Some well known songs consist of only one or two sections, for example "Jingle Bells" commonly contains verses ("Dashing through the snow...") and choruses ("Oh, jingle bells..."). It may contain "auxiliary members"[2] such as an introduction and/or outro, especially when accompanied by instruments (the piano starts and then: "Dashing...").
A section is, "a major structural unit perceived as the result of the coincidence of relatively large numbers of structural phenomena."[3]
An episode may also refer to a section. This term is particularly common in analysis of a fugue to designate sections during which a fugue subject is not heard (though it may still draw on motifs from the subject). After the opening exposition, fugues generally follow a plan of alternating thematic statements and episodes.[4]
A passage is a musical idea that may or may not be complete or independent. For example, fill, riff, and all sections.
Musical material is any musical idea, complete or not, independent or not, including motifs.
In classical music, a fugue is a contrapuntal, polyphonic compositional technique in two or more voices, built on a subject that is introduced at the beginning in imitation, which recurs frequently throughout the course of the composition. It is not to be confused with a fuguing tune, which is a style of song popularized by and mostly limited to early American music and West Gallery music. A fugue usually has three main sections: an exposition, a development, and a final entry that contains the return of the subject in the fugue's tonic key. Fugues can also have episodes, which are parts of the fugue where new material often based on the subject is heard; a stretto, when the fugue's subject overlaps itself in different voices, or a recapitulation. A popular compositional technique in the Baroque era, the fugue was fundamental in showing mastery of harmony and tonality as it presented counterpoint.
A melody, also tune, voice, or line, is a linear succession of musical tones that the listener perceives as a single entity. In its most literal sense, a melody is a combination of pitch and rhythm, while more figuratively, the term can include other musical elements such as tonal color. It is the foreground to the background accompaniment. A line or part need not be a foreground melody.
The sonata form is a musical structure generally consisting of three main sections: an exposition, a development, and a recapitulation. It has been used widely since the middle of the 18th century.
Dieterich Buxtehude was a Danish composer and organist of the Baroque period, whose works are typical of the North German organ school. As a composer who worked in various vocal and instrumental idioms, Buxtehude's style greatly influenced other composers, such as Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel. Buxtehude is considered one of the most important composers of the 17th century.
In music, a coda is a passage that brings a piece to an end. It may be as simple as a few measures, or as complex as an entire section.
In poetic and musical meter, and by analogy in publishing, an anacrusis is a brief introduction. In music, it is also known as a pickup beat, or fractional pick-up, i.e. a note or sequence of notes, a motif, which precedes the first downbeat in a bar in a musical phrase.
A refrain is the line or lines that are repeated in music or in poetry—the "chorus" of a song. Poetic fixed forms that feature refrains include the villanelle, the virelay, and the sestina.
In music, form refers to the structure of a musical composition or performance. In his book, Worlds of Music, Jeff Todd Titon suggests that a number of organizational elements may determine the formal structure of a piece of music, such as "the arrangement of musical units of rhythm, melody, and/or harmony that show repetition or variation, the arrangement of the instruments, or the way a symphonic piece is orchestrated", among other factors. It is, "the ways in which a composition is shaped to create a meaningful musical experience for the listener."
"Form refers to the largest shape of the composition. Form in music is the result of the interaction of the four structural elements described above [sound, harmony, melody, rhythm]."
In music, a motif or motive is a short musical idea, a salient recurring figure, musical fragment or succession of notes that has some special importance in or is characteristic of a composition. The motif is the smallest structural unit possessing thematic identity.
The Piano Sonata No. 29 in B♭ major, Op. 106 by Ludwig van Beethoven was composed in 1817 and published in 1818. The sonata is widely viewed as one of the most important works of the composer's third period, a pivotal work between his third and late period, and among the greatest piano sonatas of all time. It is also considered to be Beethoven's most technically challenging piano composition and one of the most demanding solo works in the classical piano repertoire. The first documented public performance was in 1836 by Franz Liszt in the Salle Erard in Paris to an enthusiastic review by Hector Berlioz.
In music, a subject is the material, usually a recognizable melody, upon which part or all of a composition is based. In forms other than the fugue, this may be known as the theme.
