| allegro (Italian, "cheerful") | a fast tempo in music
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| andante (Italian, "going," i.e., a normal walking pace) | a moderate tempo in music
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| bacchante | a female attendant or devotee of Dionysus
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| brass | a family of wind instruments that usually includes the French horn, trumpet, trombone, and tuba
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| coda (Italian, "tail") | passage added to the closing section of a movement or musical composition in order to create the sense of a definite ending
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| concerto | see Glossary, chapter 23; the classical concerto, which made use of sonata form, usually featured one or more solo instruments and orchestra
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| fête galante (French, "elegant entertainment") | a festive diversion enjoyed by aristocrats, a favored subject in rococo art
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| fortissimo (Italian, "very loud") | a directive indicating that the music should be played very loud; its opposite is pianissimo ("very soft")
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| largo (Italian, "broad") | a very slow tempo; the slowest of the conventional tempos in music
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| opera buffa | a type of comic opera usually featuring stock characters
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| percussion | a group of instruments that are sounded by being struck or shaken, used especially for rhythm
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| satyr | a semi-bestial woodland creature symbolic of Dionysus
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| score | the musical notation for all of the instruments or voices in a particular composition; a composite from which the whole piece may be conducted or studied
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| sonata | a composition for an unaccompanied keyboard instrument or for another instrument with keyboard accompaniment; see also Glossary, chapter 23
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| sonata form (or sonata allegro form) | a structural form commonly used in the late eighteenth century for the first and fourth movements of symphonies and other instrumental compositions
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| string quartet | a composition for four stringed instruments, each of which plays its own part
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| strings | a family of instruments that usually includes the violin, viola, cello, and double bass (which are normally bowed); the harp, guitar, lute, and zither (which are normally plucked) can also be included, as can the viol, a bowed instrument common in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and a forerunner of the violin family
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| symphony | an independent instrumental composition for orchestra
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| woodwinds | a family of wind instruments, usually consisting of the flute, oboe, clarinet, and bassoon
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