1.
The Musical Offering
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The Ricercar a 6, a six-voice fugue which is the highpoint of the entire work, was put forward by the musicologist Charles Rosen as the most significant piano composition in history. This ricercar is also called the Prussian Fugue, a name used by Bach himself. The composition features in the section of Douglas Hofstadters Pulitzer Prize winning book Gödel, Escher. The collection has its roots in a meeting between Bach and Frederick II on May 7,1747, the meeting, taking place at the Kings residence in Potsdam, came about because Bachs son Carl Philipp Emanuel was employed there as court musician. Frederick wanted to show the elder Bach a novelty, the fortepiano, the King owned several of the experimental instruments being developed by Gottfried Silbermann. He did so, but Frederick then challenged him to improvise a fugue on the same theme. The public present thought this was just a malicious caprice by the King, intent upon humiliating philosophers, Bach answered that he would need to work the score and send it to the King afterwards. He then returned to Leipzig to write out the Thema Regium, Two months after the meeting, Bach inscribed the piece Regis Iussu Cantio Et Reliqua Canonica Arte Resoluta, the first letters of which spell out the word ricercar, a well-known genre of the time. The thema regium appears as the theme for the first and last movements of Sonata No. Humphrey F. Sassoon has compared the theme issued by Frederick II to the theme of an A minor fugue by George Frideric Handel, published in Six fugues or voluntarys for organ or harpsichord. Sassoon notes that Handels theme is much shorter than the Kings, nevertheless, the Ricercar a 6 is longer and incomparably more complex than Handels fugue. The ricercars and canons have been realised in various ways, the ricercars are more frequently performed on keyboard than the canons, which are often played by an ensemble of chamber musicians, with instrumentation comparable to that of the trio sonata. The Canones super Thema Regium are also played together. These compositions are called the riddle fugues, the performer is/are supposed to interpret the music as a multi-part piece, while solving the riddle. The canon per tonos pits a variant of the theme against a two-voice canon at the fifth. However, it modulates and finishes one whole tone higher than it started out at and it thus has no final cadence. Among the theories about external sources of influence, Michael Marissen’s is the best-founded, marissen sees an incongruity between the official dedication to Frederick the Great and the effect of the music, which is often melancholy, even mournful. The trio sonata is a sonata da chiesa, whose style was at odds with Frederick’s secular tastes
2.
Johann Sebastian Bach
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Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer and musician of the Baroque period. Bachs compositions include the Brandenburg Concertos, the Goldberg Variations, the Mass in B minor and his music is revered for its technical command, artistic beauty, and intellectual depth. He is now regarded as one of the greatest composers of all time. Bach was born in Eisenach, in the duchy of Saxe-Eisenach and his father Johann Ambrosius Bach was the director of the town musicians, and all of his uncles were professional musicians. His father probably taught him to play the violin and harpsichord, apparently at his own initiative, Bach attended St. Michaels School in Lüneburg for two years. He received the title of Royal Court Composer from Augustus III in 1736, Bachs health and vision declined in 1749, and he died on 28 July 1750. Johann Sebastian Bach was born in Eisenach, the capital of the duchy of Saxe-Eisenach, in present-day Germany and he was the son of Johann Ambrosius Bach, the director of the town musicians, and Maria Elisabeth Lämmerhirt. He was the eighth and youngest child of Johann Ambrosius, who taught him violin. His uncles were all musicians, whose posts included church organists, court chamber musicians. One uncle, Johann Christoph Bach, introduced him to the organ, Bachs mother died in 1694, and his father died eight months later. The 10-year-old Bach moved in with his eldest brother, Johann Christoph Bach, there he studied, performed, and copied music, including his own brothers, despite being forbidden to do so because scores were so valuable and private and blank ledger paper of that type was costly. He received valuable teaching from his brother, who instructed him on the clavichord, also during this time he was taught theology, Latin, Greek, French and Italian at the local gymnasium. By 3 April 1700 Bach and his schoolfriend Georg Erdmann–who was two years Bachs elder–were enrolled in the prestigious St. Michaels School in Lüneburg, some two weeks travel north of Ohrdruf and their journey was probably undertaken mostly on foot. His two years there were critical in exposing Bach to a range of European culture. In addition to singing in the choir, he played the Schools three-manual organ and he came into contact with sons of aristocrats from northern Germany, sent to the highly selective school to prepare for careers in other disciplines. While in Lüneburg, Bach had access to St. Johns Church and possibly used the famous organ from 1553. His role there is unclear, but it probably included menial, non-musical duties, despite strong family connections and a musically enthusiastic employer, tension built up between Bach and the authorities after several years in the post. Bach was dissatisfied with the standard of singers in the choir and he called one of them a Zippel Fagottist
3.
Music
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Music is an art form and cultural activity whose medium is sound organized in time. The common elements of music are pitch, rhythm, dynamics, different styles or types of music may emphasize, de-emphasize or omit some of these elements. The word derives from Greek μουσική, Ancient Greek and Indian philosophers defined music as tones ordered horizontally as melodies and vertically as harmonies. Common sayings such as the harmony of the spheres and it is music to my ears point to the notion that music is often ordered and pleasant to listen to. However, 20th-century composer John Cage thought that any sound can be music, saying, for example, There is no noise, the creation, performance, significance, and even the definition of music vary according to culture and social context. There are many types of music, including music, traditional music, art music, music written for religious ceremonies. For example, it can be hard to draw the line between some early 1980s hard rock and heavy metal, within the arts, music may be classified as a performing art, a fine art or as an auditory art. People may make music as a hobby, like a teen playing cello in a youth orchestra, the word derives from Greek μουσική. According to the Online Etymological Dictionary, the music is derived from mid-13c. Musike, from Old French musique and directly from Latin musica the art of music and this is derived from the. Greek mousike of the Muses, from fem. of mousikos pertaining to the Muses, from Mousa Muse. In classical Greece, any art in which the Muses presided, Music is composed and performed for many purposes, ranging from aesthetic pleasure, religious or ceremonial purposes, or as an entertainment product for the marketplace. With the advent of recording, records of popular songs. Some music lovers create mix tapes of their songs, which serve as a self-portrait. An environment consisting solely of what is most ardently loved, amateur musicians can compose or perform music for their own pleasure, and derive their income elsewhere. Professional musicians sometimes work as freelancers or session musicians, seeking contracts and engagements in a variety of settings, There are often many links between amateur and professional musicians. Beginning amateur musicians take lessons with professional musicians, in community settings, advanced amateur musicians perform with professional musicians in a variety of ensembles such as community concert bands and community orchestras. However, there are many cases where a live performance in front of an audience is also recorded and distributed. Live concert recordings are popular in classical music and in popular music forms such as rock, where illegally taped live concerts are prized by music lovers
4.
Counterpoint
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In music, counterpoint is the relationship between voices that are harmonically interdependent yet independent in rhythm and contour. It has been most commonly identified in the European classical tradition, strongly developing during the Renaissance and in much of the common practice period, the term originates from the Latin punctus contra punctum meaning point against point. Counterpoint generally involves musical lines with strongly independent identities, Counterpoint has been used to designate a voice or even an entire composition. In each era, contrapuntally organized music writing has been subject to rules—sometimes strict ones, chords are the simultaneous soundings of notes, whereas harmonic, vertical features are considered secondary and almost incidental when counterpoint is the predominant textural element. Counterpoint focuses on melodic interaction—only secondarily on the produced by that interaction. In the words of John Rahn, It is hard to write a beautiful song and it is harder to write several individually beautiful songs that, when sung simultaneously, sound as a more beautiful polyphonic whole. The way that is accomplished in detail is, some examples of related compositional techniques include, the round, the canon, and perhaps the most complex contrapuntal convention, the fugue. All of these are examples of imitative counterpoint, Species counterpoint generally offers less freedom to the composer than other types of counterpoint and therefore is called a strict counterpoint. The student gradually attains the ability to free counterpoint according to the given rules at the time. The idea is at least as old as 1532, when Giovanni Maria Lanfranco described a concept in his Scintille di musica. Zacconi, unlike later theorists, included a few extra contrapuntal techniques, a succession of later theorists quite closely imitated Fuxs seminal work, often with some small and idiosyncratic modifications in the rules. The following rules apply to melodic writing in each species, for each part, if the final is approached from below, then the leading tone must be raised in a minor key, but not in Phrygian or Hypophrygian mode. Thus, in the Dorian mode on D, a C♯ is necessary at the cadence, permitted melodic intervals are the perfect fourth, fifth, and octave, as well as the major and minor second, major and minor third, and ascending minor sixth. The ascending minor sixth must be followed by motion downwards. The three notes should be from the triad, if this is impossible, they should not outline more than one octave. In general, do not write more than two skips in the same direction, if writing a skip in one direction, it is best to proceed after the skip with motion in the other direction. The interval of a tritone in three notes should be avoided as is the interval of a seventh in three notes, there must be a climax or high point in the line countering the cantus firmus. This usually occurs somewhere in the middle of exercise and must occur on a strong beat, an outlining of a seventh is avoided within a single line moving in the same direction
5.
Musical composition
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People who create new compositions are called composers in classical music. In popular music and traditional music, the creators of new songs are usually called songwriters, with songs, Composition is the act or practice of creating a song or other piece of music. In popular music and traditional music, songwriting may involve the creation of an outline of the song, called the lead sheet. In classical music, orchestration is typically done by the composer, in some cases, a pop or traditional songwriter may not use written notation at all, and instead compose the song in her mind and then play, sing and/or record it from memory. In jazz and popular music, notable recordings by influential performers are given the weight that written or printed scores play in classical music. Although a musical composition often uses musical notation and has a single author, a piece of music can also be composed with words, images, or, since the 20th century, with computer programs that explain or notate how the singer or musician should create musical sounds. A more commonly known example of chance-based music is the sound of wind chimes jingling in a breeze, although in the 2000s, composition is considered to consist of the manipulation of each aspect of music, according to Jean-Benjamin de Laborde, Composition consists in two things only. The first is the ordering and disposing of several sounds. in such a manner that their succession pleases the ear and this is what the Ancients called melody. The second is the rendering audible of two or more simultaneous sounds in such a manner that their combination is pleasant and this is what we call harmony, and it alone merits the name of composition. In classical music, a piece of music exists in the form of a composition in musical notation or as a live acoustic event. Since the invention of recording, a classical piece or popular song may also exist as a recording. If music is composed before being performed, music can be performed from memory, by reading written musical notation, compositions comprise a huge variety of musical elements, which vary widely from between genres and cultures. Popular music genres after about 1960 make extensive use of electric and electronic instruments, such as electric guitar, electric and electronic instruments are used in contemporary classical music compositions and concerts, albeit to a lesser degree than in popular music. Music from the Baroque music era, for example, used only acoustic and mechanical such as strings, brass, woodwinds, timpani and keyboard instruments such as harpsichord. A 2000s-era pop band may use electric guitar played with electronic effects through a guitar amplifier, different musical styles permit singers or performers to use various amounts of musical improvisation during the performance of a composed song or piece. In free jazz, the performers may play without any sheet music, improvisation is the act of composing musical elements spontaneously during the performance, as opposed to having a composer write down the music beforehand. Improvisation was an important skill during the Baroque music era, instrumentalists and singers were expected to be able to improvise ornaments, during the classical period, solo instrumentalists were expected to be able to improvise virtuostic cadenzas during a concerto. During the Romantic music era, composers began writing out ornaments and cadenzas, in contemporary classical music, some composers began writing pieces which indicate that the performer should improvise during certain sections
6.
