________________________
A = 440 Hz -
440 vibration cycles per second, which is the frequency of the A above Middle-C. The Hz. stands for Hertz, the physicist who did seminal work in frequency analysis. It is the pitch to which orchestras tune. Some tune a bit higher for a brighter sound. In earlier times the orchestra A was as low as 392, and such low pitched As are used by early music groups. In even earlier times the A was above 440 Hz.
________________________
A capella -
A common misspelling of *a cappella. With only one "p", however, it means "like a she-goat."
________________________
A cappella -
'Of the chapel', which means vocal only, no accompaniment, a holdover from a time when instruments were forbidden in a church.
________________________
"A" section -
The most common way of talking about the large organizational patterns in music is by designating sections by letters. Thus the 'A' Section is the first theme or thematic group, the "B" section is the second theme, etc.
________________________
A tempo -
Return to the *tempo. Found after a brief change, such as a *ritardando.
________________________
A-B-A arias
Those in which the 'A' section is followed by the 'B' section, after which the 'A' is repeated. When the repetition of "A" is exact, it is called a *Da Capo aria.
________________________
ABA form -
Part one of a movement is A, part two is B, then part one repeats, either exactly or close enough that it is recognized as being part one.
________________________
Abbé -
Franz Liszt took minor religious orders late in life and was known thereafter as 'Abbé'.
________________________
Above the staff -
Notes which appear above the five-line 'staff' upon which music is written are high for that instrument or voice.
________________________
Abstract or absolute music -
Music which depends only on structure for its meaning. There is no extra-musical idea like a story or a picture involved.
________________________
Accelerando -
Gradually becoming faster.
________________________
Accidentals -
Sharps, flats, or naturals written in to alter a note as it would usually occur within a tonality.
________________________
Adagio molto e cantabile -
Very slowly and songfully.
________________________
Adagio molto e mesto -
Very slowly and dignified.
________________________
Adagio sostenuto -
Slowly and sustained.
________________________
Adagio -
"At ease", which is to say "slowly".
________________________
Adalgisa -
The often vocally acrobatic mezzo-soprano role in Bellini's Norma.
________________________
Added figurations -
Unwritten notes interpolated by the performer. This was an expected practice in the baroque period (ca. 1600-1760). A performer unable to improvise extra material would have been thought to be more suited for other work.
________________________
Added note chord -
A harmony in which a "free tone" is added just for color.
________________________
Added sixth chords -
Are based on standard major or minor chords (the three tones of which are called 'root', 'third', and 'fifth', the latter two for the number of letter names above the root). To these standard chords an extra tone is added a step up from the basic triad, thus a step above the 'fifth' is a 'sixth'. Debussy uses these chords in some circumstances. In pop music of the 30s and 40s an added sixth chord was a familiar sound accompanying and especially ending a ballad.
________________________
Æolian mode -
One of the early church modes, characterized by half-steps between steps two and three, and steps five and six. This can be played on the white keys of a piano by starting and ending on A. It is the same as signature or natural minor.
________________________
Affects -
1) Stylized ideas within a baroque piece.
2) As an outgrowth of that idea, the general term for the means of expression.
________________________
Affetuoso appassionata -
With emotion and passion.
________________________
Agogic stress -
An emphasis entirely dependent on the length of a tone, not its loudness. One can hold a note to the full length that it is written, but often by allowing spaces between tones a different degree of expressiveness arises.
________________________
Air -
A song. The same as an *aria only English.
________________________
Air", "The famous -
The piece by J. S. Bach often erroneously called the 'Air on the G string'. The feat of playing it on the lowest string of the violin was a 19th century trick.
________________________
Alberti bass -
In a three note chord, most typically the order: bottom, top, middle, top. This is an accompaniment pattern, except that C. P. E. Bach accused Vivaldi of using it as a melody pattern (which he often did).
________________________
Aleatoric, aleatory -
Music which has elements of chance.
________________________
Alkan, Charles-Valentin -
(b. Nov. 30, 1813, d. Mar. 19, 1888) The stage-name adopted by the French pianist Charles Henri Valentin Morhange. Though he was a prodigy, he had a fear of appearing in public and became a recluse as early as his 20s. His 24 piano studies (Op. 35 and 39), like Bach and Chopin, represent all the major and minor keys. Among his traits is the use of striking harmonies and a phenomenal level of difficulty.
________________________
Alla marcia -
Like a march.
________________________
Alla zoppa -
As if limping, therefore *syncopated.
________________________
Allargando -
Getting slower and more majestic.
