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GLOSSARY AND RESOURCE LIST
Glossary and Resource List
20th Century: The period of music from 1900-2000 characterized by atonality, dissonance, neoclassicism, and jazz
elements.
Aesthetic: Appreciation of something beautiful.
Allegro: A fast tempo.
Archdiocese: the district for which an archbishop is responsible.
Arrangement: The adaptation of a composition for a medium different from that for which it was originally
composed.
Atonality or Atonal Music: Music organized without reference to key or tonal center and using the tones of a
chromatic scale impartially.
Audience: A group of listeners or spectators.
Auditorium: A room, hall or building used for public gatherings.
Baroque Period: The period of music from 1600-1750 characterized by an emphasis on ornate melodies and the
development of musical forms such as opera, cantata, oratorio, and sonata.
Cadence: the notes signaling the end of a piece
Chamber Music: Music, especially instrumental ensemble music, intended for performance in a private room.
Choreograph: To arrange or direct movements especially for dance.
Chorus: a group of singers who all sing together or a piece sung by such a group.
Classical Period: The period of music from 1750-1825 characterized by an emphasis on balance, clarity and
moderation.
Coda: A concluding passage that occurs after the structural conclusion of a piece of music.
Collaboration: To work jointly with others
Commission: to hire a composer to write a piece of music in exchange for a fee
Composer: A person who writes music.
Composition: A piece of music.
Concert: The performance of music (or other art form) for an audience.
Concerto: A musical work for solo instrument accompanied by an orchestra.
Conductor: A person who directs the performance of a musical ensemble.
Contemporary: The present period of music; specifically music created from the year 2000 to present.
Contrast: To compare or appraise in respect to differences.
Critic: One who expresses a reasoned opinion involving a judgment of its value.
Csardas: a Hungarian dance with a slow introduction and a fast, wild finish.
Dance: A series of rhythmic and patterned bodily movements usually performed to music.
Development: The second major division of the sonata-allegro form. The development is based upon the themes
in the exposition and elaborates upon them by making new combinations of the figures and phrases while moving
through a series of foreign keys.
CHARLOTTE SYMPHONY
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GLOSSARY AND RESOURCE LIST
Dynamics: The loudness or softness of sound.
Ethnomusicology: the study of the music of different cultures, especially non-Western ones.
Exotic: Introduced from another country; not native to the place where found.
Exposition: In sonata form, the exposition is the first statement of the theme.
Finale: The final movement of a musical form; to appear at the end of a composition.
Folk music: Music originating among the people of a country or area, passed by oral tradition from one singer
or generation to the next.
Gypsy: a member of a traveling people who traditionally live by seasonal work, various trades, and fortune
telling.
Harmony: The musical effect derived from combining different pitches simultaneously.
Impressionism: A style of painting and music developed in France that was popular from the 1870’s through
early 1900’s. It is characterized by the impression produced by a scene, or the creation of an emotion or
feeling.
Improvise: The creation of music in the course of performance.
Key: A specific scale or series of notes defining a particular tonality. Keys may be defined as major or minor,
and are named after their tonic or keynote.
Kuchka: The Five, also known as The Mighty Handful, The Balakirev Circle, and The New Russian School,
refers to a circle of composers who met in Saint Petersburg, Russia, in the years 1856–1870: Mily Balakirev,
César Cui, Modest Mussorgsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Alexander Borodin.
Leitmotif: A recurring melody that is associated with a specific character, event, or idea.
Libretto: A printed copy of the words to an oratorio or an opera; also, the words of the text themselves.
Lyrics: the written words in a song.
Melody: A succession of notes defined by pitch and rhythm.
Meter: A pattern in which a steady succession of rhythmic pulses is organized.
Minuet and Trio: A French dance in moderate tempo and ¾ meter. In the Classical period, the minuet was
paired with a contrasting movement called the trio. Together, they were played in the pattern of minuet-triominuet.
Movement: Complete, self-contained section within a larger musical composition.
Neoclassicism: Relating to a revival of interest in the Classical era in music, literature, art and architecture.
Opera: A story told by music and singing very rarely using spoken words.
Orchestra: A group of musicians organized to perform ensemble music.
Orchestrate: to arrange the music for an orchestra to play.
Orchestration: The art of employing instruments in various combinations, most notably the orchestra.
Overture: orchestral introduction that establishes key themes and moods
Patron: A person who supports something, like an orchestra, a composer, or an event.
Perfect Pitch: an aural ability which allows one to recognize the pitch of a note or to produce any given note
without the use of any aural aid
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CHARLOTTE SYMPHONY
GLOSSARY AND RESOURCE LIST
Polonaise: a slow dance of Polish origin in triple time, consisting chiefly of an intricate march or procession.
Prodigy: A highly talented child.
Ragtime: music characterized by a syncopated melodic line and regularly accented accompaniment, evolved by
black American musicians in the 1890s and played on the piano.
Relative Pitch: being able to replicate a given musical note by comparing it to a reference note
Rhythm: The organization of sound over time.
Romantic Period: The period of music from 1825-1900 characterized by an emphasis on subjective emotional
qualities and freedom of form.
Scale: A graduated series of musical tones ascending or descending in order or pitch.
Schanken: respectable working class places for eating and entertainment.
Score: The entirety of the instrumental and vocal parts of a composition in written form, placed together on a
page in staves placed one below the other.
Sonata: A composition for solo piano or instruments usually consisting of three or four movements varying in
key, mood, and tempo.
String Quartet: A composition for an ensemble consisting of four solo string instruments, normally two violins,
viola and cello.
Suite: an ordered series of instrumental movements of any character.
Symphonic Poem: see Tone Poem.
Symphony: A long and complex work in sonata form for symphony orchestra.
Syncopation: A momentary contradiction of the prevailing meter or pulse.
Tempo: The speed at which a musical composition is played.
Theme: A melodic subject or main idea of a musical composition or movement.
Timbre: Quality of sound that distinguishes one instrument or voice from another.
Tonality: Central note, scale and chord within a piece, in relationship to which all other tones in the composition
are heard.
Tone Poem: a poem told through music rather than words
Tonic: The note upon which a scale or key is based.
Tri-tone: The interval of an augmented fourth. This interval was known as the "devil in music" in the Medieval era
because it is the most dissonant sound in the scale.
Vaquero: (in Spanish-speaking parts of the US) a cowboy; a cattle driver.
Variations: taking a motif and repeating it in several different ways.
Verbunkos: an 18th-century Hungarian dance and music genre.
CHARLOTTE SYMPHONY
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