B-
A | B
| C | D
| E | F
| G | H-I
| J | K
| L | M
| N | O
| P-Q | R
| S | T
| U | V
| W | X-Y-Z
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"B" section -
The second section of a movement. (see also "A" section.) (see also *Da capoaria)
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"Bach Double" -
This only means the concerto in D minor for two violins. He has others for two instruments, but only that one is meant if left unqualified.
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Bach's supreme masterpiece, the B minor Mass -
There are those who would argue that The Art of the Fugue qualifies, or one of the Passions. I think a good case can be made for the St. Matthew Passion, but it lacks the celebratory language of Bach's brass writing which is present in the Mass.
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Bach, P.D.Q. -
Professor Peter Schickele's humorous (and soused) creation.
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Bach, P.D.Q. (alcohol use) -
In the biography of said character we learn that P. D. Q. had a 'Soused' period in his output. A copy of a score of that time is clearly stained with the marks of several Bierstein bottoms.
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Balances (orchestral) -
Managing who plays at what level relative to the others.
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Ballad opera -
A form of entertainment in 18th century England. Popular and folk songs form the musical substance. The best-known in our time is John Gay's Beggars' Opera which is the ideological basis for Kurt Weill's Three-penny Opera, which uses only melodies of his own invention. In Down In the Valley, however, Weill uses the folk-tune of the same name as a repeated element throughout the work.
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Band -
A band replaces the orchestra's strings with winds and brass. Bands may be 'Big' as in dance band, marching (as in the Ann Arbor group that comes on the field at prestissimo, 140 steps per minute or more at football halftime), or concert.
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Bar -
The line which separates one measure from the next. But bar has come to mean the preceding measure itself.
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Barcarole or Barcarolle -
A boating song, usually associated with Venetian gondoliers. Its meter is 6/8, a "dah di dah di" swaying feeling.
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Baroque -
Generally speaking the period from 1600 to 1750, though several notable
baroque composers lived past 1750, including Handel (1759).
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Baroque, late -
Say 1720-1755.
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Bartók, Belá (1881 - 1945) -
Well known as an ethno-musicologist of eastern Europe. In addition, he is, of course, one of the most influential composers of the 20th century. The two facets of his career are completely related, for he derived many of his compositional ideas and techniques from his study of folk music. He died of leukemia in New York, a refugee from World War II.
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Bass bar -
The bass bar is fitted to the inside of the top of the violin. Like the top, it is made of spruce. Its purpose is to spread vibrations from the bridge along the top and provide structural support. The precise placement and shaping of the bass bar will drastically affect the instrument's overall performance and longevity.
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Bass quintet -
A string quartet with bass added.
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Bass, unrealized -
In baroque music "realizing the bass" meant for the keyboardist or lutenist to improvise the harmony above it. Thus, an unrealized bass would be a bare-bones single line.
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Basset clarinet -
A clarinet with an extended lower range reaching down to a C.
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Basso cantante -
A bass singer who has a particularly lyric quality.
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Basso profundo -
The lowest variety of bass voice.
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Beating time with his left hand -
A very unusual sight. Musicians are quite used to watching a conductor's right hand for the beat.
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Beats -
Pitches not quite in tune with each other create interference with each other which translates into pulsations which are called beats. It is by counting the beats between various intervals that piano tuners get the instrument in tune. But when two instruments or voices are supposed to be on the same pitch and are just a bit off, beats develop which are the sign of poor *intonation.
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Beats per measure -
This becomes an issue when a piece in, say, three beats (like a waltz) goes so fast that physically beating three beats is ludicrous to watch or impossible to do. Then the conductor or performers think of the music in a slower one-beat pattern divided into three. The Scherzo of the "Eroica" is a great example of 3/4 which has to be beat in one. Or a fast four may be turned into a slower two for the same reason. Six beats per measure is most often beat in two.
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Beethoven's middle period -
Includes his symphonies three through eight, his third through fifth piano concertos and the Rasumovsky and "Harp" string quartets.
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Bel canto -
Beautiful song, a style prevalent in early 19th century Italian opera. Rossini, Donizetti, Bellini and early Verdi were bel canto composers. One can also readily hear bel canto style in Chopin's piano music.
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Bell (Liberty) -
The 1894 Columbia cylinder recording of Sousa leading the Marine Band features many rhythmically notated strikes of a bell written into the score. The effect doesn't begin until after the rising chromatic melody (sol-mi-fa-fi-sol-MI) and on that downbeat the bell rings. As the march goes forward, the ringing becomes more frequent until the bell sounds at every beat. At the end of the recording the band members can be heard cheering.
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Bell (of wind instruments, wood or brass) -
The part at the end farthest from the mouthpiece. Because it flares, it can
be said to look like a bell.
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Bell-tone -
A loud attack which immediately drops back to soft, imitating the striking of a bell and the sound's subsequent decay.
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Bells up -
An instruction often used to have the horns (or woodwinds) raise their instruments to face the audience rather than the back wall (horns) or floor (woodwinds).
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Belmonte -
The lead tenor role in Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail (The abduction from the seraglio).
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Belting -
A style of singing associated with women on Broadway. Lots of chest voice and strident. Think Ethel Merman.
