Musical Form

In the 18th century sectional binary form continued to appear in folk music and in chorales (for example in Bach’s chorale no.38, Straf mich nicht in deinem Zorn). It is most commonly found in arias, and may be understood retrospectively as a da capo form that unexpectedly fails to complete itself. This almost always occurs for dramatic reasons, as in Jonathan’s ‘No, no, cruel father, no!’ from Handel’s Saul, where a lamenting first section in B minor is succeeded by a G major Allegro. Both sections are harmonically closed, leaving the larger structure open; AB is clearly a more appropriate designation here. A more complex example is Iole’s aria ‘My father! ah! methinks I see’ from Handel’s Hercules. In the first section, beginning and ending in C minor, Iole relives the killing of her father by Hercules. The relative major is held in reserve for the second section, in which Iole bids her father rest in peace. Rather than finishing in E♭ major, though, the music clouds over into E♭ minor, implying that Iole’s remembrance of the violent death has invaded her thoughts. The close thus reverts to the mode of the first section and creates some sense of rounded shaping to the whole, if in the first instance for dramatic reasons; there are also some subtle thematic recollections from ...

(Fr.; It. burlesca; Ger. Burleske)

A humorous piece involving parody and grotesque exaggeration; the term may be traced to folk poetry and theatre and apparently derived from the late Latin burra (‘trifle’). As a literary term in the 17th century it referred to a grotesque imitation of the dignified or pathetic, and in the early 18th century it was used as a title for musical works in which serious and comic elements were juxtaposed or combined to achieve a grotesque effect. In England the word denotes a dramatic production which ridicules stage conventions, while in 19th- and 20th-century American usage its principal meaning is a variety show in which striptease is the chief attraction.

Burlesque: Instrumental music

Burlesque: English theatrical burlesque

Burlesque: American burlesque

J.G. Walther (1732) described burlesque music as ‘jocular’ and ‘amusing’ (‘schertzhafft’, ‘kurzweilig’) and referred to ‘burleske Ouvertüren’ as pieces in which ‘laughable melodies, made up of 5ths and octaves, appear along with serious melodies’. This probably referred to the comic effects achieved by composers of Italian opera buffa in the early 18th century, effects that doubtless helped to set a standard of musical humour for the ‘burlesca’ movements sometimes included in contemporary suites. The example in Bach’s Partita bwv827, which is called a minuet in Anna Magdalena’s Notebook (1725), has nothing particularly jocular about it, although it displays some striking harmonies, as well as a passage in parallel octaves. J.L. Krebs placed a ‘bourlesca’ between the saraband and the minuets of his Partita no.2 in B♭; the movement is not a dance, but rather a small-scale sonata form with a few melodic and harmonic surprises. François Couperin subtitled some of his harpsichord pieces ‘dans le goût burlesque’; two examples are ...

See also Madrigal

In the 1580s and 90s a lively offshoot of the madrigale arioso and the ‘light’ madrigal style of Ferretti and Gastoldi (see §II, 7 above) took root in England. Several impressive composers of madrigals emerged, and for a short time nearly all native composers seem to have interested themselves in the new style. The English madrigal development is of interest for its startlingly frank embrace of foreign models; in this respect it marks something of a watershed in the history of English music. The extent of the development – about 50 printed editions between 1588 and 1627, including nine of Italian music in translation or transcription – is also notable, by the standards of local musical activity at the time. It is well to bear in mind, however, that Monte wrote more madrigals and Marenzio published more editions than were produced by all the English madrigalists together.

Italian madrigals circulated in manuscript in England from as early as the 1530s, though apart from a few specialized sources, their appearance in manuscripts up to the 1590s is scant compared to motets and chansons. In the 1560s and 70s a colourless but prolific Italian madrigalist, Alfonso Ferrabosco (i), held a prominent position at Queen Elizabeth’s court and built up a great local reputation (see §II, 3 above). However, the composition of madrigals in the vernacular was unthinkable until poets could conceive of English verse at least approximately comparable in form and content to Italian madrigal poetry. One could not write madrigals to the lyrics in Tottel’s ...

A poetic and musical form of 14th-century Italy; more importantly, a term in general use during the 16th century and much of the 17th for settings of various types and forms of secular verse. There is no connection between the 14th- and the 16th-century madrigal other than that of name; the former passed out of fashion a century before the term was revived. The later madrigal became the most popular form of secular polyphony in the second half of the 16th century, serving as a model for madrigals and madrigal-like compositions in languages other than Italian throughout Europe. It set the pace for stylistic developments that culminated in the Baroque period, particularly those involving the expressive relationship between text and music, and must be regarded as the most important genre of the late Renaissance.

