variation The process of reworking a given MELODY, song, THEME, or other musical idea, or the resulting varied FORM of it.
variations (variations form) FORM that presents an uninterrupted series of variants (each called a VARIATION) on a THEME; the theme may be a MELODY, a BASS line, a HARMONIC plan, or other musical subject.
vaudeville In late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century America, a type of variety show including musical numbers, but without the common theme of a REVUE.
verismo (Italian, "realism") Nineteenth-century operatic MOVEMENT that presents everyday people in familiar situations, often depicting sordid or brutal events.
verse (1) Line of poetry. (2) Stanza of a HYMN or STROPHIC song. (3) Sentence of a PSALM. (4) In GREGORIAN CHANT, a setting of a Psalm verse or similar text, such as the verses that are part of the INTROIT, GRADUAL, and ALLELUIA.
verse anthem ANTHEM in which passages for solo voice(s) with accompaniment alternate with passages for full CHOIR doubled by instruments.
verse-refrain form A FORM in vocal music in which two or more stanzas of poetry are each sung to the same music (the VERSE) and each is followed by the same REFRAIN.
versus (Latin, "verse") A type of Latin sacred song, either MONOPHONIC or POLYPHONIC, setting a rhymed, rhythmic poem.
vielle Medieval bowed string instrument, early form of the fiddle and predecessor of the VIOLIN and VIOL.
vihuela Spanish relative of the LUTE with a flat back and guitar-shaped body.
villancico (from Spanish villano, "peasant"; pronounced vee-yan-THEE-co) Type of POLYPHONIC song in Spanish, with several stanzas framed by a REFRAIN; originally secular, the FORM was later used for sacred works, especially associated with Christmas or other important holy days.
villanella Type of sixteenth-century Italian song, generally for three voices, in a rustic HOMOPHONIC style.
viol (viola da gamba) Bowed, fretted string instrument popular from the mid-fifteenth to the early eighteenth centuries, held between the legs.
violin Bowed, fretless string instrument tuned in fifths (g-d'-a'-e").
virelai French FORME FIXE in the pattern A bba A bba A bba A, in which a REFRAIN (A) alternates with stanzas with the musical FORM bba, the a using the same music as the refrain.
virginal (1) English name for HARPSICHORD, used for all types until the seventeenth century. (2) Type of HARPSICHORD that is small enough to place on a table, with a single keyboard and strings running at right angles to the keys rather than parallel with them as in larger harpsichords.
virtuoso Performer who specializes in one instrument and dazzles audiences with his or her technical prowess.
voice exchange In POLYPHONY, technique in which voices trade segments of music, so that the same combination of lines is heard twice or more, but with different voices singing each line.
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