The Score
A form of printed or written music from which a performer plays. The term "full score" signifies music for orchestra containing the full details of a work, with all the parts separately displayed, as it is intended to be performed. In modern orchestral scores the orchestra is ordered in groups from the top down - woodwind, brass, percussion and strings. Each group is subdivided in roughly descending order of pitch range. The solo part of a concerto is written above the first violins; vocal parts may be shown above the first violins, or, traditionally, between the violas and cellos. Score "parts" consist only of the music of one performer (the violin part or the clarinet). The conductor uses the full or orchestral score.
Concerto
The modern concerto is a composition for solo instrument with orchestra. It originally meant "to join together," and the term included works for chorus with orchestra and chamber ensemble with orchestra. By the early 18th century, the concerto became a piece where the soloist was in opposition to the orchestra. It is this form we most often hear today.
Movement
A section or part of a piece of music. For example, symphonies and quartets traditionally have four movements (though there are exceptions).
Overture
A term derived from the Italian "overtura." It refers to a piece of instrumental music that precedes an opera, oratorio or play. Some composers, Wagner for example, prefer the term "prelude" ( Vorspiel in German). Overtures are most often thematically connected to the music that follows. An overture is often alluded to as the "curtain raiser," since it is usually programmed at the beginning of the concert. This term can also be assigned to an independent instrumental work.
Sinfonia
In Italian, "symphony." From the 16th century this term was applied to music to introduce dramatic works. During the Baroque period (c.17th- early-18th centuries), this name was given to an orchestral piece, which served as a three-movement introduction (fast-slow-fast) to an opera, suite or cantata. Thus, it is an early form of the Italian overture. During the 18th century, it increasingly designated the concert symphony. The term was revived in the 20th century for works shorter or less earnest or intense than the term symphony tends to imply.
Sonata
A piece of music - almost invariably instrumental - and usually in several movements for a soloist or small ensemble. For example: a piano sonata or a cello and piano sonata.
Suite
An ordered set of instrumental pieces that are in some way related and meant to be performed as a group. After 1750, the sonata, symphony and concerto began to replace the suite. In the 19th century the term suite was increasingly used for an orchestral section from a larger work, such as a ballet or opera, or for a sequence of pieces loosely connected by a descriptive program (for example, Holst's The Planets ).
Symphony
An extended work for orchestra, usually in three or four movements. It is traditionally regarded as the central form of orchestral composition. In the 17th century it was used for concerted motets, introductory movements to opera (see Overture), for instrumental introductions and sections within arias and ensembles and for ensemble pieces that may be classified as sonatas or concertos (see Sinfonia).
Text (c) Lynne S. Mazza
<back |
