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| aria | an elaborate solo song or duet, usually with instrumental accompaniment, performed as part of an opera or other dramatic musical composition |
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| cartouche | an oval tablet or medallion, usually containing an inscription or heraldic device |
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| chromatic scale | a series of twelve tones represented by the seven white and five black keys of the piano keyboard; see also Glossary, chapter 6, "scale" |
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| concertato (Italian, concerto = "opposing" or "competing") | an early baroque style in which voices or instruments of different rather than similar natures are used in an opposing or contrasting manner |
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| dynamics | the degree of loudness or softness in music |
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| foreshortening | a perspective device by which figures or objects appear to recede or project into space |
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| libretto (Italian, "little book") | the words of an opera or other textual musical composition |
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| overture | an instrumental introduction to a longer musical piece, such as an opera |
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| piazza (Italian) | a broad, open public space |
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| pizzicato (Italian) | the technique of plucking (with the fingers) rather than bowing a stringed instrument |
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| polychoral | music written for two or more choruses, performed both in turn and together |
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| recitative | a textual passage recited to sparse chordal accompaniment; a rhythmically free vocal style popular in seventeenth-century opera |
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| stucco | a light, pliable plaster made of gypsum, sand, water, and ground marble |
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| tonality | the use of a central note, called the tonic, around which all other tonal material of a composition is organized, and to which the music returns for a sense of rest and finality |