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Bent pitch -
Through whatever means are appropriate to the instrument (a slight slide on a string or a change in the *embouchure on a wind instrument), a pitch begins in tune, then is made to slide up or down a small but noticeable amount as indicated by the composer.
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Berceuse -
Lullaby.
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Berg Violin Concerto and Bernstein "Age of Anxiety" - The *row Berg uses is quite tonal in its construction, alternating rising minor and major triads with a *whole-step *tetrachord at the end. The piano part of Bernstein's 'Age of Anxiety' includes a meditative passage which also uses rising minor and major triads alternating.
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Bi-chordal -
Two chords at once.
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Bis -
"Again'. Used with an opus number it refers to a work which has been rewritten for another instrument but is otherwise the same.Called out by listeners it is the same as "encore!"
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Bitonal -
Two keys (tonalities) occurring simultaneously or in very close juxtaposition.
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Blaník Hill -
The final tone-poem of Ma vlast by Bedrich Smetana. It is the place from which the old Hussite warriors will emerge to save Bohemia in its time of need.
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Blocked chords -
Chords in which the notes are all played at the same time.
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Blocked, blocking (acting) - Where the actors are placed, and the plan of their movements on stage.
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Blue notes -
1) A melancholy sound created by an "off note" which lies out of the chord being used. Always a bit flat (low), typically occurring on the 3rd or 7th of steps of the scale.
2) By extension, any note in a jazz style which is attacked low and then slides up to pitch, e.g. pseudo-E-flat sliding up to E natural.
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Bluebeard's Castle -
One act opera by Bartók with libretto by Bela Balazs, based on the drama Ariane et Barbe-Bleu by Maurice Maeterlinck (1901).
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Blues and iambic pentameter -
Macbeth's (or any Shakespearean character's) speeches set to blues is not an invention of Schickele. Leonard Bernstein in his Omnibus program on jazz pointed out that classic blues lyrics are in iambic pentameter. He demonstrated this by singing 'I will not be afraid of death and bane / Till Burnham forest come to Dunsinane' (Macbeth V, iii) to a 12-bar blues tune, repeating the first *verse twice with the second verse as the final four-bar phrase. Also in the 1950s satirist Stan Freberg set 'Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo' to nascent rock-n-roll.
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Bogenform -
German for "Bow form," or in the form of an arced bow. Also called in English an Arch Form. An even-numbered series of episodes is arranged in an odd-numbered symmetrical shape with the final new episode acting as a 'keystone', e. g. ABCDCBA. Another and earlier type of Bogenform is the *rondo with its ABACADACABA "out and back" structure.
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Bottom of the instrument (piano) -
Just to clear it up for people who wonder how a horizontal instrument such as a piano has a 'bottom', the keys producing the low tones are to the left and are therefore referred to as the bottom.
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Bourée -
Stately French dance in two beats.
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Bowing -
The techniques of drawing the bow across the strings of a stringed instrument.
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Bowing together -
A real issue for string players when they must play the same notes together, as they must in an orchestra. Bowing together helps define the phrases and creates crisp rhythm.
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Brahms violin concerto (Several versions of) -
reveals the way many composers have worked. The notes are composed, but who is to play them is a different matter, often involving much mental struggle.
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Brahms' Sonata in E-flat major, op. 120 -
Originally for clarinet solo, then was reworked by the composer for viola.
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Brandenburg No. 3 (middle movement) -
All Bach wrote was two chords: A minor in first inversion and B major. From that hint various solutions have been used. Most often a cadenza by the harpsichordist is used. Violin cadenzas are also common. Sometimes a movement from another Bach work is inserted. Once upon a time the problem was merely elided by playing the two chords and going on, but that is now felt to be a cheap way out.
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'Brass' fanfares -
Though the instruments are not brass, the notes are those possible on a *'natural horn.'
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Brava -
Feminine for "Bravo," which is masculine.
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Bravi -
'Bravo' to two or more people
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Bravo -
A cheer meaning "well done!"
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Bridge -
1) The thin wooden piece which elevates the strings and represents one end of the vibrating length. The other side of it has strange, unpredictable pitches.
2) The middle section of a standard pop song.
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Bridge, Frank -
was the teacher of Benjamin Britten. The latter's first famous work was Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge.
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Brindisi -
A drinking song. Those in Mozart's Don Giovanni, and Verdi's La Traviata and Macbeth come quickly to mind, but there are, of course, many.
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Broken chord -
A chord in which the tones are not played simultaneously.
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Buffo -
Comic. In the overdone style of broad comic acting and singing.
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Bugs Bunny -
Bugs Bunny cartoons probably do more to teach youngsters actual classical pieces by ear than any school system. A catalog of the classical works accompanying those film classics is, while conservative, quite broad.
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BuWV -
'Buxtehude Werke Verzeichnis' (Index of the works of Dietrich Buxtehude (ca. 1637 - 1707).
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Buzz into a mouthpiece -
The sound of a brass instrument is created by the player 'buzzing' the lips (in sort of a Bronx-cheer) into the mouthpiece. Buzzing into only the mouthpiece is how one often practices when driving or in a situation where the full noise of a brass instrument would be inappropriate.
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BWV -
Bach Werke Verzeichnis, "Bach works index," compiled by Wolfgang Schmieder in his Thematisch-systematisches Verzeichnis of 1950. The works are listed by form and are more or less chronological within each heading.