Enlightenment
Time in philosophy that gave free rein to the pursuit of truth and discovery of natural laws.
Comic Opera
A genre originating in the 18th century that portrays everyday people and circumstances through spoken dialogue and simple songs.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
A child prodigy composing by age six and playing multiple instruments, born in Austria to a musical father, who was knighted by the Pope and famous for his comic opera.
Sonata-Allegro Principle
A form (or principle) that features an optional introduction, an exposition, a development, a recapitulation, and an optional coda.
Exposition
The opening, principal section of Sonata-Allegro Principle in which all thematic material is presented.
Development
The center-most part of sonata-allegro form, in which the thematic material of the exposition is developed and extended, transformed, or reduced to its essence; it is often the most confrontational and unstable section of the movement. It is not the origi
Recapitulation
In sonata-allegro form, the return to the first theme and the tonic key following the development.
Minuet
Moderate dance in triple meter. Instrumentally, more of an abstract dance and not meant to be danced to.
Trio
A brief, self-contained composition contrasting with a previous piece (often a Minuet). Originally performed by three instruments, but that went out the window and became to be played by entire orchestras.
Singspiel
A musical comedy originating in Germany with spoken dialogue, tuneful songs, and topical humor.
Vocal Ensemble
In opera, a group of four/more solo singers expressing emotions or perspectives simultaneously.
Joseph Haydn
Extremely prolific and talented Classical composer in Vienna who wrote many symphonies. Working for the Esterh�zy Family, he was perceived as a servant.
Esterha?zy Family
The powerful and rich Hungarian family where Joseph Haydn worked.
Symphony
A genre of instrumental music for orchestra consisting of several movements. It typically had three contrasting sections: usually Fast/Slow/Fast.
String Quartet
An instrumental ensemble for chamber music consisting of a first and second violin, one viola, and one cello.
Ludwig van Beethoven
German composer of instrumental music (especially symphonic and chamber music).
Bonn Period
Period in which Beethoven developed his style but still within the classical vein.
Vienna Period
Period in which Beethoven idealized Mozart (much of his music is in the style of Mozart) and foreshadowed more expression in his music.
Heroic Period
Period in which Beethoven was more assertive, writing longer works on a grand scale.
Late Period
Period in which Beethoven became more concerned with lyrical lines (� la Ode to Joy) and increased his interest in folk music and sometimes evoked a pastoral setting.
Heiligenstadt Testament
A testament in which Beethoven contemplated suicide, but ultimately could not because his art would not let him (considered posterity).
Archduke Rudolph
He took lessons from Beethoven and became his patron. Because of his patronage, Beethoven dedicated many works to him.
Ode to Joy
A poem by Friedrich von Schiller set to music by Beethoven as a hymn in honor of universal brotherhood and used in the finale of his Symphony No. 9.
Art Song
An accompanied song with artistic aspirations for piano and voice.
Song Cycle
A collection of several songs united by a common textual theme or literary idea.
Lied
The genre of art song that originated in Germany ca. 1800.
Franz Schubert (Schubertiads)
He was an important composer of lieder. He hosted have social gatherings where people would discuss poetry and music. Those were called? ______________
Robert Schumann
A composer of lieder whose father was a novelist. He moved to Leipzig in order to study piano and he practiced 7 hours a day and took lessons from Friedrich for two years. His injury on his hand, however, forced him to turn to composition and critique.
Clara Schumann
A composer of her own right, she had to take up performing again after her husband had gone insane and died.
Fr�d�ric Chopin
Born to a French father and Polish mother in Warsaw Poland, he was introverted and frail, battling some health issues. He didn't want to be in the spotlight that much, so he instead reverting to composing.
Mazurka
A fast dance of Polish origins in triple meter with an accent on the second or third beat.
Nocturne
A slow, introspective genre, usually for piano, with rich harmonies and poignant dissonances intending to convey the mysteries of the night through a lilting feel and dreaminess.
Franz Liszt
A flamboyant, handsome, talented, and confident piano virtuoso. He even became a sex symbol and was known as the "piano slayer.
E?tude
A short, one-movement composition designed to improve an aspect of a performer's technique.
Program Music
Instrumental music seeking to recreate emotions of another non-musical source.
Hector Berlioz
A composer who pursued studies in medicine, but then realized he had to have a life of music, dedicated to music. He used id�e fixe.
Id�e Fixe
An obsessive musical theme.
Tone (Symphonic) Poem
A one-movement work for orchestra of the Romantic era that gives musical expression to the emotions and events associated with a story, play, political occurrence, personal experience, or encounter with nature.
