Fantasia
Instrumental composition that resembles an improvisation or lacks a strict form. Imitative instrumental piece on a single subject. *Complex counterpoint, grand scale
Canzone
Sixteenth-century Italian genre, an instrumental work adapted from a chanson or composed in a similar style. In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, an instrumental work in several contrasting sections, of which the first and some of the others are in imitative counterpoint.
Da capo arias
Aria form with two sections. The first section is repeated after the second section’s close, creating an ABA form
French overture
Type of overture used in tragedie en musique and other genres, that opens with a slow, homophonic, and majestic section, followed by a faster second section that begins with imitation
Recitatif simple
In French baroque opera, recitative that shifts frequently between duple and triple meter to allow the natural speechlike declamation of the words.
Recitatif measure
In French Baroque opera, recitative in a songlike, measured style, in a uniform meter, and with relatively steady motion in the accompaniment.
Air
English or French song for solo voice with instrumental accompaniment, setting rhymed poetry, often strophic, and usually in the meter of a dance.
Petit motet
sacred concerto for few voices with continuo
Grand motet
multi-section work corresponding to the large-scale concertos of Gabrieli and Schutz
Masque
Sketches of different composers multiple scene changes, Seventeenth-century English entertainment involving poetry, music, dance, costumes, choruses, and elaborate sets, akin to the French court ballet.
English recitative
Speechlike music, molded to the accents, pace, and emotions of the English text.
Semi-opera
Modern term for dramatic opera. Seventeenth-century English mixed genre of musical theater, a spoken play with an overture and four or more masques or long musical interludes.