14th century Italian madrigal

16th century Italian madrigal

Concerted madrigal

English madrigal

Madrigal outside Italy and England...

(Fr. ouverture Ouvertüre sinfonia)

A piece of music of moderate length, either introducing a dramatic work or intended for concert performance. See also French overture.

The word ‘overture’ derives from the French ouverture, which denoted the piece in two or more sections that formed a solemn introduction to a ballet, opera or oratorio in the 17th century. (It was sometimes applied, notably by Bach, to a suite comprising a French overture and a group of dance movements.) In 18th-century usage it was extended to works of the symphony type, whether or not they were preludes to dramatic works; the terms were often used interchangeably. Thus in the 1790s Haydn’s London symphonies were sometimes billed as ‘overtures’.

In modern usage the word denotes, first, a substantial piece of orchestral music designed to precede a full-length dramatic work (it would thus include an Italian overture which might actually be called ‘sinfonia’). It may be in one or more sections, and may or may not come to a full close before the drama begins (Mozart’s overture to ...

(b Dec 1738, bap. London, Jan 1, 1739; d Boston, early Dec 1798). English organist and composer. He was organist of All Hallows Bread Street (1756–73), joint organist of St Sepulchre’s, Holborn (1760–73), and organist to the Magdalen Hospital (1766–9). He contributed nine effective psalm and hymn settings to A Second Collection of Psalms and Hymns Use’d at the Magdalen Chapel (London, c1770), and may have compiled the collection. He also published five songs and an organ voluntary while in London; his hunting song The Chace of the Hare (‘Do you hear, brother sportsman, the sound of the horn?’) was reprinted many times. He was admitted to the Society of Musicians in 1762 and made a freeman of the Company of Musicians in 1766. He played the organ for the annual meeting of London Charity Children in 1767, and probably in other years....

The most important principle of musical form, or formal type, from the Classical period well into the 20th century. This form is that of a single movement, not a ‘sonata’ as a whole; such a movement is most often part of a multi-movement instrumental cycle such as a sonata, piano trio or quartet, string quartet or quintet, symphony etc., or an independent movement like an overture or tone poem. Sonata form as such is less common in fantasies and the like, small movements, concertos and vocal music, but its principles may influence other features of form in such works. Though most characteristic of first movements in fast tempo, it often appears in middle movements and finales, and in moderate and slow tempo; hence the synonyms ‘sonata-allegro form’ and ‘first-movement form’ are best avoided.

A typical sonata-form movement consists of three main sections, embedded in a two-part tonal structure. The first part of the structure coincides with the first section and is called the ‘exposition’. The second part of the structure comprises the remaining two sections, the ‘development’ and the ‘recapitulation’. The exposition divides into a ‘first group’ in the tonic and a ‘second group’ in another key, most often the dominant. Both first and second group may include numerous different ideas; the first or most prominent theme may be called the ‘main theme’, ‘first subject’, ‘primary material’ etc., while the most prominent theme in the second group is often called the ‘second theme’ (or ‘subject’), whether or not it actually is the second important musical idea. The development (the misleading term ‘free fantasia’ is now obsolete) usually develops material from the exposition, as it modulates among one or more new keys. The last part of the development prepares the recapitulation. The recapitulation (or ‘reprise’; but see §3 (iii)) begins with a simultaneous ‘double return’, to the main theme and to the tonic. It then restates most or all of the significant material from the exposition, whereby the second group is transposed to the tonic. The movement concludes either with a cadence in the tonic paralleling the end of the exposition, or with a coda following the recapitulation....

(Fr. simphonie, symphonie; Ger. Sinfonie, Symphonie; It. sinfonia)

A term now normally taken to signify an extended work for orchestra. The symphony became the chief vehicle of orchestral music in the late 18th century, and from the time of Beethoven came to be regarded as its highest and most exalted form. The adjective ‘symphonic’ applied to a work implies that it is extended and thoroughly developed.

The word ‘symphony’ derives from the Greek syn (‘together’) and phōnē (‘sounding’), through the Latin Symphonia, a term used during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. It is essentially in this derivation that the term was used by Giovanni Gabrieli (Sacrae symphoniae, 1597), Heinrich Schütz (Symphoniae sacrae, 1629) and others for concerted motets, usually for voices and instruments. In the 17th century the term ‘symphony’ or (more commonly) ‘sinfonia’ was applied to introductory movements to operas, oratorios and cantatas (see Overture), to the instrumental introductions and ritornellos of arias and ensembles (...