Music Key Words

Sonata

• A composition in three or four movements, for one or more solo instruments

• A composition with an exposition, development, recapitulation and coda

Oratorio

• A multi-movement work for soloists, choir and orchestra, on a religious text

• A piece of soloists and choir, in one movement, with secular text

Lied

• The main instrument within a piece

• Art song with German text, mainly written during the Romantic period. Plural: ‘Lieder’

Cantata

• A work (sacred or secular, and particularly associated with the baroque period) in several movements for singer(s) and instruments

• A work associated with the romantic period with sacred text, in several movements for singer(s) and instruments.

Ballade

• A 3 movement composition for piano and voice

• A type of virtuosic one-movement composition for piano pioneered by Chopin

Sul ponticello

• A direction for stringed instruments to play with the bow kept away from the bridge

• A direction for stringed instruments to play with the bow kept near to or on the bridge

Flutter-tonguing

• wind players (especially flautists) produce a special ‘whirring’ effect by fluttering the tongue

• a singing technique to roll 'r's

Con sordini

• With the bow

• With the use of a mute

Cross rhythm

• the effect produced when two conflicting rhythms are heard together

• the effect produced when two similar rhythms are heard together

Monophony

• Melody and accompaniment

• Music in which only one note is heard at a time – a single melodic line