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What's Your Bach I.Q.?
A GLOSSARY OF TERMS
BACH The father of all organ music. Although important composers preceded him, it was Bach who fused brillant compositional style, notably toccatas, fugues and chorale preludes, with astounding organ playing technique. BAROQUE Roughly from 1600 to the death of Bach in 1750, this period witnessed great achievements in organ building and composition, driven largely by the development of the Protestant church. BWV Abbreviation for Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis, the numbering system used to identify musical works by Johann Sebastian Bach, grouped thematically, not chronologically. The BWV numbers were assigned by Wolfgang Schmieder in 1950, and are universally used and accepted as the standard way of numbering the works of Bach. CONTINUO A regular feature of much instrumental music in the 17th and 18th centuries; played by a keyboardist reading chord symbols, which would then be filled out with other melodic and contrapuntal embellishments. CONTRAPUNTAL Musical texture employing counterpoint, a composition with two or more simultaneous melodic lines.	FUGUE Polyphonic form popular in the Baroque era in which one or more themes are developed by imitative counterpoint. GOTHIC Of or relating to an architectural style prevalent in western Europe from the 12th through the 15th century and characterized by pointed arches, rib vaulting, and a developing emphasis on verticality and the impression of height. ORATORIO Large-scale dramatic genre originating in the Baroque period, based on a text of religious or serious character. Performed by solo voices, chorus and orchestra, oratorio is similar to opera but without scenery, costumes or action. PIPE ORGAN Wind instrument whose sound is produced by means of pipes, arranged in sets, supplied with air from a bellows and controlled from a large, complex musical keyboard. PRELUDE Instrumental work intended to precede a larger work. TOCCATA An instrumental piece, often designed to display the technical proficiency of a performer and found particularly in keyboard music from the 15th century onwards. There are notable examples in the organ music of Johann Sebastian Bach, with some toccatas containing a series of movements.

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