________________________
Allegro con fuoco -
Fast with fire.
________________________
Allegretto grazioso -
Moderately fast and charming (or gracious).
________________________
Allegretto -
A bit less speedy than Allegro.
________________________
Allegro -
"Cheerful"; fast.
________________________
Allegro con brio -
Fast with liveliness.
________________________
Allegro ma non troppo -
'Fast but not too fast.'
________________________
Allegro maestoso -
Fast, but with majesty
________________________
Allegro moderato -
Moderately fast.
________________________
Allegro molto -
Very fast.
________________________
Allegro non tanto -
Fast but not too much.
________________________
Allegro vivo -
Fast and lively.
________________________
Allemande -
A 'German' dance characterized by a short unaccented note before the initial downbeat.
________________________
Alphorn -
A tubular wooden instrument which is so long that it rests on the ground when played. Wooden though it is, the mouthpiece is like that for a brass instrument, and, like a natural horn, it produces only the pitches of the *harmonic series. Indeed, the lengths of the alphorn correspond to those of the natural horns and the sound is that of a very mellow horn. Rossini's use of a double-reeded english horn to imitate the alphorn in the William Tell Overture works because of the sense of distance and mystery created by the English horn.
________________________
Altered chords -
Standard chords which have had changes made to them for expressive or coloristic purposes.
________________________
Altered instruments -
Old instruments which have been changed structurally to accommodate modern materials such as wire-wound strings.
________________________
Alto -
The lowest female voice range. A true alto can sing as low as the F below middle-C, which is really quite low. In the upper reaches she would be hard pressed to produce an unstrained G-sharp in performance, though she should be able to hit that in warm-up. An F-sharp or G would be expected.
________________________
Alto flute -
A flute with a range from the G below middle C to the G four lines about the treble staff.
________________________
An die Freude (To Joy) -
A title Schiller, and by extension Beethoven, used to satisfy the censors. The original title was An die Freiheit (To Freedom) which puts a wholly different spin on the text. It was this word which Bernstein reinstated in his performance of Beethoven's 9th at the fall of the Berlin Wall. To our modern taste the poem loses something without Beethoven. Indeed it lost something for Beethoven as well: he executed some serious cuts in Schiller's enthusiastic original.
________________________
Andante -
At walking speed. This can, of course, lead to discussions of how fast walking was in, say, the baroque period when the average height was considerably shorter, including in the legs, than now.
________________________
Andante cantabile -
At a walking speed, played with the quality of a sung line.
________________________
Andante con espressione -
Walking speed with expression.
________________________
Andante sostenuto -
At a slow walking speed.
________________________
Andante un poco mosso -
Walking speed with a little motion.
________________________
Andantino -
A little slower than walking speed.
________________________
'Animal' movement
- Each movement of Mahler's Third was originally given a title. The first was Spring, Bacchus Marches In. Then followed What the animals tell me, What the flowers in the field tell me; What the night tells me, What the angels tell me, and the final movement, What God tells me. Mahler later withdrew these descriptions, but they are so meaningful that they have remained the nicknames and are always printed in the program notes.
________________________
Answer -
see *Question and answer.
________________________
Anthibrach -
A poetic foot of three syllables with the second receiving the accent: di-DI-di, DI-DI-DI
________________________
Anti-climax -
As in, say, Shakespeare, the portion which comes after the climactic denouement.
________________________
Anticipation -
A tone not part of the prevailing harmony, but which is part of the next chord. Since it arrives early it gains its name.
________________________
Antiphonal -
Two or more choirs singing (or if instruments, playing) from at least two locations in echo and imitation. Typically front and back or one transept to the other. The practice goes back at least to the very early Christian church, some scholars contending that it goes back to the First Temple of Israel. The technique was brought to its height in late 16th and early 17th century Venice.
________________________
Apollonian -
It was Friedrich Nietzsche who defined the two polarities in art (and thus in life) as Apollonian and Dionysian. The former is the noble, structured, and graceful; the latter the orgiastic, the untamed emotional outpouring. One can describe various works of music as containing a percentage of each. Haydn would lie deep into the Apollonian, while at the other extreme one might find Liszt. Wagner's Tannhäuser is really about the conflict between the extremes. Mahler invokes the Dionysian in his Symphony No. 3 where Bacchus marches in.
________________________
"Apotheosis of the dance" -
This is the famous description of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony by Richard Wagner, who we too often forget was one of the busiest conductors of his time.
________________________
Appalachian Spring by Copland (Martha Graham ballet version) - For only 13 players. This sparseness helps create the spirituality of the music and the characters.
