Music Terminology 101: Instrumental Terms
As part of our mission to advance knowledge of and appreciation for classical music, All Classical Radio recently launched a new resource for those curious to learn more about this beloved genre: the Classical Music Glossary.
In this glossary, we comb through commonly used terminology and historical timelines to help you feel more confident about and connected to the music you love.
Today’s blog post is another preview of this new resource, this time focusing on terms related to instrumental music, including popular genres you are likely to encounter while listening to classical music.
Symphony
An elaborate musical composition for an orchestra, typically in four movements. Out of all classical music works, symphonies are the longest, the most complex, and involve the most instruments. The word “symphony” comes from the Greek word symphonia, which translates to “sound together.”
Example: Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 in d minor, “Choral”
Concerto
A musical composition that is similar to a symphony but written for a featured soloist and orchestra. A concerto is traditionally written in three movements.
Example: Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in c minor
Overture
An orchestral piece at the beginning of a play, opera, oratorio, or extended composition. Sometimes, an overture can be written as a stand-alone, single-movement orchestral piece.
Example: Bernstein’s overture to his operetta, Candide
Chamber Music
Music written for smaller instrumental ensembles, maybe just one or two musicians per instrument, such as a string quartet, piano trio, or wind quintet.
Program Music
Instrumental music that carries some extra-musical meaning, such as a literary tale, a famous legend, or a scenic description. Fun fact – Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons was one of the earliest examples of program music.
Example: Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade, based on One Thousand and One Nights
Prelude & Fugue
A prelude is a short piece of music that serves as an introduction to another piece or movement.
A fugue is a composition in which a short melody or phrase is introduced by one player or instrumental section, successively taken up by others, and developed by interweaving the parts.
In classical music, these two musical forms are often paired in a two-movement format, as seen in J. S. Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier.
Sonata
Over centuries of development, the sonata has taken on two meanings in classical music:
- A solo instrumental piece comprised of several movements, such as Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 8 in c minor, “Pathétique”
- A musical form consisting of an exposition, development, and recapitulation and used in one movement of a larger, multi-movement work, such as the first movement of Mozart’s Symphony No. 41, “Jupiter.”
Basso Continuo
A form of accompaniment used during the Baroque Era, where a keyboard instrument harmonically elaborates on a bass line through improvisation. During this time, it was common for only the bass line to be written out in a score (typically played by a cellist or bassoonist), leaving the full harmonic accompaniment for a piece of music unspecified. The keyboard would consequently be tasked with fleshing out said bass line into a fuller harmonic foundation.
Basso continuo (continuous bass) is also referred to as “figured bass” or simply “continuo.”
If you enjoyed this post and would like to dive deeper, be sure to check out the Classical Music Glossary!
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