20th Century - Instruments

20th Century - Words and Phrases: Vocabulary

20the Century - Composers

20th Century - Genres

Neo-classical/ Impressionist - Words and Phrases; Vocabulary

Neo-Classical/ Impressionist - Composers

Neo-classical/ Impressionist - Genres

Neo-classical / Impressionism - Instruments

Romantic - Words and Phrases; Vocabulary

Romantic - Composers

Romantic - Genres

string quartet

noun

1. a chamber music ensemble consisting of first and second violins, viola, and cello.

   • a piece of music for a string quartet.

   
   

string quartet

noun

1.

a musical composition, usually in three or four movements, for four stringed instruments, typically twoviolins, viola, and cello.

piano quintet. Group of 5 players—usually pianist, 2 violinists, violist, cellist—or work written for them, but one of the most famous works, Schubert's ‘Trout’ quintet, is for pf., vn., va., vc., and db.

lied

liːd,-t/

noun

1. a type of German song, especially of the Romantic period, typically for solo voice with piano accompaniment.

Schubert, Schumann, Wold, Brahms

concerto

noun

1. a musical composition for a solo instrument or instruments accompanied by an orchestra, especially one conceived on a relatively large scale.   - Piano Concerto Very popular!

symphony

noun

1. an elaborate musical composition for full orchestra, typically in four movements, at least one of which is traditionally in sonata form.

Liszt, Berlioz, Richard Strauss

symphonic poem

noun

1. another term for tone poem - 

   a piece of orchestral music, typically in one movement, on a descriptive or rhapsodic theme.    (e.g. Debussy prelude a le apres midi du unfaune - Romanticism)

concert overture

noun

1. a piece of music in the style of an overture but intended for independent performance - 

   an orchestral piece at the beginning of an opera, play, etc.  (Wagner - Tristan und Isolde - Romanticism)

opera

noun

1. a dramatic work in one or more acts, set to music for singers and instrumentalists.

Verdi, Weber, Wagner Meyerbeer, Gounod, Rossini, Donizetti, Bellini, Richard Strauss

Romantic - Instruments

Resources - Aural

• Voices and instruments used
• Timre - nature of the sound produced
• Ranges of parts  (eg. Low sounds create melancholy effects, How does this contribute to the overall sound effect?)

World music - distinguish between:

1. plucked instruments
2. metallic instruments 
3. non-metallic instruments 
4. differences of timbre arising from different types of muting 

Western Traditional music 

1. effects of changes - Plucking and Bowing
2. use of mutes
3. harmonics
4. different bowing techniques - e.g. sul ponticello, sul tasto, or sul la touche 

Texture - Aural

• Monophonic - a single unaccompanied melody 
• Polyphony - independently moving melody lines (another way of saying 'contrapuntal' for Renaissance music)
• Contrapuntal - independently moving lines 

1. Free, no melodic similarity between parts
2. Imitative, another part enters with the same theme while the first continues its own theme
3. Canonic, a strict form of imitation, second part is near enough to copy the first, even at a different pitch
4. Fugal, as in a fugue or fugato 

• Homophony - Chordal textures, some times also described as homorhythmic - ALL parts moving at roughly the same rhythm

1. Melody-dominated homophony - textures in which the melody is supported by a rhythmically independent part, for example Alberti bass or broken chord patterns 

• Heterophony - Melody line is heard along with rhythmically different, or melodically varied version of itself.
• Antiphony - passages of music are performed by different singers/and or instruments in alternation. "Call and response"

• Octaves - don't forget to say how many there are and differentiate between octaves and unison
• Pedal Points - harmonic and tonal devices (make up the texture as well!)
• Ostinato - short repeated melodic or rhythmic figure, heard in conjunction with other musical ideas 
• Riff - a term for ostinato CONNECTION to jazz and popular music 

Tonality - Aural

• Is the music tonal or atonal ?
• If the music is tonal, is it functional (do cadences define the key?)
• Is it non-functional? Perhaps it still has a key signature, but it is best regarded as being 'on' rather than 'in' the key 
• Modal - in which case, name the key and mode it is based on. (Be careful, the music may not be modal throughout, or else may change modes as it goes on!)
• Pentatonic elements (In popular music - in these cases, name the key as well, for example, E pentatonic major
• Does the music modulate? (change key systematically), as in most classical works OR does it abruptly 'shift' from one tonal centre to another?

Melody - Aural

• The range of the part
• Whether the melody is in a major or minor key, or else in a mode or atonal 
• Whether it is diatonic or chromatic
• The phrase structure - whether it is balanced phrases ('periodic phrasing') or something less regular
• Use of repetition or sequence 
• Whether the melody is monotone (staying on a single note), conjunct (moving by step) or disjunct (moving by leap); if moving by leap, be ready to describe intervals
• Particularly stylistic characteristics, for example in early music the tendency to follow a leap with a note between the two  (John Dowland's Flow my Tears - Renaissance) 
• Use of motifs
• Whether the melody line is flowing or broken up by rests

If describing vocal music, can comment on the Text setting

• Syllabic (one note to a syllable) 
• Melismatic (several notes to a syllable)
• Whether verbal and musical accents coincide (do stressed syllables fall on the first beat, or other strong beats, of the bar or not?

Rhythm and Metre - Aural

• The variety of note lenths
• Recurring rhythmic patterns 
• Dotted rhythms or the 'reversed' dotted rhythm describes as either a scotch snap or Lombardic rhythm
• Syncopation
• Hemiola
• Triplets or other 'tuplets 
• Time signature - whether it is simple or compound, duple, triple, quadruple, or quintuple
• Metre changes
• Whether there is metre at all

Harmony - Aural

• Primary or secondary 
• Augmented or diminished
• In root position or one of the inversions
• Diatonic or chromatic
• Functional (strongly cadential harmony) or whether unrelated chords are used.

Harmonic Devices

• Cadences  (Perfect, imperfect/ phrygian, plagal, interrupted)
• Tonic or dominant pedals (specify which)
• Circle of fifths 
• Tierce de picardie 

Dissonance 

• Suspension
• False relation
• Appogiatura 
• Seventh chords, or one of the higher dissonances (9th, 11th, 13th) - and also whether they resolved
• Added 6th, augmented 6th, diminished 7th, Neapolitan 6th 
• Added-note harmony 

Past Papers - Style

Expressionist
Impressionist
Romantic
Serial
Afro- Cuban
Free
Swing
Traditional

Expressionist
Impressionist
Neoclassical
Romantic

Past Papers - Composers

Cage
Gershwin
Stravinsky
Webern

Bach
Beethoven
Berlioz
Mozart

Brahms
Elgar
Schoenberg
Vanghan Williams


Bach
Handel
Haydn
Purcell

Beethoven
Mozart
Mussorgsky
Schumann

Handel
Haydn
Mendelssohn
Purcell

J.S Bach
Mendelssohn
Mozart
Brahms

Bach
Brahms
Chopin
Haydn

Bach
Handel
Haydn
Purcell

Debussy
Goldsmith
Messiaen
Poulenc

Debussy
Poulenc
Wagner
Webern

Byrd
Gabrieli
Purcell
Schutz

Berg
Debussy
Stravinsky
Wagner

Bach
Beethoven
Berlioz
Brahms