Part (music)
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A part is a strand or melody of music played by an individual instrument or voice within a larger work. Parts may be referred to as a part or an inner part. Part-writing is the composition of parts in consideration of harmony and counterpoint, in the context of polyphonic composition the term voice may be used instead of part to denote a single melodic line or textural layer. The term is generic, and is not meant to imply that the line should necessarily be vocal in character, allen Forte defines a voice thus, By voice we mean the succession of notes performed by a single human voice or single-line instrument. Codex Calixtinus contains the earliest extant decipherable part music, part writing is derived from four-voice chorales written by J. S. The late baroque era composer wrote a total of 371 harmonized chorales, today most students reference Albert Riemenschneiders 1941 compilation of Bach chorales. Part writing is a technique that involves writing a piece of music for one or more parts. Briefly, it, may be defined as Part-writing and it has also been defined, happily, as the art of combining melodies. In other words, laws of combination, and laws of progression, individual, in musical forms, a part may refer to a subdivision in the structure of a piece. This is for example the case in the widely used ternary form, in this form the first and third parts are musically identical, or very nearly so, while the second part in some way provides a contrast with them. In this meaning of part, similar terms used are section, strain, or turn
7.
Subject (music)
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In music, a subject is the material, usually a recognizable melody, upon which part or all of a composition is based. In forms other than the fugue this may be known as the theme, a subject may be perceivable as a complete musical expression in itself, separate from the work in which it is found. In contrast to an idea or motif, a subject is usually a phrase or period. The Encyclopédie Fasquelle defines a theme as Any element, motif, Thematic changes and processes are often structurally important, and theorists such as Rudolph Reti have created analysis from a purely thematic perspective. Fred Lerdahl describes thematic relations as associational and thus outside his cognitive-based generative theorys scope of analysis, Music based on a single theme is called monothematic, while music based on several themes is called polythematic. Most fugues are monothematic and most pieces in sonata form are polythematic, in the exposition of a fugue, the principal theme is announced successively in each voice – sometimes in a transposed form. In some compositions, a subject is announced and then a second melody, sometimes called a countersubject or secondary theme. Music without subjects/themes, or without recognizable, repeating, and developing subjects/themes, is called athematic, examples include the pre-twelve-tone or early atonal works of Arnold Schoenberg, Anton Webern, Alban Berg, and Alois Hába. Schoenberg once said that, intoxicated by the enthusiasm of having freed music from the shackles of tonality, in fact, I … believed that now music could renounce motivic features and remain coherent and comprehensible nevertheless. Examples in the works of later composers include Polyphonie X and Structures I by Pierre Boulez, Sonata for Two Pianos by Karel Goeyvaerts, and Punkte by Karlheinz Stockhausen. In a fugue, when the first voice has completed the subject, and the voice is playing the answer. The countersubject usually contrasts with the subject/answer phrase shape, in a fugue, a countersubject is the continuation of counterpoint in the voice that began with the subject, occurring against the answer. It is not usually regarded as a feature of fugue. Attacco Cell Figure Formula composition Leitmotif Thematic transformation Benward, Bruce, Music in Theory and Practice, eighth edition, vol. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie, the Oxford Companion to Music, edited by Alison Latham. Une nouvelle grammaire musicale, prémices et premiers essais / A New Musical Grammar, Principles, la Scena Musicale 6, no.3. Lerdahl, Fred. Cognitive Constraints on Compositional Systems, Oxford and New York, Oxford University Press. Encyclopédie de la musique,3 vols, Music and Discourse, Toward a Semiology of Music, translated by Caroline Abbate
8.
Imitation (music)
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In music, imitation is the repetition of a melody in a polyphonic texture shortly after its first appearance in a different voice. The melody may vary through transposition, inversion, or otherwise, imitation helps provide unity to a composition. When a phrase recurs exactly as before, it is called strict imitation, a round is thus an example of strict imitation. Repetition is defined as the repetition of a phrase or melody often with variations in key, rhythm, different authors define imitation somewhat differently, Real imitation An imitation with no modifications except for the usual diatonic adjustment of half and whole steps. The exact transposition of a melody at different pitch levels, imitation The repetition of a melody or melodic group in close succession, but in a different voice, the repetition of a melody at a different pitch level in a polyphonic texture. Imitation The restatement in close succession of figures in different voices in polyphonic textures. In counterpoint, imitation occurs in a voice, usually at a different pitch. A short phrase treated imitatively is called an attacco, in European classical music, imitative writing was featured heavily in the highly polyphonic compositions of the Renaissance and Baroque eras. A more improvisatory form of imitation can be found in Arab, in pop music a much clichéd form of imitation consists of a background choir repeating — usually the last notes — of the lead singers last line. Melodic pattern Sequence Canon Fugue Call and response Stretto Augmentation Diminution Retrograde
9.
Fuguing tune
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The fuguing tune is a variety of Anglo-American vernacular choral music. It first flourished in the century and continues to be composed today. Fuguing tunes are sacred music, specifically, Protestant hymns and they are written for a four-part chorus singing a cappella. The end of this sentence marks a cessation, a complete melodic close, during the next four measures the four parts set in, one at a time and one measure apart. The tenors in turn give way to the altos, and they to the trebles, following this fuguing passage comes a four-measure phrase, with all the parts rhythmically neck and neck, and this closes the piece, though the last eight measures are often repeated. A well-known fuguing tune that is typical of the form is Northfield, play The text is by Isaac Watts, George Pullen Jacksons description above gives a common form for a fuguing tune, but there are variations. Jackson describes the order of the four parts as bottom to top. Indeed, in the fuguing tunes printed in The Sacred Harp,1991 edition, it is not even the most common one, there are many other orders possible, particularly if one includes the many cases in which composers bring in two parts at once. However, it seem to be a widely valid rule that the basses must at least be included in the first group to enter. Thus a fuguing tune with a bass-first structure is likely to be stable in performance. The fuguing tune arose in England in the middle of the 18th century, the first fuguing tunes were the work of itinerant singing masters, described by Irving Lowens as follows, often ill-trained by orthodox standards. Wandered from village to village and eked out an existence by teaching the intricacies of psalm-singing, to supplement his generally meager income, frequently sold self-compiled tune-books in which psalm tunes of his own composition. Were featured as examples of his skill and artistry, according to Lowens, the fuguing tunes created by these singing masters at first involved a separate fuguing section appended to the end of a complete psalm tune. Later, the became more integrated and eventually evolved to be the longer part of the song. Soon, fuguing tunes were being written in great profusion by American—especially New England—composers, karl Kroeger has documented the publication of almost 1300 fuguing tunes during the period 1750–1820. The similarity of the fugue and fuguing tune means that the two forms are easily confused. A fuguing tune certainly is not some kind of failed attempt to write a fugue, indeed, fuguing does not derive from fugue. Rather, as Irving Lowens points out, both terms hark back to an earlier, more general usage
10.
Music history of the United States
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The music history of the United States includes many styles of folk, popular and classical music. Some of the genres of American music are blues, rock and roll. The history began with the Native Americans, the first people to populate North America, the music of these people was highly varied in form, and was mostly religious in purpose. With the colonization of America from European countries like France, Spain, Scotland, England, Ireland, West African slaves played a variety of instruments, especially drums and string instruments similar to the banjo. The Spanish also played an instrument called the Bandora. Both of these cultures introduced polyrhythms and call-and-response style vocals, as the United States incorporated more land, spreading west towards the Pacific Ocean, more immigrants began to arrive in the country, bringing with them their own instruments and styles. During this time, the United States grew to incorporate the Cajun and Creole music of Louisiana, in the 21st century, American popular music achieved great international acclaim. Even since the ragtime and minstrel songs of the 19th century, African American, the rural blues of poor black Southerners and the jazz of black urbanites were among the earliest styles of American popular music. At the time, black performers typically did not perform their own material, African American blues evolved during the early 20th century, later evolving to create genres like rhythm and blues. During this time, jazz diversified into more experimental fields. By the end of the 1940s, jazz had grown into such varied fields as bebop, rock and roll was soon to become the most important component of American popular music, beginning with the rockabilly boom of the 1950s. In the following decade, gospel evolved into secular soul, rock, country and soul, mixed with each other and occasionally other styles, spawned a legion of subgenres over the next few decades, ranging from heavy metal to punk and funk. In the 1970s, urban African Americans in New York City began performing spoken lyrics over a beat provided by an emcee, by the dawn of the 21st century, hip hop had become a part of most recorded American popular music. The first musicians anywhere in North America were Native Americans, who consist of hundreds of groups across the country. Of these cultures, many, and their traditions, are now extinct, though some remain relatively vibrant in a modern form. By the 16th century, large-scale immigration of English, French and this was followed by the importation of Africans as slaves, bringing their music with them. The Africans were as varied as the Native Americans, descended from hundreds of ethnic groups in West Africa. American music is, like most of its neighbors, a mixture of African, European
11.
Shape note
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Shape notes are a music notation designed to facilitate congregational and community singing. The notation, introduced in 1801, became a teaching device in American singing schools. Shapes were added to the heads in written music to help singers find pitches within major and minor scales without the use of more complex information found in key signatures on the staff. This association can be used to help in reading the music, when a song is first sung by a shape note group, they normally sing the syllables to solidify their command over the notes. Next, they sing the notes to the words of the music. The syllables and notes of a shape note system are rather than absolute. The first note of a major key always has the triangular Fa note, followed by Sol, La, the first note of a minor key is always La, followed by Mi, Fa, etc. The first three notes of any major scale – fa, sol, la – are each a tone apart, the fourth to sixth notes are also a tone apart and are also fa, sol, la. The seventh and eighth notes, being separated by a semitone, are indicated mi-fa and this means that just four shapenotes can adequately reflect the feeling of the whole scale. The system illustrated above is a system, six of the notes of the scale are grouped in pairs assigned to one syllable/shape combination. The four syllable variation of Guidos original system was prominent in 17th century England, shortly afterward, shapes were invented to represent the syllables. The other important systems are seven-shape systems, which give a different shape, such systems use as their syllables the note names do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti, do familiar to most people. A few books present the older seven-note syllabization of do, re, mi, fa, so, la, si, in the seven-shape system invented by Jesse B. Aikin, the notes of a C major scale would be notated and sung as follows, whether or not shape notes actually facilitate learning music is disputed. A controlled study on the usefulness of shape notes was carried out in the 1950s by George H. Kyme with a population consisting of fourth-. Kyme took care to match his experimental and control groups as closely as possible for ability, quality of teacher and he found that the students taught with shape notes learned to sight read significantly better than those taught without them. Kyme additionally found that the students taught with shape notes were far more likely to pursue musical activities later on in their education. Many forms of music employ modulation, that is, a change of key in mid-piece, modulation is problematic for shape-note systems, since the shapes employed for the original key of the piece no longer match the scale degrees of the new key
12.
