchy, the individual pitch or triadic chord with the greatest stability is called the tonic. |
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| The first half of a musical period. Consists of a two measure "basic idea" followed by a two measure "contrasting idea" that ends with a weak cadence. |
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| Sonatas for Connoisseurs and Amateurs |
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| Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach's six collections of sonatas, fantasias and rondos fur Kenner und Liebhaber (''for Connoisseurs and Amateurs''), published in Leipzig between 1779 and 1787. |
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| Begins with a statement of the Antecedent's basic idea, but end with a contrasting idea that features a perfect authentic cadence. |
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| Highly embellished passage, often improvised and located around an important cadence. |
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| Mozart composed his concertos in three distinct sections: fast-slow-fast. |
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| Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra |
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| A German symphony orchestra founded in 1781. |
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| An Italian opera librettist. Wrote the Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, and Cosi fan Tutte. |
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| Beethoven's Stylistic Periods |
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| The Viennese Period, the Heroic/Expansion Period, and the Late Style. |
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| Beethoven's Sixth symphony. Composed during his late period, it is one of his few works to feature explicitly programmatic content. |
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| One of The Ring Cycle's most important motifs. It first appears during the second act and ends on a dominant seventh chord, leaving the audience guessing what is to happen. |
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| Beethoven's Eighth Piano Sonata. Includes a dramatic, slow introduction and a serious and intense finale. |
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| Beethoven's third symphony. Apparently composed to celebrate "the memory of a great man." |
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| A leading phrase or figure that is reproduced and varied through the course of a composition or movement. |
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| A movement in the arts and literature that originated in the late 18th century, emphasizing inspiration, subjectivity, and the primacy of the individual. |
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| A sort of proto-romantic movement that emerged in Germany between 1760 and 1780. Emphasized many of the same traits as romanticism. |
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| A slight speeding up or slowing down of the tempo of a piece at the discretion of the performer or conductor. |
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| Private events where performances were often given. |
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| Musical composition evocative of the night. |
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| A dance of Polish origin. |
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| A ballroom or folk dance, normally in triple meter. |
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| A musical composition designed to provide practice material for perfecting a particular skill. |
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| A collection of thematically related pieces of music. |
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| A form of German art song. Often, the piano and voice were considered to be equally important. |
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| A letter written by Ludwig van Beethoven to his brothers Carl and Johann at Heiligenstadt. It reflects his despair over his increasing deafness and his desire to overcome his physical and emotional ailments to complete his artistic destiny. |
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| Also called verse-chorus form, all stanzas of the song are sung to the same music. A modified strophic form varies the pattern in some stanzas. |
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| Each stanza of text is sung to a different musical accompaniment. |
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| Three of the divisions (collections of ranks) controlled by the stops on an organ. |
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| Collection of pipes on an organ. |
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| The collection of knobs that control the timbre of an organ. |
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| Dispute between prominent musicians in the second half of the 19th century over topics such as program vs. absolute music, musical structure, and the limits of chromatic harmony. |
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| Bohemian music critic who initially was a strong proponent of the work of Wagner, but later came to reject its authenticity in favour of Brahms'. |
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| A single, continuous piece of music meant to evoke the content of a poem. |
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| Method devised by Franz Liszt to provide unity, variety, and narrative-like logic to works of music in order to more accurately portray a programmatic subject. |
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| A recurring musical phrase meant to signify a certain character or mood. |
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| Wagner's magnum opus, basically Lord of the Rings. 15 hour long opera. |
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| "All encompassing art." A style of art proposed by Richard Wagner that included elements of multiple different media. |
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| Zukunfstmusik, "The ArtWork of the Future" |
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| An essay by Richard Wagner wherein he laid out his ideas about what art should be. |
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| Richard Wagner don't like the Jews. |
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| When the different states of the Italian peninsula consolidated into the "Kingdom of Italy." Was completed in 1871. |
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| "Vittorio Immanuele, Re d'Italia," a reference to Victor Emmanuel the Second, the first king of a unified Italy. |
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| Meant to signify a recollection of the past by a dramatic character. |
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| The traditional beliefs, customs, and stories of a community, passed through the generations by word of mouth. |
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| Music produced by something that is on-screen in a film. e.g. if a band is depicted playing music. |
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| Music that is not produced by something on-screen in a film such that the characters would not be able to hear it. e.g. the soundtrack. |
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| Music originating from a "story within a story." |
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| Music that lacks a tonal center, does not appear to be organized around a key. |
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| Technique that is a means of ensuring that all 12 notes of the chromatic scale are sounded as often as one another in a piece of music while preventing the emphasis of any one note. |
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| Set of all pitches that are a whole number of octaves apart. For example, the set of all C's across all octaves. |
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| A non-repetitive ordering of a set of pitch-classes, typically of the twelve notes in musical set theory of the chromatic scale |
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| Compositional style created by Arvo Part. Involves one voice arpeggiating the tonic triad while another moves slowly in a stepwise fashion. |
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| Compositional style in which some aspects of the music are left open to chance. |
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| A compositional technique in which the same part (a repetitive phrase) is played on two musical instruments, in steady but not identical tempi. |
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