Peter Tchaikovsky
He is known for his tone poems. He studied law for a while, but eventually turned to music and was heavily influenced by the love, drama, and themes of Shakespeare.
Ballet
An art form using dance and music (along with costumes and scenery) to tell a story and express emotions.
Bel Canto
A style of singing and type of Italian Opera developed in 19th century featuring beautiful tones and brilliant technique of the human voice, graceful ideas of beautiful singing, and open vowels.
Richard Wagner
German composer of operas and inventor of the music drama in which drama and spectacle and music are fused. Proponent of leitmotif.
Leitmotif
A melodic phrase that accompanies the reappearance of a person or situation (as in Wagner's operas).
Verismo Opera
A realism opera; Italian term for a type of late nineteenth-century opera in which the subject matter concerns the unpleasant realities of everyday life.
Musical Nationalism
Genre featuring indigenous elements like folksongs, native scales, dance rhythms, local instrument sounds as well as through the use of national subjects for program music or opera. Played in order to convey one's love or patriotism for a country.
The Mighty Five
A group of five composers, centered in St. Petersburg, whose aim was to write purely Russian music.
Modest Mussorgsky
Trained to be a military officer but wanted instead to compose. Conveying the national identity of Russia through music, he wrote pieces for orchestra dedicated to a specific locations in Russia. Part of The Mighty Five.
Johannes Brahms
Significant figure in the Late Romantic Period, born in Hamburg, Germany, and received training in piano and music theory and was encouraged to study Bach and Beethoven, so he drew many influences from them. "Heir to Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven." - Rober
Double Stops
Technique in which a violinist holds two and sometimes more strings simultaneously, and sweeps across them with the bow. It gives the effect that two or more violinists are playing while it is actually only one.
Gustav Mahler
He thought his mission of life was to conduct, or, in his own words, "to suffer for my great masters." Famous for his orchestral songs (lieds).
Orchestral Song/Lied
A genre of music emerging in the 19th century in which the voice is accompanied not merely by a piano but by a full orchestra.
Impressionism
A movement originating in France in which artists sought to recreate the elusive sensation that an object produced upon the senses in a single, fleeting moment.
Claude Debussy
Famous French impressionist composer who became good friends with symbolists. "Prelude to the Afternoon of a Fun.
Symbolists
French poets whose aesthetic aims emphasized the sound of a word rather than its literal meaning.
St�phane Mallarm�
His French symbolist poem "The Afternoon of a Faun" inspired Debussy's most famous orchestral work
Parallel Motion
When all of the musical lines move in the same direction, and at same intervals for a period of time. It is the opposite of counterpoint.
Exoticism
Nineteenth-century trend in which composers wrote music that evoked feelings and settings of distant lands or foreign cultures.
World's Fair
Various villages showed cultural art, dance, music, foods, etc. Japanese Gamelan instruments were featured/introduced there.
Maurice Ravel
In addition to Debussy, this composer wrote Exotic music featuring sounds of Spain, Arabia, The Far East, and even Greece. He never really traveled to those places, however, despite the fact that his music still evokes those foreign lands.
Igor Stravinsky
Composer, wrote Rite of Spring, expressionist ballet, shocked crowds because of music and scenes. Famous for his ballet.
Neo-Classicism
Early 20th century style emphasizing classical forms and smaller ensembles of the sort existing during the Baroque and Classical periods.
Arnold Schoenberg
United States composer and musical theorist who developed atonal composition and was the leader of the Second Viennese School.
Atonal Music
Music without tonality (a key center). It is most often associated with the 20th century avant-garde style of Arnold Schoenberg.
Twelve-Tone Composition
Method of composing music (devised by Schoenberg) that has each of the twelve notes of the chromatic scale sound in a fixed, regularly recurring order.
Serial Music
Music in which some important component - pitch, dynamics, rhythm - comes in a continually repeating series. You can vary it, as long as it comes back in the same order.
Sergey Prokofiev
Born in Russia who spent time abroad but eventually returned. Performances of his music were outlawed because of the fear that modernist tendencies would create social unrest.
Dimitri Shostakovich
Stalin attended one of his performances and raged out of the hall. Two days later, there was a review that proclaimed "chaos instead of music." He toned things down a bit after that and wound up receiving the Stalin Medal. He became the Russian "poster bo
B�la Bart�k
Born in Hungary, educated at the academy of music in Budapest, and he was a Hungarian nationalist. Much of his music, although some is atonal and modernist, includes folk tunes. He was very patriotic for his country (obviously, nationalist), so much so th