Genres/Forms
Classical Style
Sonata Form
words from afar
Genres/Forms pt.2
100
Music for small ensemble (two to ten players), one player per part, usually performed without a conductor.
What is chamber music?
100
Term that refers to the highest level of excellence, possessing enduring value or timeless quality, emphasis on symmetry, balance, and proportion, refers to the cultures of Ancient Rome and Greece as well as the art, architecture, and music of the late 18th century.
What is classicism?
100
The event in sonata form where the first theme is presented, establishing the tonic key, presenting a distinctive melodic and rhythmic character, and often setting the mood for the entire movement.
What is Exposition?
100
Italian for "stop", this musical notation indicates that a note should be sustained for longer than its written value.
What is fermata?
100
A multi-movement large-scale musical work that has various specific definitions, but often having three movements, the first an Allegro movement, the second a slower-tempo movement, and the third a fast Allegro or Presto.
What is sonata?
200
The most important chamber-music genre of the Classical era, consisting of violin I, violin II, viola, and cello, usually in four movements with the first movement in sonata form.
What is string quartet?
200
Refers to the musical style forged by Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven and their contemporaries; in the late 18th-century, the city namesake of this "school" flourished as a musical center.
What is Viennese School?
200
The event in sonata form where harmonic tension intensifies through modulation and increased dissonance. There is manipulation of thematic material heard earlier, often through techniques like sequential treatment, fragmentation, inversion, and changes to orchestration. New material may be presented. This event generally ends with dominant preparation.
What is Development?
200
Italian for "sweet", this musical notation marking is used in both Themes A and B of the second movement of Beethoven's Symphony No. 5, op. 67.
What is dolce?
200
An extended musical composition often in four movements with the first in sonata form.
What is a symphony?
300
A musical form where a melody is stated and then undergoes a series of transformations, often used in the slow movement of sonata cycle. The transformations can be in melody, harmony, rhythm, or orchestration.
What is theme and variations?
300
Music without extra-musical associations, also known as "pure music", with generic titles reflecting tempos, genres, or forms.
What is absolute music?
300
The event in sonata form where the first theme returns in the tonic, often including a bridge, second theme, codetta, and coda, all restating or reaffirming the tonic key.
What is Recapitulation?
300
Italian for "jest" or "joke", this musical form was used by Beethoven in place of the menuet as the third movement in the sonata cycle.
What is scherzo (and trio)?
300
The first of this often-paired duo is a stylized dance of French origin developed in the Baroque period, in triple meter. The second of the pair is a contrasting middle section, which creates a complete piece in ternary form. The entire piece has a graceful, elegant character.
What is menuet and trio?
400
A multi-movement orchestral genre for small orchestra or chamber ensemble, popular in the Classical era, often performed in aristocratic social settings and at outdoor events.
What is serenade?
400
This multi-movement structure emerged in the Classical era and is demonstrated in symphonies, sonatas, or concertos.
What is sonata cycle?
400
Within the Exposition event of sonata form, this part establishes a new key, often creates contrast, and sometimes consists of several themes.
What is Second Theme?
400
German for "storm and stress", a German literary movement of the 1770s exemplified in the works of Goethe, Schiller, and their contemporaries, demonstrates heightened emotionalism and dramatic contrasts foreshadowing Romanticism.
What is Sturm und Drang?
400
A large-scale fully-staged musical piece where musical score and text are combined in a dramatic fashion and performed by orchestra and vocalists.
What is opera?
500
This musical form combines elements of snoata forma nd rondo form, with a typical layout being ABACABA. ABA functions as an Exposition; C functions as a Development, and the second ABA functions as a Recapitulation.
What is sonata-rondo form?
500
Classical formal structure often used in sonata cycle where Section A recurs, with alternating sections creating contrast. Section A is heard three times or more in the tonic key. The form is ABACA or ABACABA.
What is Rondo form?
500
This precursor to sonata form includes a Section A with an open cadence that usually modulates to the dominant or relative major followed by a contrasting Section B and a Section A returning, usually altered to stay in the tonic key.
What is rounded binary?
500
The title of Haydn's String Quartet, op. 76, no. 2 ("Quinten") came from this Latin word meaning "fifth". The string quartet has bold descending fifths in the first violin part in the opening measures of the first movement which earned the piece its nickname.
What is quintus?
500
German songs, usually musical settings of Romantic German poetry. This term is often interchangeable by English-speakers for "art songs".
What is lieder?
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