________________________
Appassionata -
With passion.
________________________
Appassionato -
Passionately.
________________________
. . . applause during the continuing music immediately afterwards - This was not so uncommon as we would expect now. During the first performance of Beethoven's 9th, the little bassoon solo in the scherzo movement so caught the audience by surprise at its audacity that it elicited applause, much in the way we now applaud after a jazz players solo even while the next player has begun.
________________________
Applause ('Please hold...') -
The works for which this was specifically requested, R. Schumann's Symphony No. 2 and R. Strauss' Also sprach Zarathustra, would have certainly not found the composers expecting applause between movements. And of course there are no 'movements' in Also sprach.
________________________
Applause throughout the evening (an authentic practice in itself) - This business of not applauding until a piece is concluded is a very recent idea. Even in the 1930s the music critic Olin Downes wondered what had gotten into audiences that they had bought into this new fad of not applauding. Its roots are in a Wagnerian belief in the sanctity of the complete artistic vision. Of course many composers did not share his version of that belief, especially those before him, and would have been most upset without applause between movements, worried that no one liked the music.
________________________
Appoggiatura -
A kind of tone not part of the prevailing chord. It is accented and resolves into a neighboring tone which is part of the chord.
________________________
Arabesque -
A term in art and ballet referring to the shapely curves of Arabic art and script. In music it means melodic shapes in the same style.
________________________
Arabic numbers -
Used to indicate intervals between notes. Thus, the distance between C and D is a M2 (Major second). (see *Roman numerals).
________________________
Arch form -
See *Bogenform.
________________________
Arco -
Played with the bow.
________________________
Aria -
A song for a soloist. It is taken from a larger work like an opera or oratorio. A concert aria, though not from a larger work, is composed as if it were.
________________________
Arioso -
Aria-like, but not a full-length aria and not in the form of one. Often the style lies halfway between recitative and aria.
________________________
Arpeggio, arpeggiated, arpeggiations -
Chords played one tone at a time, as if played on a harp, which is Arpa in Italian, thus Arp-eggiated.
________________________
Arpeggione -
A weird instrument held between the knees like a viola DA gamba, played with a bow as well, but tuned like a guitar. Except for Schubert's first-rate "Arpeggione Sonata", nothing of any note at all remains written for this singular instrument which never had a popular following.
________________________
Art song -
A song which is not a folk- or pop-song nor an operatic aria. It gains its name because its 'use' is as a recital piece as a stand-alone art piece.
________________________
Articulate, articulations -
How notes are attacked and released.
________________________
Athletics and music -
It is worth noting that sing was an Olympic event in ancient Greece. In modern day Olympics the athletic competition often finds parallel arts festivals in the same city or region.
________________________
Atlantans' Shavian heritage -
That of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra's long time conductor the late Robert Shaw, one of the masters of creating clarity in a large texture.
________________________
Atonal -
Without any tonal center, no 'home base', no particular tone which will bring repose to the ear. The Schoenbergian system is one which brings order to 'keylessness'.
________________________
Attacca -
Without pause between movements.
________________________
Attack -
The moment and method of making a tone begin.
________________________
Augmentation -
A theme appearing in longer note values than at its first appearance.
________________________
Augmented chords -
They seem to yearn because they need resolution. They are made by expanding a major triad by a half-step. Play C, E, and G. Now make the G a G-sharp instead. That's an augmented chord.
________________________
Augmented second -
A major second expanded once more. It sounds like a minor third, but is written as neighboring letter-names. e.g. F to G-sharp, as found in an A minor harmonic minor scale. It appears in much middle-eastern music.
________________________
Augmented sixth chord -
There are three kinds of augmented sixth: Italian, German, and French. Italian: (the fundamental version) make a triad on the fourth step of the scale (in the key of C it will be an F chord - F, A, C)). Put it in first inversion (A is on the bottom). Now lower the A to A-flat and raise the F to F-sharp. The distance from A-flat to F-sharp is the characteristic "augmented sixth". It sounds like a dominant seventh chord but resolves outward, the A-flat going to G and the F-sharp also going to G. The interior notes go either to a C and E (or E-flat) or to B and D. German: the same process, but with a seventh chord on the fourth step (F, A, C, E-flat) as the starting point. French: make a seventh chord on step two (D, F, A, C). Put it in second inversion (A on the bottom). As with the other versions, lower the A and raise the F.
________________________
Azucena -
The lead mezzo role in Verdi's Il Trovatore.