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Musical Forms and GenresMany set forms have emerged as Western music has developed. New forms havecome into being as composers have experimented with preexisting forms.

Ballet: A staged theatrical dance work, typically one that tells a story andis accompanied by music. A ballet may be full-length or a short repertorypiece.Cantata: A large-scale vocal work in several movements, typically withsoloist singers, a chorus, and instrumental accompaniment. Althoughusually associated with religious functions, they also may be used insecular settings.Chamber music: Music for small instrumental ensembles.Concerto: A piece, typically with three or four contrasting movements, thatsets one or more solo instruments against a larger ensemble. EarlyBaroque concertos often took the form of the concerto grosso—a smallgroup of soloist instruments as soloists that exchanged music with a largerorchestral group. Later, the concerto evolved into a work with one soloistfeatured against a full orchestra.Dance forms: Forms from popular or folk dance used in music, often witha degree of nationalism present in the composerʼs intent. Examples ofdance forms include the gigue, ländler, mazurka, polonaise, sarabande,tango, tarantella, and waltz. In Europe, the most prominent of these wasthe waltz, an elegant and graceful dance in 3/4 time.Etude: A short solo piece (literally, French for “study”) designed toimprove the performerʼs technique by isolating specific difficulties andconcentrating on their mastery.Fantasia: A free form with loose definitions and unspecified structure.Many fantasias feature imaginative development and an improvisatorycharacter.March: An instrumental piece with strong rhythm in 2/2 or 2/4 time.Marches were developed for military needs and typically feature brass,wind, and percussion instruments.Mass: The standard liturgy of the Catholic church service set to music.Standard sections of the Mass include the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus,and Agnus Dei.Minuet and trio: The usual form for third movements of Classicalsymphonies. Often, the movement is of a light dance quality in triple meter,beginning with a section called a minuet, followed by a contrasting sectioncalled a trio, and then finished with a return to the minuet (anotherexample of ABA form). Romantic composers eventually rejected theminuet and trio in favor of the scherzo.Motet: A choral composition, usually sacred and without instrumentalaccompaniment.Nocturne: A short, lyrical, and often moody solo piece, typically for piano.Chopin wrote many notable nocturnes.Opera: A staged theatrical work in which the drama is conveyed primarilythrough singing. Operas feature solo singers and often a chorus andsubstantial orchestral accompaniment. Operas often are full-length works,one to five hours in duration, and usually are divided into acts. The text ofan opera is called a libretto. In many instances, the libretto is written byan artist other than the composer, although some composers have writtentheir own.Oratorio: A non-staged dramatic vocal work of a religious nature. Anoratorio is like a sacred cantata but typically larger in scope and length,and like an opera but not staged.Overture: A composition that serves as an introduction for another, longerwork, such as an opera or oratorio.Prelude: A short character piece, often for piano.Requiem: A death Mass set to music, following a set structure and oftenwritten to honor a specific individual.Rhapsody: A freeform instrumental work in one movement, often basedon folk or popular themes.Scherzo: A light, quick instrumental or vocal work.Sonata: A piece for one or more solo instruments, usually divided intothree or four (typically contrasting) movements. Sonatas may feature thesolo instrument alone or accompanied, typically with keyboard.Song cycle: A series of vocal pieces or lieder (plural of lied, the Germanword for song) for a soloist with piano accompaniment. The songs within acycle may be connected thematically and sometimes feature lyrics written

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Musical Forms and Genres Eras and Movements inWestern Music Notable Composers in WesternMusic

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by the same author or poet. Schubert is famous for his song cycles.Symphony: A work for orchestra, usually of substantial length and ofseveral contrasting movements —for example, a fast first movementfollowed by a slow second movement. As the symphony developed, itincreased in size and scope: Some Romantic symphonies approach twohours in length and require a large orchestra.Theme and variations: A piece that begins with an opening theme thatthen evolves and develops through multiple variations. Typically, eachvariation comments on the original theme or on the previous variation.Many composers have written variations on themes written by othercomposers, as in Brahmsʼs Variations on a Theme of Haydn.Tone poem: A freeform single-movement programmatic orchestral workthat recounts a story or depicts an image or setting. Liszt pioneered thetone poem.

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