Musical Terms

Terms | Definitions | Sequence | Restatement of a pattern on successive or different pitch levels. | Duetting | Song performed by two. | Imitation* | Repeating a melody, with one voice entering at different times slightly altered. | Canon* | Several voices sing the same melody entering at different times. | Cantus firmus* | Polyphonic mass when each work is based on the same polyphonic work. | Stile recitativo | Style used in operas, oratorios, and cantatas where the text is declaimed in the rhythm of natural speech with slight melodic variation, small orchestral accompaniment. | Basso continuo* | The bass line that is filled in by chords by various instruments even though written for one. | Ritornello* | In a fast movement of a concerto, recurring thematic material played at the beginning and repeating varied throughout. | Libretto | Literary text for an opera or other musical stage work. | Castrato* | Castrated male singers – to sing castrato. | Monothematic | One theme. | Sonata* | Genre in several movements for one or more instruments/baroque instrumental piece with contrasting movements often with imitative counterpoint. | Monody | An accompanied solo song/texture of solo singer and accompaniment. | Concerto* | Composition for a solo instrument or instruments accompanied by an orchestra mainly. Large scale. | Mass | Musical work setting the texts of the ordinary of the mass. | Fugue* | Imitative section that is based on a single subject beginning with successive statements of the subject. | Motet* | Polyphonic vocal composition. Sacred/secular text in Latin or French. | Canzona | Instrumental work adapted from a chanson/several contrasting sections often in imitative counterpoint. | Ricercar | Elaborate instrumental composition in fugal or canonic style. | In nomine | English polyphonic instrumental music, many composition were given this name. | Concertane | A mixture of the symphony and the concerto genres: a