Tough Vocab
This kind of song is tied into a show's plot, often carrying that plot further along.
What is a book song?
A score in the composer's handwriting is known as this, and Mozart's sheet music composed for Marianne Kirchgaessner managed to survive, unlike the Library of Alexandria.
What is an autograph?
Ravel uses this unusual harmonic technique in Jeux D'eau. He juxtaposes two different chords, C major and F# major, which are a tritone apart to create this technique as well.
What is bitonality?
Alan Menken (b. 1949) used Saint-Saëns’s piece in this 1991 film, which Disney can't seem to stop remaking, just like everything else it produces and eventually ruins.
What is Beauty and the Beast?
This Baroque composer who inspired Williams used cantata-anthem, which intermixed vocal sections for the chorus, soloist, and orchestra.
Who was Henry Purcell?
This virtuosic section during a concerto, or orchestra-soloist accompaniment, involves orchestral silence and improvised music played by the soloist.
What is a cadenza?
Mozart set the Adagio in this musical form, and I'll give you how it looks here: ||: A :||: B A’ :||.
What is rounded binary form?
An oscillation between two pitches is known as a tremolo, which Ravel calls for at two different points in Jeux D'eau. This creates a dramatic effect before this upward or downward cascade of notes.
What is a glissando?
Saint-Saëns employed the magical effect into the intro of this work by employing arpeggios in this motion that move in rapid succession but opposite directions.
What is contary-motion?
Vaughan Williams didn't care about this expected structure in a symphony's first movement because it was a very unorthodox symphony, and at that point, he did not want to write any.
What is sonata-form?
This vocal genre with accompaniment has multiple features and varieties, and might even employ a small ensemble or chorus.
What is a cantata?
This genre of music features a soloist supported by an orchestra.
What is a concerto?
This symbol (𝄐) tells a performer to stop the steady pulse of the music and to sustain the sound or silence, and Ravel adds it during the second tremolo.
What is a fermata?
The strings and flute play a quarter-note melody that floats against the backdrop of the pianos, while the harmonica contributes eighth-notes on these weak beats in the meter.
What are off-beats?
In Purcell's cantata-anthems, artists sung songs called arias, which are tuneful, rhythmic portions of a larger work such as an opera. They also sang story-speedrunning, speech-like songs called these, which makes you think of drama class.
What are recitatives?
This genre grew in popularity during the Romantic era, and they typically portray a certain image or mood. (Hint: It's not the German one, those are Lieder.)
What is a character piece?
This form of music consists of a solo leader presenting some text that may vary during the song, with a reply being given by the rest of the group.
What is call-and-response?
The pentatonic melody beings on the left hand, while the right hand side plays arpeggios with a major second interval, or a _______ harmony. This repeated pattern in succession is known as an ostinato.
What is dissonant?
A sustained bass note is known as this, and it tends to occur on the tonic or dominant pitch, most notably at 0:28 and 1:10 in this song.
What is pedal or pedal point?
In Section II of this listening example, the orchestra launches into a tune derived from an old sea song known as "Tarry Trowsers." After that, the solo baritone takes over in the eight movements, and the melodic line mimicking the rise and fall of the waves is known as this musical phenomenon.
What is word-painting?
This single-movement programmatic work for orchestra is also known as a symphonic poem, which sounds like Whitman and Beethoven had a musical child.
What is a tone poem?
What are press gangs?
DAILY DOUBLE (because it's hard:) Ravel's Jeux D'eau opens with this major scale, and eventually moves to the C# scale instead of B major.
What is E major?
Saint-Saëns employs this form in Aquarium, having the a pattern occur twice before descending, and the also-arpeggiated b pattern interrupting it and gradually shifting downward.
What is modified strophic form?
Vaughan Williams goes from a B♭ minor triad to D major, and this substitution of such a lowered chord is known as this kind of relationship.
What is chromatic mediant?