Music history glossary: terms for singers
MUSIC HISTORY
Recitative, cadence, polyphony, register: a shared lexicon between musical musical analysis and vocal lexicon.
Source Jean Mislin · Musicologist, organist and choral conductor · teacher of Adeline Toniutti As part of Adeline Toniutti's research
Recitative, aria, arioso: vocal discourse
Recitative is a free structure invented around the turn of the seventeenth century, in declaimed (syllabic) style, recreating the rhythm of speech. In the Baroque era it is supported by basso continuo. The aria, from Alessandro Scarlatti (late seventeenth century), becomes a developed vocal piece in ABA form (da capo aria), typical of Baroque opera; in the nineteenth century the form grows more elaborate. Arioso means a very songful recitative, or a cantabile passage in instrumental music.
Accompanied monody (late sixteenth to early eighteenth century) places one voice over continuo chords. A cappella writing, by contrast, is sacred or secular choral music without instrumental accompaniment. These landmarks help the singer balance declamation and melodic line by genre.
Cadence and cadenza: punctuation and display
A cadence is a harmonic or melodic formula that punctuates musical discourse, like a period or comma in prose. In a concertante work, the cadenza is a virtuoso passage for the soloist, written or improvised, inserted into the final harmonic cadence (chords I6, V5 and I5). The soloist begins on the first of these chords; the cadenza often ends on a long trill before the orchestra returns.
Ornaments and non-chord tones fill these moments: appoggiatura (expressive non-chord tone on the beat), mordent (single beat to the tone or semitone below, marked ~), trill, turn. Resolution slides a dissonance to a neighboring consonant interval: a key landmark of harmonic analysis and of phrasing for the singer.
Polyphony, imitation, canon and fugue
Polyphony is the art of superposing one or more voices according to the rules of counterpoint, rules that evolve by era. Imitation restates a melodic motif in another voice: the first term is the antecedent, the second the consequent. A canon is close, continuous imitation with antecedent and consequent superimposed, strict or free, at intervals from unison to octave.
The fugue elevates these devices: subject, answer, countersubject, stretto (close entry of the consequent). The ricercare is its instrumental ancestor in imitative counterpoint. Homophony (vertical style, melody with chordal support) differs from polyrhythm (no rhythmic coincidence among voices). For choir or cantata singers, these ideas train the polyphonic ear.
Register, ambitus and tessitura
Register names the average span of a voice, or a subdivision of the tessitura that keeps the same timbral character (and, on the organ, a stop). Ambitus is the interval between the lowest and highest sound of a melodic line. Do not confuse ambitus, range, tessitura and register: these analysis terms locate a line, a role or an instrument in sonic space. Tessitura is where the voice is most comfortable; range is the total of possible sounds; ambitus measures the extremes of a given melody.
Other key terms (quick landmarks)
- Cantus firmus: a borrowed melody used as the basis of a polyphony (long values or ornamented).
- Ostinato / ground bass: a formula repeated obstinately, often in the bass; ground bass in England.
- Figured bass: a bass line with figures indicating the chords to realise (Baroque continuo).
- Cantata: in the seventeenth century a dramatic madrigal; in the eighteenth more theatrical, with arias and ritornellos.
- Mass: Ordinary (Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus-Benedictus, Agnus) often in polyphony from the fourteenth century; changing Proper (introit, gradual, alleluia, offertory, communion).
- Requiem: Mass for the dead (Mozart, Berlioz, Verdi, Fauré, Duruflé, Suppé).
- Leitmotiv: leading motif linked to characters or feelings (Wagner).
- Passacaglia: dance or variations over a ground bass, close to the chaconne.
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Sources and quotations
Landmarks and quotations for further reading.
- Jean Mislin: musicologist, organist and choral conductor, teacher of Adeline Toniutti. Notes used within Adeline Toniutti's research.
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Link lexicon, style and voice
Work on recitative, polyphony and registers with Adeline Toniutti's CALYP team.