Sacred Harp
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Sacred Harp singing is a tradition of sacred choral music that originated in the American South of the United States. The name is derived from The Sacred Harp, a ubiquitous, the work was first published in 1844 and has reappeared in multiple editions ever since. This music was included in, and became associated with, books using the shape note style of notation popular in America in the 18th. Sacred Harp music is performed a cappella and originated as Protestant Christian music, the name of the tradition comes from the title of the shape-note book from which the music is sung, The Sacred Harp. This book exists today in various editions, discussed below, in shape-note music, notes are printed in special shapes that help the reader identify them on the musical scale. There are two prevalent systems, one using four shapes, and one using seven, the four-shape system is able to cover the full musical scale because each syllable-shape combination other than mi is assigned to two distinct notes of the scale. For example, the C major scale would be notated and sung as follows, The shape for fa is a triangle, sol an oval, la a rectangle, in Sacred Harp singing, pitch is not absolute. The shapes and notes designate degrees of the scale, not particular pitches. Thus for a song in the key of C, fa designates C and F, for a song in G, fa designates G and C, and so on, hence it is called a moveable do system. When Sacred Harp singers begin a song, they start by singing it with the appropriate syllable for each pitch. For those in the not yet familiar with the song. The process of reading through the song with the shapes also helps fix the notes in memory, once the shapes have been sung, the group then sings the verses of the song with their printed words. Sacred Harp groups always sing a cappella, that is to say, the singers arrange themselves in a hollow square, with rows of chairs or pews on each side assigned to each of the four parts, treble, alto, tenor, and bass. The treble and tenor sections are mixed, with men and women singing the notes an octave apart. There is no leader or conductor, rather, the participants take turns in leading. The leader for a particular round selects a song from the book, leading is done in an open-palm style, standing in the middle of the square facing the tenors. The pitch at which the music is sung is relative, there is no instrument to give the singers a starting point, the leader, or else some particular singer assigned to the task, finds a good pitch with which to begin and intones it to the group. The singers reply with the notes of their own parts
13.
West gallery music
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West gallery music, also known as Georgian psalmody, refers to the sacred music sung and played in English parish churches, as well as nonconformist chapels, from 1700 to around 1850. In the late 1980s, west gallery music experienced a revival and is now sung by several west gallery quires, the term derives from the wooden galleries which were constructed at the west end of churches during the 18th century upon which the choir would perform. Victorians disapproved of these Georgian galleries, and most were removed during restorations in the 19th century, the music sung by gallery choirs often consisted of metrical psalm settings by composers with little formal training, often themselves local teachers or choir members. The tunes are usually two to four voice parts, tunes in reports or fuguing tunes featured imitative entries of the parts, while anthems often had changes of texture and musical meter. Most early west gallery groups sang unaccompanied, but later they were augmented by instruments such as the violin, cello, clarinet, flute, during this period, some collections of psalmody included independent instrumental parts, either accompanying the sung sections, or symphonies. English country psalmody was exported to America around the mid 18th century, some of these works have remained in use in shape note traditions, for example in the Sacred Harp repertoire. Use of west gallery music in the Church dwindled when the organ became popular, furthermore, the old church bands were often difficult for a vicar to control, while influence over an organist was a much easier task. Such an ousting of the band by an organist is given a treatment in Thomas Hardy’s early novel Under the Greenwood Tree. Another factor was that the music was disapproved of because it was considered not solemn enough for worship by members of the Oxford movement, a massive study of both the West Gallery tradition and its antecedents, starting from the time of the Reformation. Use search box under World and Traditional Music
14.
Exposition (music)
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In musical form and analysis, exposition is the initial presentation of the thematic material of a musical composition, movement, or section. The use of the term implies that the material will be developed or varied. In sonata form, the exposition is the very first major section, incorporating at least one important modulation to the dominant or other secondary key and presenting the principal thematic material. In a fugue, the exposition is the statement of the subject in imitation by the voices, especially the first such statement. The term is most widely used as a convenience to denote a portion of a movement identified as an example of classical tonal sonata form. The exposition typically establishes the musics tonic key, and then modulates to, and ends in, if the exposition starts in a minor key, it typically modulates to the relative major key, or less commonly, the minor dominant. There are many exceptions—for example the exposition of the first movement of Beethovens Waldstein Sonata modulates from C major to the mediant E major, the exposition in classical symphonies is typically repeated, although there are many examples where the composer does not specify such a repeat. If the movement starts with a section, this introduction is not usually analysed as being part of the movements exposition. In many works of the Classical period and some of the Romantic era and this is something which is not always done in concert from the 20th Century onwards. A fugue usually has two sections, the exposition and the body. In the exposition, each voice plays its own adaptation of the theme, in either a subject or an answer, the exposition usually ends on either a I or V chord, and is then followed by the body
15.
Musical development
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In classical music, musical development is a process by which a musical idea is communicated in the course of a composition. It refers to the transformation and restatement of initial material, development is often contrasted with musical variation, which is a slightly different means to the same end. Development is carried out upon portions of material treated in many different presentations and combinations at a time, listeners may apprehend a tension between expected and real results, which is one element of surprise in music. In sonata form, the section is called the development. Typically, in section, material from the exposition section is developed. In some older texts, this section may be referred to as free fantasia, according to the Oxford Companion to Music there are several ways of developing a theme. These include, The division of a theme into parts, each of which can be developed in any of the ways or recombined in a new way. Similarly, two or more themes can be developed in combination, in cases, themes are composed with this possibility in mind. Alteration of pitch intervals while retaining the original rhythm, rhythmic displacement, so that the metrical stress occurs at a different point in the otherwise unchanged theme. Sequence, either diatonically within a key or through a succession of keys, the Scherzo movement from Beethovens Piano Sonata No.15 in D major, Op 28 shows a number of these processes at work on a small scale. Developing variation Fugue#Development Secondary development Sequence
16.
Tonic (music)
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The triad formed on the tonic note, the tonic chord, is thus the most significant chord in these styles of music. More generally, the tonic is the pitch upon which all other pitches of a piece are hierarchically referenced, scales are named after their tonics, thus the tonic of the scale of C is the note C. Simple folk music and traditional songs may begin and end on the tonic note, in very much conventionally tonal music, harmonic analysis will reveal a broad prevalence of the primary harmonies, tonic, dominant, and subdominant, and especially the first two of these. The tonic is often confused with the root, which is the note of a chord. The root of a chord is different from the tonic, because different types of chords have root notes. It is also represented with the Roman numeral I, two parallel keys have the same tonic. For example, in both C major and C minor, the tonic is C, however, relative keys have different tonics. For example, C major and A minor share a key signature that feature no sharps or flats, thus a pitch center may function referentially or contextually in an atonal context, often acting as axis or line of symmetry in an interval cycle. Pitch centricity was coined by Arthur Berger in his Problems of Pitch Organization in Stravinsky
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Recapitulation (music)
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In music theory, the recapitulation is one of the sections of a movement written in sonata form. The recapitulation occurs after the development section, and typically presents once more the musical themes from the movements exposition. This material is most often recapitulated in the key of the movement. In some sonata form movements, the recapitulation presents an image of the movements exposition. However, many sonata form movements, even early examples, depart from this simple procedure, the composer of a sonata form movement may disguise the start of the recapitulation as an extension of the development section
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Middle Ages
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In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or Medieval Period lasted from the 5th to the 15th century. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and merged into the Renaissance, the Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history, classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. The medieval period is subdivided into the Early, High. Population decline, counterurbanisation, invasion, and movement of peoples, the large-scale movements of the Migration Period, including various Germanic peoples, formed new kingdoms in what remained of the Western Roman Empire. In the seventh century, North Africa and the Middle East—once part of the Byzantine Empire—came under the rule of the Umayyad Caliphate, although there were substantial changes in society and political structures, the break with classical antiquity was not complete. The still-sizeable Byzantine Empire survived in the east and remained a major power, the empires law code, the Corpus Juris Civilis or Code of Justinian, was rediscovered in Northern Italy in 1070 and became widely admired later in the Middle Ages. In the West, most kingdoms incorporated the few extant Roman institutions, monasteries were founded as campaigns to Christianise pagan Europe continued. The Franks, under the Carolingian dynasty, briefly established the Carolingian Empire during the later 8th, the Crusades, first preached in 1095, were military attempts by Western European Christians to regain control of the Holy Land from Muslims. Kings became the heads of centralised nation states, reducing crime and violence, intellectual life was marked by scholasticism, a philosophy that emphasised joining faith to reason, and by the founding of universities. Controversy, heresy, and the Western Schism within the Catholic Church paralleled the conflict, civil strife. Cultural and technological developments transformed European society, concluding the Late Middle Ages, the Middle Ages is one of the three major periods in the most enduring scheme for analysing European history, classical civilisation, or Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Modern Period. Medieval writers divided history into periods such as the Six Ages or the Four Empires, when referring to their own times, they spoke of them as being modern. In the 1330s, the humanist and poet Petrarch referred to pre-Christian times as antiqua, leonardo Bruni was the first historian to use tripartite periodisation in his History of the Florentine People. Bruni and later argued that Italy had recovered since Petrarchs time. The Middle Ages first appears in Latin in 1469 as media tempestas or middle season, in early usage, there were many variants, including medium aevum, or middle age, first recorded in 1604, and media saecula, or middle ages, first recorded in 1625. The alternative term medieval derives from medium aevum, tripartite periodisation became standard after the German 17th-century historian Christoph Cellarius divided history into three periods, Ancient, Medieval, and Modern. The most commonly given starting point for the Middle Ages is 476, for Europe as a whole,1500 is often considered to be the end of the Middle Ages, but there is no universally agreed upon end date. English historians often use the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 to mark the end of the period
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Canon (music)
