Baroque music (Area of study 1)

Ritornello and episode are opposites, yet candidates repeatedly swap them. Use two clues. Texture: a ritornello is the full ensemble (tutti); an episode is the soloist(s)/concertino, thinner. Key: a ritornello stays near a stable key while an episode modulates. "A repeated bit" or "any solo passage" is too vague — name the feature and say why.

The most flagged AoS1 trap: reciting textbook Baroque features (polyphonic texture, terraced dynamics) that are not actually present in the extract earns no credit. Knowing the list is not enough — every feature you name must be one you can justify hearing here. Before writing a feature, ask where it happens in what you just heard; if you cannot point to it, cut it.

Baroque terraced dynamics change in sudden blocks — forte to piano — often as a group enters or drops out. Calling this "it gradually gets louder" is wrong: a smooth crescendo or diminuendo is graduated dynamics, typical of Classical and Romantic music, not Baroque. Name the sudden shift and, where you can, the moment it happens.

A sequence repeats a short pattern at a NEW pitch; repetition restates it at the same pitch, and imitation passes it to a different part. When you name a sequence you must also give its direction, and it must match what is heard — labelling a descending sequence "ascending", or giving a bare "sequence" with no direction, earns nothing. Do not guess the direction from habit.

These describe different things. Basso continuo is WHO plays the bass — a chordal instrument (harpsichord or organ) plus a bass instrument (cello or bassoon) realising a continuous bass. Walking bass is HOW the bass moves — in steady, evenly-spaced notes, often one per beat. A walking bass is often played by the continuo, but the terms are not interchangeable.

Do not assume a concerto always pits one soloist against the orchestra. A solo concerto does (Vivaldi's Spring, solo violin), but a concerto grosso sets a small soloist group — the concertino — against the ripieno (Handel's Op.6 No.5, two violins and cello). The number of soloists, one versus a small group, tells the genres apart.

Candidates can usually define concertino (the small soloist group) and ripieno (the larger group), but the real skill is applying them live: from the texture and number of parts, decide which is playing now and justify it (a thinner, two-part texture suggests the concertino). Definition and live application are separate skills — practise both.