Sonata in the context of "Baroque Music"

A trilogy is a set of three distinct works that are connected and can be seen either as a single work or as three individual works. They are commonly found in literature, film, and video games. Three-part works that are considered components of a larger work also exist, such as the triptych or the three-movement sonata, but they are not commonly referred to with the term "trilogy".

Most trilogies are works of fiction involving the same characters or setting, such as The Deptford Trilogy of novels by Robertson Davies, The Apu Trilogy of films by Satyajit Ray, and The Kingdom Trilogy of television miniseries from 1994 to 2022 by Lars von Trier. Other fiction trilogies are connected only by theme: for example, each film of Krzysztof Kieślowski's Three Colours trilogy explores one of the political ideals of the French Republic (liberty, equality, fraternity). Trilogies can also be connected in less obvious ways, such as The Nova Trilogy of novels by William S. Burroughs, each written using cut-up technique.

Literally 'song' in Italian, a canzone (Italian: [kanˈtsoːne]; pl.: canzoni; cognate with English to chant) is an Italian or Provençal song or ballad. It is also used to describe a type of lyric which resembles a madrigal. Sometimes a composition which is simple and songlike is designated as a canzone, especially if it is by a non-Italian; a good example is the aria "Voi che sapete" from Mozart's Marriage of Figaro.

The term canzone is also used interchangeably with canzona, an important Italian instrumental form of the late 16th and early 17th century. Often works designated as such are canzoni da sonar; these pieces are an important precursor to the sonata. Terminology was lax in the late Renaissance and early Baroque music periods, and what one composer might call "canzoni da sonar" might be termed "canzona" by another, or even "fantasia". In the work of some composers, such as Paolo Quagliati, the terms seem to have had no formal implication at all.

Arcangelo Corelli (/kəˈrɛli/, also UK: /kɒˈ-/, US: /kɔːˈ-, koʊˈ-/; Italian: [arˈkandʒelo koˈrɛlli]; 17 February 1653 – 8 January 1713) was an Italian composer, musician, and violinist of the middle Baroque era. His music was key in the development of the modern genres of sonata and concerto, in establishing the preeminence of the violin, and as the first coalescing of modern tonality and functional harmony.

He was trained in Bologna and Rome and spent most of his career there with the protection of wealthy patrons. Though his entire production is limited to just six published collections – five of which are trio sonatas or solo and one of concerti grossi — he achieved great fame and success throughout Europe, in the process crystallizing widely influential musical models.

In music, the opus number is the "work number" that is assigned to a musical composition, or to a set of compositions, to indicate the chronological order of the composer's publication of that work. Opus numbers are used to distinguish among compositions with similar titles; the word is abbreviated as "Op." for a single work, or "Opp." when referring to more than one work. Opus numbers do not necessarily indicate chronological order of composition. For example, posthumous publications of a composer's juvenilia are often numbered after other works, even though they may be some of the composer's first completed works.

To indicate the specific place of a given work within a music catalogue, the opus number is paired with a cardinal number; for example, Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 14 in C-sharp minor (1801, nicknamed Moonlight Sonata) is "Opus 27, No. 2", whose work-number identifies it as a companion piece to "Opus 27, No. 1" (Piano Sonata No. 13 in E-flat major, 1800–01), paired in same opus number, with both being subtitled Sonata quasi una Fantasia, the only two of the kind in all of Beethoven's 32 piano sonatas. Furthermore, the Piano Sonata, Op. 27 No. 2, in C-sharp minor is also catalogued as "Sonata No. 14", because it is the fourteenth sonata composed by Ludwig van Beethoven.

A sonatina (French: “sonatine”, German: “Sonatine") is a small sonata. As a musical term, sonatina has no single strict definition; it is rather a title applied by the composer to a piece that is in basic sonata form, but is shorter and lighter in character, or technically more elementary, than a typical sonata. The term has been in use at least since the late baroque; there is a one-page, one-movement harpsichord piece by Handel called "Sonatina". It is most often applied to solo keyboard works, but a number of composers have written sonatinas for violin and piano (see list under violin sonata), for example the Sonatina in G major for Violin and Piano by Antonín Dvořák, and occasionally for other instruments, for example the Clarinet Sonatina by Malcolm Arnold.