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In music, a canon is a contrapuntal compositional technique or texture that employs a melody with one or more imitations of the melody played after a given duration. The initial melody is called the leader, while the imitative melody, the follower must imitate the leader, either as an exact replication of its rhythms and intervals or some transformation thereof. Repeating canons in which all voices are identical are called rounds—Row, Row, Row Your Boat. Why are some composers fascinated with canons, Canons are not unlike puzzles and other brainteasers, from just a few rules, you can achieve so much. Plus, canons have the appeal of any puzzle, there is the initial challenge, the mystery of solving it, and the feeling of satisfaction you get from completing it. Accompanied canon is a canon accompanied by one or more independent parts which do not take part in imitating the melody. Only in the 16th century did the word canon begin to be used to describe the strict, imitative texture created by such a procedure. The word is derived from the Greek κανών, Latinised as canon, which means law or norm and this rule was usually given verbally, but could also be supplemented by special signs in the score, sometimes themselves called canoni. Canons featured in the music of the Italian Trecento and the 14th century music of France, a famous example from Italy is “Tosto che l’Alba” by Gheraldo da Firenze. In both France and Italy, canons were often used to illustrate hunting songs. The Italian word for hunting is “caccia”, the French word “chace. ”A well-known French Chace is the anonymous “Se je chant”. ”Guillaume de Machaut also used the 3-voice “chace” form in movements from his masterpiece Le Lai de la Fontaine. Referring to the setting of the stanza of this work. Like the Trinity itself, a well-wrought chace can be far more than the sum of its parts, and this particular chace is possible Machaut’s greatest feat of subtilitas. In Dufay’s song “Resvelons nous, amoureux”, the two voices are in canon, but the upper part is what David Fallows describes as a “florid top line”. Bach and Handel featured canons in their works,2, Beethoven’s works feature a number of passages in canon. The following comes from his Symphony No,4, Antony Hopkins describes the above as “a delightfully naïve canon. ”An even subtler example comes from Beethoven’s Piano Sonata 29 Op.106. Wilfrid Mellers describes the section of the scherzo movement, as “mysterious”, with a metrical ambiguity that “makes the melodic phrases irregular. ”When the tune is repeated, it is “now in the left hand. In canon with the bass line. ”Mellers concludes, “Here contrapuntal oneness serves to control any airy floating in the asymmetry, it is not merely the wide-spread texture that sounds hollow
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Renaissance
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The Renaissance was a period in European history, from the 14th to the 17th century, regarded as the cultural bridge between the Middle Ages and modern history. It started as a movement in Italy in the Late Medieval period and later spread to the rest of Europe. This new thinking became manifest in art, architecture, politics, science, Early examples were the development of perspective in oil painting and the recycled knowledge of how to make concrete. Although the invention of movable type sped the dissemination of ideas from the later 15th century. In politics, the Renaissance contributed to the development of the customs and conventions of diplomacy, the Renaissance began in Florence, in the 14th century. Other major centres were northern Italian city-states such as Venice, Genoa, Milan, Bologna, the word Renaissance, literally meaning Rebirth in French, first appeared in English in the 1830s. The word also occurs in Jules Michelets 1855 work, Histoire de France, the word Renaissance has also been extended to other historical and cultural movements, such as the Carolingian Renaissance and the Renaissance of the 12th century. The Renaissance was a movement that profoundly affected European intellectual life in the early modern period. Renaissance scholars employed the humanist method in study, and searched for realism, however, a subtle shift took place in the way that intellectuals approached religion that was reflected in many other areas of cultural life. In addition, many Greek Christian works, including the Greek New Testament, were back from Byzantium to Western Europe. Political philosophers, most famously Niccolò Machiavelli, sought to describe life as it really was. Others see more competition between artists and polymaths such as Brunelleschi, Ghiberti, Donatello, and Masaccio for artistic commissions as sparking the creativity of the Renaissance. Yet it remains much debated why the Renaissance began in Italy, accordingly, several theories have been put forward to explain its origins. During the Renaissance, money and art went hand in hand, Artists depended entirely on patrons while the patrons needed money to foster artistic talent. Wealth was brought to Italy in the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries by expanding trade into Asia, silver mining in Tyrol increased the flow of money. Luxuries from the Eastern world, brought home during the Crusades, increased the prosperity of Genoa, unlike with Latin texts, which had been preserved and studied in Western Europe since late antiquity, the study of ancient Greek texts was very limited in medieval Western Europe. One of the greatest achievements of Renaissance scholars was to bring this entire class of Greek cultural works back into Western Europe for the first time since late antiquity, Arab logicians had inherited Greek ideas after they had invaded and conquered Egypt and the Levant. Their translations and commentaries on these ideas worked their way through the Arab West into Spain and Sicily and this work of translation from Islamic culture, though largely unplanned and disorganized, constituted one of the greatest transmissions of ideas in history
21.
Closely related key
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In music, a closely related key is one sharing many common tones with an original key, as opposed to a distantly related key. In music harmony, such a key shares all, or all one, pitches with a key with which it is being compared. Such keys are the most commonly used destinations or transpositions in a modulation, distant keys may be reached sequentially through closely related keys by chain modulation, for example C to G to D or C to C minor to E♭ major. For example, One principle that every composer of Haydns day kept in mind was over-all unity of tonality. No piece dared wander too far from its key. For example, the first movement of Mozarts Piano Sonata No,7, K.309, modulates only to closely related keys. Four of which differ by one accidental, one with the key signature. In the key of C major these would be, D minor, E minor, F major, G major, A minor, and C minor. However, modulating up a tritone would produce F♯, G♯, A♯, C♯, D♯, thus the scale a fifth higher is very closely related, while the scale a tritone higher is not. Other modulations may be placed in order from closest to most distant depending upon the number of common tones, another view in modern music, notably in Bartók, a common tonic produces closely related keys, the other scales being the six other modes. This usage can be found in several of the Mikrokosmos piano pieces, chromatic mediant Parallel and counter parallel Monotonality Pitch space Howard Hanson, Harmonic Materials of Modern Music
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Coda (music)
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Coda is a term used in music primarily to designate a passage that brings a piece to an end. Technically, it is an expanded cadence and it may be as simple as a few measures, or as complex as an entire section. The presence of a coda as an element in a movement is especially clear in works written in particular musical forms. Codas were commonly used in both form and variation movements during the Classical era. In a sonata movement, the recapitulation section will, in general, follow the exposition in its thematic content. In works in form, the coda occurs following the last variation. For one famous example, see Symphony No.8, codetta has a similar purpose to the coda, but on a smaller scale, concluding a section of a work instead of the work as a whole. A typical codetta concludes the exposition and recapitulation sections of a work in sonata form, following the second theme, thus, in the exposition, it usually appears in the secondary key, but, in the recapitulation, in the primary key. The codetta ordinarily closes with a cadence in the appropriate key. If the exposition is repeated, the codetta is also, but sometimes it has its ending slightly changed, cauda, a Latin word meaning tail, edge or trail is the root of coda and is used in the study of conductus of the 12th and 13th centuries. The cauda was a long melisma on one of the last syllables of the text, conducti were traditionally divided into two groups, conductus cum cauda and conductus sine cauda, based on the presence of the melisma. Thus, the cauda provided a role, also similar to the modern coda. Many songs in rock and other genres of music have sections identifiable as codas. A coda in these genres is sometimes referred to as an outro, while in jazz, modern church music, in music notation, the coda symbol, which resembles a set of crosshairs, is used as a navigation marker, similar to the dal Segno sign. It is used where the exit from a section is within that section rather than at the end. The instruction To Coda indicates that, upon reaching that point during the final repetition, for example, this can be used to provide a special ending for the final verse of a song. Coda Da capo Epilogue Repeat sign Transition Fade This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh
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Ricercar
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A ricercar is a type of late Renaissance and mostly early Baroque instrumental composition. The term means to search out, and many serve a preludial function to search out the key or mode of a following piece. A ricercar may explore the permutations of a motif. For example, Ricercar sopra Benedictus might develop motifs from a motet titled Benedictus, the term is also used to designate an etude or study that explores a technical device in playing an instrument, or singing. In its most common usage, it refers to an early kind of fugue. However the term has a more varied historical usage. In the sixteenth century, the word ricercar could refer to types of compositions. The second type of ricercar, the imitative, contrapuntal type, was to prove the more important historically, marco DallAquila was known for polyphonic ricercars. Examples of both types of ricercars can be found in the works of Girolamo Frescobaldi, e. g. in his Fiori musicali, gödel, Escher, Bach, An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter, which includes a section entitled Six-part Ricercar. Ricercar, Fugue, Counterpoint in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ISBN 1-56159-174-2 Gustave Reese, Music in the Renaissance. ISBN 0-393-09530-4 Manfred Bukofzer, Music in the Baroque Era, ISBN 0-393-09745-5 Ursula Kirkendale, The Source for Bachs Musical Offering, Journal of the American Musicological Society 33, 99-141. The New Harvard Dictionary of Music, ed, cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press,1986. ISBN 0-674-61525-5 Arthur J. Ness, Ricercar, Harvard Dictionary of Music, fourth edition, edited by Don Michael Randel, cambridge, Belknap Press for Harvard University Press,2003. The dictionary definition of ricercar at Wiktionary Petrucci Music Library Ricercar Collection
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Johann Jakob Froberger
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Johann Jakob Froberger was a German Baroque composer, keyboard virtuoso, and organist. Among the most famous composers of the era, he was influential in developing the form of the suite of dances in his keyboard works. His harpsichord pieces are highly idiomatic and programmatic, only two of Frobergers many compositions were published during his lifetime. Froberger forbade publication of his manuscripts, restricting access to his patrons and friends. After his death the manuscripts went to his patroness Sibylla, Duchess of Württtemberg, Johann Jakob Froberger was baptized on 19 May 1616 in Stuttgart. The exact date of his birth is unknown and his family came from Halle, where his grandfather Simon lived and his father Basilius was born. In 1599 Basilius moved to Stuttgart and became a tenor in the Württemberg court chapel, at some point before 1605 he married Anna Schmid, who came from a Schwabian family living in Stuttgart. By the time Johann Jakob was born, his fathers career was already flourishing, of his eleven children with Anna, four became musicians, and so it is likely that Johann Jakob received his first music lessons from his father. Little is known about his education, though. Basilius Frobergers music library probably also helped in Johann Jakobs education, the Hofkapelle Stuttgart was disbanded in 1634 in the wake of the Protestants defeat in the Battle of Nördlingen. In 1637 Basilius Froberger, his wife and one of his daughters died of plague, Johann Jakob and his brother Isaac sold their fathers music library to the Württemberg court, the same year Johann Jakob became court organist in Vienna, assisting Wolfgang Ebner. In June he was granted a leave and a stipend to go to Rome to study under Frescobaldi, Froberger spent the next three years in Italy and, like many other musicians who went to study there, apparently converted to Catholicism. He returned to Vienna in 1641 and served as organist and chamber musician until the fall of 1645 and it was previously thought that Froberger went to study under Giacomo Carissimi, but recent research shows that he most probably studied with Athanasius Kircher in Rome. If so, Frobergers intention must have been acquiring mastery of composition of the prima pratica. Sometime during 1648–49 Froberger might have met Johann Kaspar Kerll, in 1649 Froberger travelled back to Austria. On his way back he stopped in Florence and Mantua to show the arca musurgica, in September he arrived in Vienna and demonstrated the arca musurgica to the Emperor, an avid amateur musician, he also presented him with Libro Secondo, a collection of his own compositions. Also in September, Froberger played before William Swann, an English diplomat, following the Empress Maria Leopoldines death in August the courts musical activities were suspended. Froberger left the city and travelled widely for the four years, likely entrusted by the Emperor with some extra-musical duties in the fields of diplomacy
