GENRES & FORMS
MORE GENRES & FORMS
COMPOSERS
STYLE FEATURES
FUN MUSIC FACTOIDS
100

A term used by musical theorists to describe the profound stylistic changes of Italian and French music in the 14th century....

Ars Nova

100

This is the sequence of events in Sonata Form...



1)Exposition (themes presented) 

2)Development (new treatment of themes)

3)Recapitulation (themes re-introduced)

4)Coda (in tonic key

100

I wrote symphony no. 5 in C minor, and I suffered total hearing loss later in life, but it did not stop me from composing...

Ludwig van Beethoven

100

Common in Romantic music, this style used melodies, rhythms and instruments that are inspired by foreign lands...

Exoticism 

100

The string family of the orchestra contains these 4 instruments...

Violins, violas, cellos, double basses

200

Vocal line in opera that imitates the rhythms and pitch fluctuations of speech, often utilized to move the plot along...

Recitative

200

In this Classical Era form, a basic musical idea (the theme) is repeated over and over and is changed each time...

Theme & Variations 

200

I am known as the earliest master of the romantic art song, and I wrote over 600 of them during my career, including one about a father riding on horseback through a storm with his sick child in his arms...

Franz Schubert

200

In this era, composers were relatively uninterested in expressing the emotions of a text, and most music was monophonic, utilizing church modes rather than major and minor scales...

Middle Ages

200

The woodwind family of the orchestra contains these 6 instruments...

Piccolo, flutes, oboes, english horn, clarinets, bassoons

300

Composition for several instrumental soloists and small orchestra; common in late baroque music...

Concerto Grosso

300

The first and last movements of Concerti Grossi are often in this Baroque Era form, during which the theme is presented by the Tutti, alternating with one or more soloists playing new material

Ritornello form

300

I wrote Symphony no. 40 in G minor, and the tragic irony of my life was that I won more acclaim as a boy wonder than as an adult musician, dying broke in Vienna in 1791...

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

300

Music of this era is closely related to the other arts, particularly literature, and unprecedented emphasis was placed on self-expression and the development of a uniquely personal musical style... 

Romantic Era

300

During this era, tone color becomes more important than ever before, as there is less emphasis on a blended sound so more individual tone colors can be heard clearly, and new chord structures are explored...

The 20th century

400

Setting of a poem for solo voice and piano, translating the poem's mood and imagery into music, common in the Romantic era...

Art Song

400

This Baroque Era accompaniment is played by at least two instruments: a keyboard instrument like a harpsichord and a low melodic instrument like a cello...

Basso Continuo

400

I created masterpieces in every baroque form except opera, and my death in 1750 marks the end of the Baroque period...

Johann Sebastian Bach

400

Compositions of this era feature fluctuations of mood within a movement, with music that was expected to be immediately appealing, tasteful, and pleasing...

Classical Era

400

This is the bass part of a baroque accompaniment with figures (numbers) above it indicating the chords to be played...

Figured Bass

500

Polyphonic composition based on one main theme (AKA subject), in which the subject is presented in a single unaccompanied voice and then is imitated by other melodic lines, common in the Baroque era...

Fugue

500

In this Classical Era form (often used during the 3rd movement of Classical symphonies), the movement is in triple meter and ABA (ternary) form...

Minuet and Trio (or, Minuet)

500

When my third ballet, The Rite of Spring, premiered in Paris in 1913, a riot erupted in the crowd as spectators were shocked and outraged by its harsh dissonance...

Igor Stravinsky

500

During this era, musical patronage gradually shifts from the church to the courts, as secular music begins to flourish. Many compositions of this era express a wide range of emotions and imagery through word painting...

Renaissance Era

500

Style that features evocation of primitive power through insistent rhythms and percussive sounds, exemplified in Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring...

Primitivism 

600

Programmatic composition for orchestra in one movement, which may have a traditional form or an irregular form (created by Franz Liszt)...

Symphonic poem

600

The official music of the Roman Catholic Church, this genre consists of a monophonic melody set to sacred Latin texts and sung without accompaniment...

Gregorian Chant

600

I created the earliest operatic masterpiece, Orfeo, in 1607, and my compositions form a musical bridge between the 16th and 17th centuries...

Claudio Monteverdi

600
This is a musical style which stresses tone color, atmosphere, and fluidity...

Impressionism

600

The brass family of the orchestra includes these 4 instruments...

French horns, trumpets, trombones, tuba

700

In Baroque music, an instrumental composition in several movements for 1-8 players; In music after the Baroque period, it is known as a instrumental composition usually in several movements for 1-2 players...

Sonata

700

Medieval music that consists of Gregorian Chant and one or more additional melodic lines is called...

Organum

700

I'm a French impressionist composer who linked the romantic era with the 20th century, writing music that evoked fleeting moods and misty atmosphere...

Claude Debussy

700

A movement of instrumental music from this era expresses one basic mood throughout ("unity of mood"), and stringed instruments dominate, along with the basso continuo...

Baroque Era

700

This is a baroque composition in several movements, usually written for chorus, one or more vocal soloists and instrumental ensemble, often including chorales...

Cantata

800

Extended composition for instrumental soloist and orchestra, usually in three movements: fast, slow, fast...

BONUS-name a composition from the Classical era (that we analyzed in class together) that is in this genre...

Concerto


BONUS: Haydn's Trumpet Concerto in Eb Major

800

Compositional form featuring a main theme (A) that returns several times in alternation with other themes, such as A B A C A. Often the last movement in classical symphonies, string quartets, and sonatas...

BONUS-name a classical composition that we analyzed in class that utilizes this form...

Rondo


BONUS: Beethoven's String Quartet in C minor, 4th movement

800

I wrote many courtly love songs in the 14th century, including Puis qu'en oubli sui de vous, an Ars Nova love song...

Guillame de Mauchaut 

800

This is a musical style stressing intense, subjective emotion and harsh dissonance, typical of German and Austrian music of the early 20th century...

Expressionism 

800

A kind of harmony that uses chords containing tones not found in the prevailing major or minor scale but included in the chromatic scale, often found in romantic music...

Chromatic harmony

900

This is a method of composing that uses an ordered group of musical elements to organize rhythm, dynamics and tone color, as well as pitch...

Serialism

900

This is a method of composing in which all pitches of a composition are derived from a special ordering of the 12 chromatic tones...

BONUS-this system was developed by...

Twelve-tone system

BONUS: Arnold Schoenberg

900

I was a master of Italian opera and English oratorio, and when I died in 1759, 3,000 mourners attended my funeral...

George Frederic Handel

900

Musical style characterized by steady pulse, clean tonality, and insistent repetition of short melodic patterns, creating a trancelike or hypnotic effect...

BONUS-what piece did we analyze in class that is representative of this style?

Minimalist music

BONUS-Steve Reich's Different Trains

900

Instrumental music associated with a story, poem, idea, or scene, often found in the romantic period...

Program music

1000

Singing the word stars on a high pitch is representative of...

Word painting

1000

Large-scale composition for chorus, vocal soloists, and orchestra, usually set to a narrative text, but without acting, scenery, or costumes; often based on biblical stories...

BONUS-what composition did we analyze in class together that is representative of this genre? 

Oratorio

BONUS-Handel's Hallelujah Chorus, from Messiah

1000

I am one of the first French romantic composers, and I created the idee fixe, a single melody used to represent a person or recurring idea...

Hector Berlioz

1000

This musical style is marked by emotional restraint, balance, and clarity, inspired by the forms and stylistic features of 18th century music...

Neoclassicism

1000

The first section of a sonata-form movement, which sets up a strong conflict between the first theme and the second theme of the movement...

Exposition