"Jingle Bells" is one of the most commonly sung Christmas songs in the world. It was written in 1850 by James Lord Pierpont at Simpson Tavern in Medford, Massachusetts. It was published under the title "The One Horse Open Sleigh" in September 1857. It has been claimed that it was originally written to be sung by a Sunday school choir for Thanksgiving, or as a drinking song. Although it has no original connection to Christmas, it became associated with winter and Christmas music in the 1860s and 1870s, and it was featured in a variety of parlor song and college anthologies in the 1880s. It was first recorded in 1889 on an Edison cylinder; this recording, believed to be the first Christmas record, is lost, but an 1898 recording - also from Edison Records - survives.
Song structure is the arrangement of a song, and is a part of the songwriting process. It is typically sectional, which uses repeating forms in songs. Common piece-level musical forms for vocal music include bar form, 32-bar form, verse–chorus form, ternary form, strophic form, and the 12-bar blues. Popular music songs traditionally use the same music for each verse or stanza of lyrics. Pop and traditional forms can be used even with songs that have structural differences in melodies. The most common format in modern popular music is introduction (intro), verse, pre-chorus, chorus, verse, pre-chorus, chorus, bridge, and chorus, with an optional outro. In rock music styles, notably heavy metal music, there is usually one or more guitar solos in the song, often found after the middle chorus part. In pop music, there may be a guitar solo, or a solo performed with another instrument such as a synthesizer or a saxophone.
The Grosse Fuge, Op. 133, is a single-movement composition for string quartet by Ludwig van Beethoven. An immense double fugue, it was universally condemned by contemporary music critics. A reviewer writing for the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung in 1826 described the fugue as "incomprehensible, like Chinese" and "a confusion of Babel". However, critical opinion of the work has risen steadily since the early 20th century and it is now considered among Beethoven's greatest achievements. Igor Stravinsky described it as "an absolutely contemporary piece of music that will be contemporary forever".
In music, especially Western popular music, a bridge is a contrasting section that prepares for the return of the original material section. In a piece in which the original material or melody is referred to as the "A" section, the bridge may be the third eight-bar phrase in a 32-bar form, or may be used more loosely in verse-chorus form, or, in a compound AABA form, used as a contrast to a full AABA section.
In musical form and analysis, exposition is the initial presentation of the thematic material of a musical composition, movement, or section. The use of the term generally implies that the material will be developed or varied.
Herr, gehe nicht ins Gericht mit deinem Knecht, BWV105 is a church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach. He composed it in Leipzig for the ninth Sunday after Trinity and first performed it on 25 July 1723. The musicologist Alfred Dürr has described the cantata as one of "the most sublime descriptions of the soul in baroque and Christian art".
Johann Sebastian Bach composed the church cantata Brich dem Hungrigen dein Brot, BWV 39, in Leipzig and first performed on 23 June 1726, the first Sunday after Trinity that year. Three years earlier, on the first Sunday after Trinity in 1723, Bach had taken office as Thomaskantor and started his first cycle of cantatas for Sundays and Feast Days in the liturgical year. On the first Sunday after Trinity in 1724, he began his second cycle, consisting of chorale cantatas. The cantata Brich dem Hungrigen dein Brot is regarded as part of Bach's third cantata cycle which was written sporadically between 1725 and 1727.
The Clavier-Übung III, sometimes referred to as the German Organ Mass, is a collection of compositions for organ by Johann Sebastian Bach, started in 1735–36 and published in 1739. It is considered Bach's most significant and extensive work for organ, containing some of his most musically complex and technically demanding compositions for that instrument.
Messiah, the English-language oratorio composed by George Frideric Handel in 1741, is structured in three parts. The wordbook was supplied by Charles Jennens. This article covers Part I and describes the relation of the musical setting to the text. Part I begins with the prophecy of the Messiah and his virgin birth by several prophets, namely Isaiah. His birth is still rendered in words by Isaiah, followed by the annunciation to the shepherds as the only scene from a Gospel in the oratorio, and reflections on the Messiah's deeds. Part II covers the Passion, death, resurrection, ascension, and the later spreading of the Gospel. Part III concentrates on Paul's teaching of the resurrection of the dead and Christ's glorification in heaven.
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