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Johann Pachelbel
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Johann Pachelbel was a German composer, organist, and teacher who brought the south German organ tradition to its peak. Pachelbels music enjoyed enormous popularity during his lifetime, he had many pupils and his became an model for the composers of south. Today, Pachelbel is best known for the Canon in D, as well as the Chaconne in F minor, the Toccata in E minor for organ, and the Hexachordum Apollinis and he preferred a lucid, uncomplicated contrapuntal style that emphasized melodic and harmonic clarity. Pachelbel explored many variation forms and associated techniques, which manifest themselves in various diverse pieces, Johann Pachelbel was born in 1653 in Nuremberg into a middle-class family, son of Johann Pachelbel, a wine dealer, and his second wife Anna Maria Mair. The exact date of Johanns birth is unknown, but since he was baptized on September 1, during his early youth, Pachelbel received musical training from Heinrich Schwemmer, a musician and music teacher who later became the cantor of St. Sebaldus Church. Some sources indicate that Pachelbel also studied with Georg Caspar Wecker, organist of the church and an important composer of the Nuremberg school. In any case, both Wecker and Schwemmer were trained by Johann Erasmus Kindermann, one of the founders of the Nuremberg musical tradition, financial difficulties forced Pachelbel to leave the university after less than a year. In order to complete his studies he became a student, in 1670. The school authorities were so impressed by Pachelbels academic qualifications that he was admitted above the normal quota. Pachelbel was also permitted to study music outside the Gymnasium and his teacher was Kaspar Prentz, once a student of Johann Caspar Kerll. Prentz left for Eichstätt in 1672, at the time, Vienna was the center of the vast Habsburg empire and had much cultural importance, its tastes in music were predominantly Italian. Several renowned cosmopolitan composers worked there, many of them contributing to the exchange of musical traditions in Europe, in particular, Johann Jakob Froberger served as court organist in Vienna until 1657 and was succeeded by Alessandro Poglietti. Georg Muffat lived in the city for some time, and, most importantly, while there, he may have known or even taught Pachelbel, whose music shows traces of Kerlls style. Pachelbel spent five years in Vienna, absorbing the music of Catholic composers from southern Germany and Italy. In some respects, Pachelbel is similar to Haydn, who too served as a musician of the Stephansdom in his youth. In 1677, Pachelbel moved to Eisenach, where he found employment as court organist under Kapellmeister Daniel Eberlin, in the employ of Johann Georg I and he met members of the Bach family in Eisenach, and became a close friend of Johann Ambrosius and tutor to his children. However, Pachelbel spent only one year in Eisenach, in 1678, Bernhard II, Duke of Saxe-Jena, Johann Georgs brother, died and during the period of mourning court musicians were greatly curtailed. He requested a testimonial from Eberlin, who wrote one for him, describing Pachelbel as a perfect, with this document, Pachelbel left Eisenach on May 18,1678
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Girolamo Frescobaldi
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Girolamo Alessandro Frescobaldi was a musician from Ferrara, one of the most important composers of keyboard music in the late Renaissance and early Baroque periods. A child prodigy, Frescobaldi studied under Luzzasco Luzzaschi in Ferrara, but was influenced by a number of composers, including Ascanio Mayone, Giovanni Maria Trabaci. Girolamo Frescobaldi was appointed organist of St. Peters Basilica, a point of power for the Capella Giulia from 21 July 1608 until 1628. Frescobaldis printed collections contain some of the most influential music of the 17th century and his work influenced Johann Jakob Froberger, Johann Sebastian Bach, Henry Purcell, and countless other major composers. Pieces from his collection of liturgical organ music, Fiori musicali, were used as models of strict counterpoint as late as the 19th century. Frescobaldi was born in Ferrara, Italy and his father Filippo was a man of property, possibly an organist, since both Girolamo and his half-brother Cesare became organists. Frescobaldi studied under Luzzasco Luzzaschi, a composer of madrigals. Composers who visited Ferrara during the period included numerous important masters such as Claudio Monteverdi, John Dowland, Orlande de Lassus, Claudio Merulo, in his early twenties, Frescobaldi left his native Ferrara for Rome. Reports place Frescobaldi in that city as early as 1604, and he was the church organist at Santa Maria in Trastevere, recorded as “Girolamo Organista”, from January to May of that year. He was also employed by Guido Bentivoglio, the Archbishop of Rhodes and it was Frescobaldis only trip outside Italy. Although the court at Brussels was musically among the most important in Europe at the time, while abroad, Frescobaldi was elected on 21 July 1608 to succeed Ercole Pasquini as organist of St. Peters Basilica in Rome. Frescobaldi remained in Flanders, however, through the summer and did not return to Rome until 29 October and he took up his duties on 31 October and held the position, albeit intermittently, until his death. He also joined Enzo Bentivoglios musical establishment after the latter settled in Rome in 1608, a scandal involving competition between Bentivoglio and the Medici family eventually forced him to leave his position. Between 1610–13 Frescobaldi began to work for Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini and he remained in his service until after the death of Cardinal Aldobrandini in February 1621. On 18 February 1613 he married Orsola Travaglini, known as Orsola del Pino, the couple had five children, Francesco, Maddalena, Domenico, Stefano, and Caterina. In October 1614, Frescobaldi was approached by an agent of the Duke of Mantua, Frescobaldi was given such a good offer he agreed to enter his employ. However, at his arrival in Mantua the reception was so cold that Frescobaldi returned to Rome by April 1615 and he continued publishing his music, two editions of the first book of toccatas and a book of ricercars and canzonas appeared in 1615. In addition to his duties at the Basilica and the Aldobrandini establishment, Frescobaldi took pupils, the period from 1615-28 was Frescobaldi’s most productive time
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Dieterich Buxtehude
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Dieterich Buxtehude was a Danish-German organist and composer of the Baroque period. His organ works represent a part of the standard organ repertoire and are frequently performed at recitals. He composed in a variety of vocal and instrumental idioms. Today, Buxtehude is considered one of the most important composers in Germany of the mid-Baroque and he is thought to have been born with the name Diderich Buxtehude. His parents were Johannes Buxtehude and Helle Jespersdatter and his father originated from Oldesloe in the Duchy of Holstein, which at that time was a part of the Danish Monarchy. Scholars dispute both the year and country of Dieterichs birth, although most now accept that he was born in 1637 in Helsingborg, Skåne and his obituary stated that he recognized Denmark as his native country, whence he came to our region, he lived about 70 years. Others, however, claim that he was born at Oldesloe, later in his life he Germanized his name and began signing documents Dieterich Buxtehude. His father — Johannes Buxtehude — was the organist at St. Olafs church in Helsingør, Dieterich was employed as an organist, first in Helsingborg, and then at Helsingør. St. Mary’s in Helsingør is the church where Buxtehude was employed that still has the organ in its original location. Buxtehudes last post, from 1668, was at the Marienkirche, there he succeeded Franz Tunder and followed in many of the footsteps of his predecessor. He married Tunders daughter Anna Margarethe in 1668 – it was not uncommon practice that a man marry the daughter of his predecessor in his occupation, Buxtehude and Anna Margarethe had seven daughters who were baptized at the Marienkirche, however, his first daughter died as an infant. After his retirement as organist at St Olafs Church, his father joined the family in Lübeck in 1673, Johannes died a year later, and Dieterich composed his funeral music. Dieterichs brother Peter, a barber, joined them in 1677, in 1703, Handel and Mattheson both traveled to meet Buxtehude, who was by then elderly and ready to retire. He offered his position in Lübeck to Handel and Mattheson but stipulated that the organist who ascended to it must marry his eldest daughter, both Handel and Mattheson turned the offer down and left the day after their arrival. In addition to his duties, Buxtehude, like his predecessor Tunder. His surviving church music is praised for its musical qualities rather than its progressive elements. The bulk of Buxtehudes oeuvre consists of music, which covers a wide variety of styles, and organ works. Chamber music constitutes a part of the surviving output, although the only chamber works Buxtehude published during his lifetime were fourteen chamber sonatas
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Baroque music
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Baroque music is a style of Western art music composed from approximately 1600 to 1750. This era followed the Renaissance music era, and was followed in turn by the Classical era, Baroque music forms a major portion of the classical music canon, being widely studied, performed, and listened to. The Baroque period saw the creation of tonality, an approach to writing music in which a song or piece is written in a particular key, during the Baroque era, professional musicians were expected to be accomplished improvisers of both solo melodic lines and accompaniment parts. A characteristic Baroque form was the dance suite, while the pieces in a dance suite were inspired by actual dance music, dance suites were designed for listening, not for accompanying dancers. During the period, composers and performers used more elaborate ornamentation, made changes in musical notation. Many musical terms and concepts from this era, such as toccata, fugue, dense, complex polyphonic music, in which multiple independent melody lines were performed simultaneously, was an important part of many Baroque choral and instrumental works. The word baroque comes from the Portuguese word barroco, meaning misshapen pearl, the term Baroque is generally used by music historians to describe a broad range of styles from a wide geographic region, mostly in Europe, composed over a period of approximately 150 years. The systematic application by historians of the baroque to music of this period is a relatively recent development. In 1919, Curt Sachs became the first to apply the five characteristics of Heinrich Wölfflins theory of the Baroque systematically to music, all of these efforts resulted in appreciable disagreement about time boundaries of the period, especially concerning when it began. In English the term acquired currency only in the 1940s, in the writings of Bukofzer, nevertheless, the term has become widely used and accepted for this broad range of music. It may be helpful to distinguish the Baroque from both the preceding and following periods of musical history, the Baroque period is divided into three major phases, early, middle, and late. Although they overlap in time, they are dated from 1580 to 1630, from 1630 to 1680. In reference to music, they based their ideals on a perception of Classical musical drama that valued discourse, the early realizations of these ideas, including Jacopo Peris Dafne and LEuridice, marked the beginning of opera, which were a catalyst for Baroque music. Concerning music theory, the widespread use of figured bass represents the developing importance of harmony as the linear underpinnings of polyphony. Harmony is the end result of counterpoint, and figured bass is a representation of those harmonies commonly employed in musical performance. With figured bass, numbers, accidentals or symbols were placed above the bassline that was read by keyboard instrument players such as players or pipe organists. The numbers, accidentals or symbols indicated to the player what intervals she should play above each bass note. The keyboard player would improvise a chord voicing for each bass note and this led to the idea that certain sequences of chords, rather than just notes, could provide a sense of closure at the end of a piece—one of the fundamental ideas that became known as tonality
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Sonata form
