antiphony
The choir performs the antiphony with one side singing and the other responding.
Noun: 1. A musical or liturgical practice involving responsive singing or chanting: Specifically, antiphony refers to a style of performance where two groups (such as choirs, sections of a choir, or a leader and a congregation) sing or chant alternately in response to each other. 2. A piece of music or verse composed for such responsive performance: It can also refer to the specific verse, song, or passage that is designed to be sung in this call-and-response manner.
Antiphony is primarily used in religious, choral, and musical contexts to describe a traditional form of participatory music. - It describes the performance practice itself. - It can also name the composition intended for such performance.
- The choir's beautiful antiphony during the psalm created a powerful, echoing effect in the cathedral.
- The composer wrote a new antiphony for the Easter service, featuring the sopranos and altos answering the tenors and basses.
- The liturgical tradition makes extensive use of antiphony to engage the congregation.
- In a broader acoustic sense: While rare, "antiphony" can be used metaphorically to describe any sound that seems to echo or answer another, like an antiphony of bird calls at dawn.
- As a structural term in musicology: Scholars analyze the antiphony in a piece to understand its dialogic form.
- Antiphon (n): A short chant, often from a psalm, sung or recited responsively. (This is the specific text or musical piece used in antiphonal singing).
- Antiphonal (adj): Pertaining to or characterized by antiphony; sung or performed alternately by two groups.
- Antiphonally (adv): In an antiphonal manner.
- Responsory: A type of chant or musical response, often similar in practice to an antiphon.
- Call and response: A more general term for a musical pattern where a lead phrase is answered by a chorus.
- Antiphonal singing: The act of singing in an antiphonal style. This is the practice that produces antiphony.
- To sing antiphonally: The verbal phrase describing the performance method.
The choir performs the antiphony with one side singing and the other responding.
- a verse or song to be chanted or sung in response
- alternate (responsive) singing by a choir in two parts