A Glossary of Common Terms in Classical Music

It doesn’t take one long to realize that the world of classical music has its own language. I briefly introduced a few major terms in an earlier post; now I’d like to expand that list. These terms describe eras in musical history, different forms that classical music can take, and directions about how to perform it as the composer imagined it. This glossary will cover this post and the following one, too.

Although some of these terms will not be seen immediately, others will. Having some basic knowledge of these words will aid your understanding of music, performance and reviews or comments on classical music.

Baroque is now used in music to designate a period of musical history from about 1600 to about 1750, although any such delineation in history can only be a rough guide. The baroque era may conveniently be divided into three fifty-year periods, Early Baroque, Middle Baroque and Late Baroque. The first of these is typified by the Italian composer Monteverdi, the Middle Baroque by composers such as Henry Purcell in England or Lully in France and the Late Baroque by Johann Sebastian Bach, Handel and Vivaldi.

Classical music may designate fine music or serious music. More technically the word may refer to a period in the history of music, the later 18th century, the age of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. The classical may be differentiated from the so-called romantic, the relatively experimental and less formally restricted kinds of music that became current in the 19th century.

Romanticism In music it is most commonly applied to a period or the predominant features of the period, from the early 19th century until the early 20th. Features of romanticism in music include an attention to feeling rather than to formal symmetry, expressed in a freer use of traditional forms, an expansion of the instrumental resources of music and an extension of harmonic language.

Impressionism was used to describe an element of vagueness and imprecision coupled with a perceived excess of attention to colour in the early music of Debussy, who did not accept the criticism or the label, although his harmonic innovations and approach to composition have points in common with the ideals of Monet.

Neoclassical style in music indicates a 20th century eclectic return by some composers to various styles and forms of earlier periods, whether classical or baroque.

Accelerando (Italian: becoming faster) is a term to show that the music should be played at an increasing speed.

Accent  refers to the emphasis on a beat resulting in that beat being louder or longer than another in a measure.

Allegro (Italian: cheerful, lively) is generally taken as fast, although not as fast as vivace or presto. Allegretto is a diminutive, meaning slightly slower than allegro. The term also appllies to a particular movement of a larger work.

Andante (Italian: walking) is a word used to suggest the speed of a piece of music, at walking pace.

Bar: a bar-line, a vertical line through the staff, came to be used to mark metrical units or bars (i.e., measures).Later, the bar-line came to be used immediately preceding a strong beat, so that a bar came to begin normally with an accented note.

The Brass section of the orchestra includes metal instruments where the sound is produced by forcing air through a cup-shaped or conical mouthpiece. The brass section usually consists of trumpets, trombones and tuba and French horns.

Cadenza is a virtuoso passage usually found near the end of a concerto movement or vocal aria . Cadenzas are often based on the themes of the piece in which they appear and are improvisatory in style. In the Classical and Romantic eras performers were expected to improvise or provide their own cadenzas, although Mozart began providing written cadenzas for some of his piano concertos. 

A Cantata is generally a longer choral work that also uses solo voices, usually with instrumental accompaniment. The texts used may be sacred or secular, and may use solo voices without chorus or choir.

Chamber music is the term used to describe ensemble music for up to about ten players, with one player to a part.

While Chromatic notes in an ascending scale are taken from the note C, the following chromatic notes would be C# (C sharp), D# (D sharp), etc., notes not found in the diatonic scale of C major, which has no sharps or flats.

A Concertmaster is the leader of an orchestra (that is, the principal first violin) Also known in German as a Konzertmeister the term now concert master has found more general acceptance in other English-speaking countries, apart from Great Britain, where the word leader is still preferred.

A Concerto is a piece of instrumental music that contrasts a solo instrument or a small group of solo instruments with the main body of the orchestra. In the earlier 17th century the word had a more general significance, but in the early 18th century it came to mean primarily a work as described above.

Crescendo (Italian: growing, becoming louder) is frequently used as a dynamic instruction to performers.

Decrescendo (Italian: growing less) is used as a direction to performers, meaning becoming softer.

Diminuendo (Italian: becoming less) is used as a direction to performers to play softer.

A Divertimento is an instrumental composition intended for entertainment, usually in a number of movements. The term is used particularly in the second half of the 18th century. Haydn described his first string quartets as Divertimenti and the title is also used by Mozart and other composers of the period.

Dynamics are the levels of sound, loud or soft, in a piece of music.
An Etude is a study, intended originally for the technical practice of the player. Chopin, Liszt and later composers elevated the etude into a significant piece of music, no mere exercise.

The word "Flat", indicated by a sign derived from the letter b, shows that a note should be lowered by a semitone. In a more general sense music that is flat may simply be out of tune, its pitch below the accepted pitch.

A Fugue is a work of music with many voices based on a single melody, repeated in various ways.   From simplicity comes richness and complexity.

Harmony describes the simultaneous sounding of two or more notes and the rules for building  and their arranging a succession of chords. In other words harmony deals with chords, simultaneous sounds, and counterpoint with melody set against melody.

Improvisation  is the creation of a musical composition while it is being performed, seen in Baroque ornamentation, cadenzas of concertos, jazz, and some non-Western music.

Key. A musical work in a "key" is melodically and harmonically orientated around a particular major or minor scale. For example, a composition in C Major will usually begin and end in that key, although excursions to other keys may occur. However, a passage in C Major may temporarily utilize notes that do not occur in that scale and still remain in C Major.

Largo (Italian: broad, wide, large and consequently slow) is used as a frequent instruction to performers.

Legato (Italian: smooth) is used as an instruction to performers. It is the opposite of staccato, which indicates a shortening and consequent detaching of notes.

The Libretto, literally, little book, is the text of an opera or similar vocal work, originally issued in a small printed book.