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Sonata form is a musical structure consisting of three main sections, an exposition, a development, and a recapitulation. It has been used widely since the middle of the 18th century, while it is typically used in the first movement of multi-movement pieces, it is sometimes used in subsequent movements as well—particularly the final movement. In addition, the standard definition recognizes that an introduction and a coda may be present, each of the sections is often further divided or characterized by the particular means by which it accomplishes its function in the form. Accordingly, there is a body of theory on what unifies and distinguishes practice in the sonata form. According to the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, sonata form is the most important principle of form, or formal type. Although the Italian term sonata often refers to a piece in sonata form, conversely, in the late 18th century or Classical period, the title sonata is typically given to a work composed of three or four movements. Nonetheless, this multi-movement sequence is not what is meant by sonata form, the definition of sonata form in terms of musical elements sits uneasily between two historical eras. Perhaps the most extensive description of the sonata-form type of movement may have been given by the theorist H. C. Seen in this way, sonata form was closest to binary form, the model of the form that is often taught currently tends to be more thematically differentiated. Marx may be the originator of the sonata form. This model was derived from study and criticism of Beethovens piano sonatas, a sonata-allegro movement is divided into sections. Each section is felt to perform functions in the musical argument. It may begin with an introduction, which is, in general, in terms of structure, introductions are an upbeat before the main musical argument. The first required section is the exposition, the exposition presents the primary thematic material for the movement, one or two themes or theme groups, often in contrasting styles and in opposing keys, connected by a modulating transition. The exposition typically concludes with a theme, a codetta. The exposition is followed by the development where the harmonic and textural possibilities of the material are explored. The movement may conclude with a coda, beyond the final cadence of the recapitulation, the term sonata form is controversial and has been called misleading by scholars and composers almost from its inception. Its originators implied that there was a set template to which Classical and Romantic composers aspired, however, sonata form is currently viewed as a model for musical analysis, rather than compositional practice
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Orchestra
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The term orchestra derives from the Greek ὀρχήστρα, the name for the area in front of a stage in ancient Greek theatre reserved for the Greek chorus. A full-size orchestra may sometimes be called an orchestra or philharmonic orchestra. The actual number of employed in a given performance may vary from seventy to over one hundred musicians, depending on the work being played. The term chamber orchestra usually refers to smaller-sized ensembles of about fifty musicians or fewer, the typical orchestra grew in size throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, reaching a peak with the large orchestras called for in the works of Richard Wagner, and later, Gustav Mahler. Orchestras are usually led by a conductor who directs the performance with movements of the hands and arms, the conductor unifies the orchestra, sets the tempo and shapes the sound of the ensemble. The first violin, commonly called the concertmaster, also plays an important role in leading the musicians, the typical symphony orchestra consists of four groups of related musical instruments called the woodwinds, brass, percussion, and strings. The orchestra, depending on the size, contains almost all of the instruments in each group. Chamber orchestra usually refers to smaller-sized ensembles, a chamber orchestra might employ as many as fifty musicians. The term concert orchestra may also be used, as in the BBC Concert Orchestra, the so-called standard complement of doubled winds and brass in the orchestra from the first half of the 19th century is generally attributed to the forces called for by Beethoven. The composers instrumentation almost always included paired flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, horns, the exceptions to this are his Symphony No. 4, Violin Concerto, and Piano Concerto No,4, which each specify a single flute. Beethoven carefully calculated the expansion of this particular timbral palette in Symphonies 3,5,6, the third horn in the Eroica Symphony arrives to provide not only some harmonic flexibility, but also the effect of choral brass in the Trio movement. Piccolo, contrabassoon, and trombones add to the finale of his Symphony No.5. A piccolo and a pair of trombones help deliver the effect of storm and sunshine in the Sixth, for several decades after his death, symphonic instrumentation was faithful to Beethovens well-established model, with few exceptions. Apart from the core orchestral complement, various instruments are called for occasionally. These include the guitar, heckelphone, flugelhorn, cornet, harpsichord. Saxophones, for example, appear in some 19th- through 21st-century scores.6 and 9 and William Waltons Belshazzars Feast, and many other works as a member of the orchestral ensemble. The euphonium is featured in a few late Romantic and 20th-century works, usually playing parts marked tenor tuba, including Gustav Holsts The Planets, cornets appear in Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovskys ballet Swan Lake, Claude Debussys La Mer, and several orchestral works by Hector Berlioz
31.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, baptised as Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. Born in Salzburg, he showed prodigious ability from his earliest childhood, already competent on keyboard and violin, he composed from the age of five and performed before European royalty. At 17, Mozart was engaged as a musician at the Salzburg court, while visiting Vienna in 1781, he was dismissed from his Salzburg position. He chose to stay in the capital, where he achieved fame, during his final years in Vienna, he composed many of his best-known symphonies, concertos, and operas, and portions of the Requiem, which was largely unfinished at the time of his death. The circumstances of his death have been much mythologized. He was survived by his wife Constanze and two sons and he composed more than 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, operatic, and choral music. He is among the most enduringly popular of classical composers, Ludwig van Beethoven composed his own early works in the shadow of Mozart, and Joseph Haydn wrote, posterity will not see such a talent again in 100 years. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born on 27 January 1756 to Leopold Mozart and Anna Maria, née Pertl and this was the capital of the Archbishopric of Salzburg, an ecclesiastic principality in what is now Austria, then part of the Holy Roman Empire. He was the youngest of seven children, five of whom died in infancy and his elder sister was Maria Anna Mozart, nicknamed Nannerl. Mozart was baptized the day after his birth, at St. Ruperts Cathedral in Salzburg, the baptismal record gives his name in Latinized form, as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart. He generally called himself Wolfgang Amadè Mozart as an adult, Leopold Mozart, a native of Augsburg, Germany, was a minor composer and an experienced teacher. In 1743, he was appointed as fourth violinist in the establishment of Count Leopold Anton von Firmian. Four years later, he married Anna Maria in Salzburg, Leopold became the orchestras deputy Kapellmeister in 1763. During the year of his sons birth, Leopold published a textbook, Versuch einer gründlichen Violinschule. When Nannerl was 7, she began lessons with her father. Years later, after her brothers death, she reminisced, He often spent much time at the clavier, picking out thirds, which he was ever striking, and his pleasure showed that it sounded good. In the fourth year of his age his father, for a game as it were, began to teach him a few minuets and he could play it faultlessly and with the greatest delicacy, and keeping exactly in time. At the age of five, he was composing little pieces
32.
Ludwig van Beethoven
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Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he one of the most famous. His best-known compositions include 9 symphonies,5 piano concertos,1 violin concerto,32 piano sonatas,16 string quartets, his great Mass the Missa solemnis, and one opera, Fidelio. At the age of 21 he moved to Vienna, where he began studying composition with Joseph Haydn and he lived in Vienna until his death. By his late 20s his hearing began to deteriorate, and by the last decade of his life he was almost completely deaf. In 1811 he gave up conducting and performing in public but continued to compose, many of his most admired works come from these last 15 years of his life. Beethoven was the grandson of Ludwig van Beethoven, a musician from the town of Mechelen in the Duchy of Brabant in the Flemish region of what is now Belgium, who at the age of twenty moved to Bonn. Ludwig was employed as a singer at the court of the Elector of Cologne, eventually rising to become, in 1761. The portrait he commissioned of himself towards the end of his life remained proudly displayed in his grandsons rooms as a talisman of his musical heritage. Ludwig had one son, Johann, who worked as a tenor in the musical establishment and gave keyboard. Johann married Maria Magdalena Keverich in 1767, she was the daughter of Johann Heinrich Keverich, Beethoven was born of this marriage in Bonn. There is no record of the date of his birth, however. Of the seven children born to Johann van Beethoven, only Ludwig, the second-born, caspar Anton Carl was born on 8 April 1774, and Nikolaus Johann, the youngest, was born on 2 October 1776. Beethovens first music teacher was his father and he later had other local teachers, the court organist Gilles van den Eeden, Tobias Friedrich Pfeiffer, and Franz Rovantini. Beethovens musical talent was obvious at a young age, some time after 1779, Beethoven began his studies with his most important teacher in Bonn, Christian Gottlob Neefe, who was appointed the Courts Organist in that year. Neefe taught Beethoven composition, and by March 1783 had helped him write his first published composition, Beethoven soon began working with Neefe as assistant organist, at first unpaid, and then as a paid employee of the court chapel conducted by the Kapellmeister Andrea Luchesi. His first three piano sonatas, named Kurfürst for their dedication to the Elector Maximilian Friedrich, were published in 1783, Maximilian Frederick noticed Beethovens talent early, and subsidised and encouraged the young mans musical studies. Maximilian Fredericks successor as the Elector of Bonn was Maximilian Francis, the youngest son of Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, echoing changes made in Vienna by his brother Joseph, he introduced reforms based on Enlightenment philosophy, with increased support for education and the arts
33.
Dmitri Shostakovich
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Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich was a Russian pianist and composer of the Soviet period. He is regarded as one of the composers of the 20th century. Shostakovich achieved fame in the Soviet Union under the patronage of Soviet chief of staff Mikhail Tukhachevsky, nevertheless, he received accolades and state awards and served in the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR and the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. A polystylist, Shostakovich developed a voice, combining a variety of different musical techniques into his works. Shostakovichs orchestral works include 15 symphonies and six concerti and his chamber output includes 15 string quartets, a piano quintet, two piano trios, and two pieces for string octet. His solo piano works include two sonatas, an set of preludes, and a later set of 24 preludes and fugues. Born at Podolskaya street in Saint Petersburg, Russia, Shostakovich was the second of three children of Dmitri Boleslavovich Shostakovich and Sofiya Vasilievna Kokoulina, Shostakovichs paternal grandfather, originally surnamed Szostakowicz, was of Polish Roman Catholic descent, but his immediate forebears came from Siberia. When his term of exile ended, Szostakowicz decided to remain in Siberia and he eventually became a successful banker in Irkutsk and raised a large family. His son, Dmitri Boleslavovich Shostakovich, the father, was born in exile in Narim in 1875 and studied physics and mathematics in Saint Petersburg University. He then went to work as an engineer under Dmitri Mendeleev at the Bureau of Weights, in 1903 he married another Siberian transplant to the capital, Sofiya Vasilievna Kokoulina, one of six children born to a Russian Siberian native. Their son, Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich, displayed significant musical talent after he began lessons with his mother at the age of nine. In 1918 he wrote a march in memory of two leaders of the Kadet party, murdered by Bolshevik sailors. In 1919, at the age of thirteen, he was allowed to enter the Petrograd Conservatory, then headed by Alexander Glazunov, Shostakovich also attended Alexander Ossovskys history of music classes. Steinberg tried to guide Shostakovich in the path of the great Russian composers and he also suffered for his perceived lack of political zeal, and initially failed his exam in Marxist methodology in 1926. His first major achievement was the First Symphony, written as his graduation piece at the age of nineteen. After graduation, Shostakovich initially embarked on a career as concert pianist and composer. He nevertheless won a mention at the First International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw in 1927. He explained the disappointment at the competition to suffering from appendicitis and he later had his appendix removed in April 1927
34.
