Music Guide: Traditional

The anonymous folk ballad (or popular ballad), was composed to be sung. It was passed along orally from singer to singer, from generation to generation, and from one region to another.

The name given to the Christian chant of the Greek-speaking Orthodox Church.

Song of praise, devotion, or thanksgiving, especially of a religious character.

Name for the outstanding type of musical composition of the 13th cent. and for a different type that originated in the Renaissance.

Or plainchant, the unharmonized chant of the medieval Christian liturgies in Europe and the Middle East; usually synonymous with Gregorian chant, the liturgical music of the Roman Catholic Church.

French medieval lyric poem form of 10 or 13 lines with only two rhymes throughout, and with the opening words used twice as a refrain.

Poet-musician of Provence and southern France in the 12th-13th centuries. The troubadours originated a type of lyric poetry devoted to themes of courtly love and the idealization of women and to glorifying the chivalric ideals of the period.

Legendary magician who sold his soul to the devil. The historical Georg (or Johann) Faust appears to have been a wandering scholar and conjurer in Germany at the start of the 16th century.

Communal celebration, especially the religious celebration in Catholic countries that takes place just before Lent.

In religious devotion or service, the practice of certain set formulas that either mark a particular important event in a person's life - such as birth rituals or death rituals - or form a patterned daily, weekly, or annual cycle.

Adoration and service of God or gods. This service involves reverence, awe, and wonder, and may take many different forms.