seconda prattica

noun

se·​con·​da prat·​ti·​ca se-¦kȯn-dä-prä-¦tē-kä 

variants or seconda pratica

: the innovative musical practice of the late 16th and early 17th centuries in Europe especially as to monodic style and freedom in dissonance treatment justified by the expressive setting of texts

Convinced that they had made a great advance over their sixteenth-century predecessors, they called their art seconda prattica (as opposed to the prima prattica of sixteenth-century polyphony) …

—Christopher Small, Musicking, 1998

compare prima prattica

Word History

First Known Use

1932, in the meaning defined above

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