Dominant (music)
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The dominant is sung as so in solfege. The dominant function has the role of creating instability that requires the tonic for resolution, in very much conventionally tonal music, harmonic analysis will reveal a broad prevalence of the primary harmonies, tonic, dominant, and subdominant, and especially the first two of these. The scheme I-x-V-I symbolizes, though naturally in a very summarizing way, for example, in the C major scale, the dominant is the note G, and the dominant triad consists of the notes G, B, and D. In music theory, the dominant triad is a triad, symbolized by the Roman numeral V. It is, however, a triad, denoted v. For instance, in G-B♭-D, the B♭ is sharpened to B natural, a dominant seventh chord is a chord built upon the dominant of a major diatonic scale. It contains a major triad and a seventh of the root of the triad. An example is G7 in C major, G-B-D-F, with G being both the dominant of C major and the root of the major triad G-B-D, and F being the seventh of the root. In a general context, the dominant seventh is denoted V7, a cadential dominant chord followed by a tonic chord is denominated as authentic cadence. If the roots are in the bass and the tonic is in the highest voice, the dominant key in a given musical composition is the key whose tonic is a perfect fifth above the tonic of the main key of the piece. Put another way, the key whose tonic is the dominant scale degree in the main key, if, for example, a piece is written in the key of C major, then the key of C is the tonic key. The key of G major is the dominant key since it is based on the dominant note for the key of C major, with a key signature of one sharp, G major features one more sharp than C major. In sonata form in major keys, the subject group is usually in the dominant key. Even with the widest roaming modulations in the development, the dominant key exerts influence, the movement to the dominant was part of musical grammar, not an element of form. Almost all music in the century went to the dominant, before 1750 it was not something to be emphasized, afterward. This means that every eighteenth century listener expected the movement to the dominant in the sense that would have been puzzled if did not get it, it was a condition of intelligibility. Dominant also refers to a relationship of musical keys, for example, relative to the key of C major, the key of G major is the dominant key. Music which modulates often modulates into the dominant, modulation into the dominant key often creates a sense of increased tension, as opposed to modulation into subdominant, which creates a sense of musical relaxation
35.
Subdominant
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In music, the subdominant is the technical name for the fourth tonal degree of the diatonic scale. It is so called because it is the distance below the tonic as the dominant is above the tonic – in other words. It also happens to be the note immediately below the dominant and it is sung as fa in solfege. In the C major scale, the subdominant is the note F, and the subdominant chord uses the notes F, A, and C. In music theory, Roman numerals are used to symbolize the subdominant chord as IV if it is within the mode or iv if it is within the minor mode. In very much conventionally tonal music, harmonic analysis will reveal a broad prevalence of the harmonies, tonic, dominant, and subdominant. A cadential subdominant chord followed by a tonic chord produces the so-called plagal cadence, Subdominant also refers to a relationship of musical keys. For example, relative to the key of C major, the key of F major is the subdominant, music which modulates often modulates into the subdominant when the leading tone is lowered by a half step to the subtonic. Modulation into the subdominant key often creates a sense of relaxation, as opposed to modulation into dominant. The use of the subdominant in this location serves as a way of keeping the rest of recapitulation in the tonic. As with other chords which may or tend to precede the dominant the subdominant diatonic function acts as a dominant preparation or predominant, in theories after Hugo Riemann it is considered to balance the dominant around the tonic. Media related to Subdominant at Wikimedia Commons
36.
The Well-Tempered Clavier
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The Well-Tempered Clavier, BWV 846–893, is a collection of two series of Preludes and Fugues in all 24 major and minor keys, composed for solo keyboard by Johann Sebastian Bach. In the German of Bachs time Clavier was a name indicating a variety of keyboard instruments, most typically a harpsichord or clavichord –. The modern German spelling for the collection is Das wohltemperierte Klavier, some 20 years later Bach compiled a second book of the same kind, which became known as The Well-Tempered Clavier, Part Two. Modern editions usually refer to both parts as The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I and The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book II, the collection is generally regarded as being among the most influential works in the history of Western classical music. Each set contains twenty-four pairs of preludes and fugues, the first pair is in C major, the second in C minor, the third in C♯ major, the fourth in C♯ minor, and so on. The rising chromatic pattern continues until every key has been represented, the first set was compiled in 1722 during Bachs appointment in Köthen, the second followed 20 years later in 1742 while he was in Leipzig. The C♯ major prelude and fugue in book one was originally in C major – Bach added a key signature of seven sharps, although the Well-Tempered Clavier was the first collection of fully worked keyboard pieces in all 24 keys, similar ideas had occurred earlier. His contemporary Johann Heinrich Kittel also composed a cycle of 12 organ preludes in successive keys, Fischer was published in 1702 and reissued 1715. It is a set of 20 prelude-fugue pairs in ten major and nine minor keys, Bach knew the collection and borrowed some of the themes from Fischer for the Well-Tempered Clavier. Finally, a lost collection by Johann Pachelbel, Fugen und Praeambuln über die gewöhnlichsten Tonos figuratos and it was later shown that this was the work of a composer who was not even born in 1689, Bernhard Christian Weber. It was in written in 1745–50, and in imitation of Bachs example. Bachs title suggests that he had written for a tuning system in which all keys sounded in tune. The opposing system in Bachs day was meantone temperament in which keys with many accidentals sound out of tune, Bach would have been familiar with different tuning systems, and in particular as an organist would have played instruments tuned to a meantone system. There is debate whether Bach meant a range of temperaments, perhaps even altered slightly in practice from piece to piece. During much of the 20th century it was assumed that Bach wanted equal temperament, internal evidence for this may be seen in the fact that in Book 1 Bach paired the E♭ minor prelude with its enharmonic key of D♯ minor for the fugue. This represents an equation of the most tonally remote enharmonic keys where the flat, any performance of this pair would have required both of these enharmonic keys to sound identically tuned, thus implying equal temperament in the one pair, as the entire work implies as a whole. However, research has continued into various unequal systems contemporary with Bachs career, accounts of Bachs own tuning practice are few and inexact. The three most cited sources are Forkel, Bachs first biographer, Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg, who received information from Bachs sons and pupils, and Johann Kirnberger, one of those pupils
37.
Key (music)
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In music theory, the key of a piece is a group of pitches, or scale upon which a music composition is created in classical, Western art, and Western pop music. Notes and chords other than the tonic in a piece create varying degrees of tension, the key may be in the major or minor mode, although major is assumed in a phrase like this piece is in C. Popular songs are usually in a key, and so is classical music during the common practice period, longer pieces in the classical repertoire may have sections in contrasting keys. Methods that establish the key for a piece can be complicated to explain. The key signature is not always a reliable guide to the key of a written piece, occasionally, a piece in a mode such as Mixolydian or Dorian is written with a major or minor key signature appropriate to the tonic, and accidentals throughout the piece. Pieces in modes not corresponding to major or minor keys may sometimes be referred to as being in the key of the tonic. A piece using some type of harmony, resolving e. g. to A. An instrument may be said to be in a key, an unrelated usage referring to the pitches considered natural for that instrument. For example, modern trumpets are usually in the key of B♭, a key relationship is the relationship between keys, measured by common tones and nearness on the circle of fifths. The key usually identifies the tonic note and/or chord, the note and/or major or minor triad that represents the point of rest for a piece. For example, the key of G includes the following pitches, G, A, B, C, D, E, and F♯, and its corresponding tonic chord is G—B—D. Most often at the beginning and end of traditional pieces during the common practice period, a key may be major or minor. Music can be described as being in the Dorian mode, or Phrygian, languages other than English may use other key naming systems. Although many musicians confuse key with scale, a scale is a set of notes typically used in a key, while the key is the center of gravity. All of these notes and chords, however, are used in patterns that serve to establish the primacy of the tonic note. Cadences are particularly important in the establishment of key, even cadences that do not include the tonic note or triad, such as half cadences and deceptive cadences, serve to establish key because those chord sequences imply a unique diatonic context. Short pieces may stay in a single key throughout, more elaborate pieces may establish the main key, then modulate to another key, or a series of keys, then back to the original key. In the Baroque it was common to repeat a phrase of music, called a ritornello
38.
Supertonic
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In music or music theory, the supertonic is the second degree or note of a diatonic scale, one step above the tonic. It is sung as re in solfege, if in major or minor, through the lowering of the second scale degree, the chord is major then it is a Neapolitan 6th chord, N6 or ♭II6. The supertonic may be raised as part of the diminished seventh chord. One variant of the seventh chord is the supertonic diminished seventh with the raised supertonic. Pre-dominant chords are chords which distinguish chord V as a goal of motion they create gravity and harmonic motion towards dominant harmony, and form a fundamental aspect of western tonal music. The supertonic chord is known as a pre-dominant chord, as it is one of the chords which has a natural tendency to gravitate towards chord V. The supertonic chord lies a fifth above chord V, descending fifths are a strong basis for harmonic motion. It is preferable to avoid chord two in root position in the minor mode due to the quality of its diminished intervals. This is less of a if the chord contains a chordal seventh, indeed. Supertonic seventh chords are such intense pre-dominant chords because they outline the leading note contained in chord V with a dissonance, supertonic also refers to a relationship of musical keys. For example, relative to the key of C major, the key of D major is the supertonic, modulation to the supertonic is relatively common, though in classical music it is more common to modulate to the dominant or other keys. In German theory derived from Hugo Riemann, the supertonic is considered the subdominant parallel, Sp/T in major though sP/T in minor
39.
Free counterpoint
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In music, counterpoint is the relationship between voices that are harmonically interdependent yet independent in rhythm and contour. It has been most commonly identified in the European classical tradition, strongly developing during the Renaissance and in much of the common practice period, the term originates from the Latin punctus contra punctum meaning point against point. Counterpoint generally involves musical lines with strongly independent identities, Counterpoint has been used to designate a voice or even an entire composition. In each era, contrapuntally organized music writing has been subject to rules—sometimes strict ones, chords are the simultaneous soundings of notes, whereas harmonic, vertical features are considered secondary and almost incidental when counterpoint is the predominant textural element. Counterpoint focuses on melodic interaction—only secondarily on the produced by that interaction. In the words of John Rahn, It is hard to write a beautiful song and it is harder to write several individually beautiful songs that, when sung simultaneously, sound as a more beautiful polyphonic whole. The way that is accomplished in detail is, some examples of related compositional techniques include, the round, the canon, and perhaps the most complex contrapuntal convention, the fugue. All of these are examples of imitative counterpoint, Species counterpoint generally offers less freedom to the composer than other types of counterpoint and therefore is called a strict counterpoint. The student gradually attains the ability to free counterpoint according to the given rules at the time. The idea is at least as old as 1532, when Giovanni Maria Lanfranco described a concept in his Scintille di musica. Zacconi, unlike later theorists, included a few extra contrapuntal techniques, a succession of later theorists quite closely imitated Fuxs seminal work, often with some small and idiosyncratic modifications in the rules. The following rules apply to melodic writing in each species, for each part, if the final is approached from below, then the leading tone must be raised in a minor key, but not in Phrygian or Hypophrygian mode. Thus, in the Dorian mode on D, a C♯ is necessary at the cadence, permitted melodic intervals are the perfect fourth, fifth, and octave, as well as the major and minor second, major and minor third, and ascending minor sixth. The ascending minor sixth must be followed by motion downwards. The three notes should be from the triad, if this is impossible, they should not outline more than one octave. In general, do not write more than two skips in the same direction, if writing a skip in one direction, it is best to proceed after the skip with motion in the other direction. The interval of a tritone in three notes should be avoided as is the interval of a seventh in three notes, there must be a climax or high point in the line countering the cantus firmus. This usually occurs somewhere in the middle of exercise and must occur on a strong beat, an outlining of a seventh is avoided within a single line moving in the same direction
40.
Fifth (interval)
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Below is a list of intervals exprimable in terms of a prime limit, completed by a choice of intervals in various equal subdivisions of the octave or of other intervals. For instance, the limit of the just perfect fourth is 3, there exists another type of limit, the odd limit, a concept used by Harry Partch, but it is not used here. The term limit was devised by Partch, by definition, every interval in a given limit can also be part of a limit of higher order. For instance, a 3-limit unit can also be part of a 5-limit tuning, by sorting the limit columns in the table below, all intervals of a given limit can be brought together. Pythagorean tuning means 3-limit intonation—a ratio of numbers with prime factors no higher than three, just intonation means 5-limit intonation—a ratio of numbers with prime factors no higher than five. Septimal, undecimal, tridecimal, and septendecimal mean, respectively,7,11,13, meantone refers to meantone temperament, where the whole tone is the mean of the major third. In a meantone temperament, each fifth is narrowed by the small amount. The music program Logic Pro uses also 1/2-comma meantone temperament, equal-tempered refers to X-tone equal temperament with intervals corresponding to X divisions per octave. Tempered intervals however cannot be expressed in terms of prime limits and, the table can also be sorted by frequency ratio, by cents, or alphabetically. List of chord progressions List of meantone intervals List of musical scales and modes Names of seven-limit commas, XenHarmony. org
41.
Fourth (interval)
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Below is a list of intervals exprimable in terms of a prime limit, completed by a choice of intervals in various equal subdivisions of the octave or of other intervals. For instance, the limit of the just perfect fourth is 3, there exists another type of limit, the odd limit, a concept used by Harry Partch, but it is not used here. The term limit was devised by Partch, by definition, every interval in a given limit can also be part of a limit of higher order. For instance, a 3-limit unit can also be part of a 5-limit tuning, by sorting the limit columns in the table below, all intervals of a given limit can be brought together. Pythagorean tuning means 3-limit intonation—a ratio of numbers with prime factors no higher than three, just intonation means 5-limit intonation—a ratio of numbers with prime factors no higher than five. Septimal, undecimal, tridecimal, and septendecimal mean, respectively,7,11,13, meantone refers to meantone temperament, where the whole tone is the mean of the major third. In a meantone temperament, each fifth is narrowed by the small amount. The music program Logic Pro uses also 1/2-comma meantone temperament, equal-tempered refers to X-tone equal temperament with intervals corresponding to X divisions per octave. Tempered intervals however cannot be expressed in terms of prime limits and, the table can also be sorted by frequency ratio, by cents, or alphabetically. List of chord progressions List of meantone intervals List of musical scales and modes Names of seven-limit commas, XenHarmony. org
42.
Inversion (music)
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In music theory, the word inversion has several meanings. There are inverted chords, inverted melodies, inverted intervals, the concept of inversion also plays a role in musical set theory. An interval is inverted by raising or lowering either of the notes using displacement of the octave so that retain their names. Under inversion, perfect intervals remain perfect, major intervals become minor and vice versa, augmented intervals become diminished, traditional interval names add together to make nine, seconds become sevenths and vice versa, thirds become sixes and vice versa, and fourths become fifths and vice versa. Thus a perfect fourth becomes a fifth, an augmented fourth becomes a diminished fifth, and a simple interval and its inversion. A chords inversion describes the relationship of its bass to the tones in the chord. For instance, a C major triad contains the tones C, E and G, its inversion is determined by which of these tones is the bottom note in the chord. The term inversion is used to categorically refer to the different possibilities. In texts that make this restriction, the position may be used instead to refer to all of the possibilities as a category. A root-position chord Play is sometimes known as the parent chord of its inversions. For example, C is the root of a C major triad and is in the bass when the triad is in position, the 3rd. The following chord is also a C major triad in root position, the rearrangement of the notes above the bass into different octaves and the doubling of notes, is known as voicing. In an inverted chord, the root is not in the bass, the inversions are numbered in the order their bass tones would appear in a closed root position chord. In the second inversion Play, the bass is G—the 5th of the triad—with the root and the 3rd above it, forming a 4th and a 6th above the bass of G, respectively. This inversion can be either consonant or dissonant, and analytical notation sometimes treats it differently depending on the harmonic, for more details, look at Second inversion Third inversions exist only for chords of four or more tones, such as 7th chords. In a third-inversion chord Play, the 7th of the chord is in the bass position, each numeral expresses the interval that results from the voices above it. For example, in root-position triad C-E-G, the intervals above bass note C are a 3rd and a 5th, giving the figures 5-3. If this triad were inverted, the figures 6-3 would apply, due to the intervals of third and sixth appearing above bass note E. Figured bass is similarly applied to 7th chords, certain arbitrary conventions of abbreviation exist in the use of figured bass
43.
Tonality
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Tonality is a musical system that arranges pitches or chords to induce a hierarchy of perceived relations, stabilities, and attractions. In this hierarchy, the pitch or triadic chord with the greatest stability is called the tonic. The root of the chord is considered to be the key of a piece or song. Thus a piece in which the chord is C major is said to be in the key of C. Simple folk music songs often start and end with the tonic note, the most common use of the term. is to designate the arrangement of musical phenomena around a referential tonic in European music from about 1600 to about 1910. Contemporary classical music from 1910 to the 2000s may practice or avoid any sort of harmony in almost all Western popular music remains tonal. Harmony in jazz music includes many, if not all, tonal characteristics, All harmonic idioms in popular music are tonal, and none is without function. Tonality is a system of tones in which one tone becomes the central point for the remaining tones. The other tones in a piece are all defined in terms of their relationship to the tonic. In tonality, the tonic is the tone of complete relaxation and stability, the cadence in which the dominant chord or dominant seventh chord resolves to the tonic chord plays an important role in establishing the tonality of a piece. Tonal music is music that is unified and dimensional, the term tonalité originated with Alexandre-Étienne Choron and was borrowed by François-Joseph Fétis in 1840. According to Carl Dahlhaus, however, the term tonalité was only coined by Castil-Blaze in 1821, major-minor tonality is also called harmonic tonality, diatonic tonality, common practice tonality, functional tonality, or just tonality. This sense also applies to the tonic/dominant/subdominant harmonic harmonic constellations in the theories of Jean-Philippe Rameau as well as the 144 basic transformations of twelve-tone technique, any rational and self-contained theoretical arrangement of musical pitches, existing prior to any concrete embodiment in music. For example, Sainsbury, who had Choron translated into English in 1825, while tonality qua system constitutes a theoretical abstraction from actual music, it is often hypostatized in musicological discourse, converted from a theoretical structure into a musical reality. As a term to contrast with modal and atonal, implying that tonal music is discontinuous as a form of expression from modal music on the one hand. Musical phenomena arranged or understood in relation to a referential tonic, Musical phenomena perceived or preinterpreted in terms of the categories of tonal theories. In major and minor harmonies, the fifth is often implied. To function as a tonic, a chord must be either a major or a minor triad, dominant function requires a major-quality triad with a root a perfect fifth above the affiliated tonic and containing the leading tone of the key
44.
Quarter note
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A quarter note or crotchet is a note played for one quarter of the duration of a whole note. Often, musicians say that a crotchet is one beat, but this is not always correct, as the beat is indicated by the time signature of the music. Quarter notes are notated with a filled-in oval note head and a straight, the stem usually points upwards if it is below the middle line of the stave or downwards if it is on or above the middle line. However, the direction may differentiate more than one part. The head of the note also reverses its orientation in relation to the stem, in Unicode, the symbol is U+2669. A related value is the quarter rest and it denotes a silence of the same duration as a quarter note. It typically appears as the symbol, or occasionally, as the older symbol, the note derives from the semiminima of mensural notation. The word crotchet comes from Old French crochet, meaning hook, diminutive of croc, hook. However, because the hook appeared on the note in the later white notation. The quarter note is played for half the length of a half note and it is one beat in a bar of 44. The term quarter note is a calque of the German term Viertelnote, the Bulgarian, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Russian, Serbian and Slovak names mean quarter and quarters pause
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Section (music)
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In music, a section is a complete, but not independent musical idea. Types of sections include the introduction or intro, exposition, recapitulation, verse, chorus or refrain, conclusion, coda or outro, fadeout, bridge or interlude. In sectional forms such as binary, the unit is built from various smaller clear-cut units in combination. Some well known songs consist of one or two sections, for example Jingle Bells commonly contains verses and choruses. It may contain auxiliary members such as an introduction and/or outro, a section is, a major structural unit perceived as the result of the coincidence of relatively large numbers of structural phenomena. An episode may also refer to a section, a passage is a musical idea that may or may not be complete or independent. For example, fill, riff, and all sections, musical material is any musical idea, complete or not, independent or not, including motifs. Song structure Period Phrase Repetition and repeat sign
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"Fugue". The American Cyclopædia. 1879.
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