Charm of Music Final
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Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 art song | An art song is a vocal music composition, usually written for one voice with piano or orchestral accompaniment. By extension, the term "art song" is used to refer to the genre of such songs. Although categorizing a piece of vocal music as art song rather than as another type of song (such as a folk song, or an aria) can sometimes be difficult, most art songs are settings of lyric poetry not part of a staged work (such as an opera or a musical) intended for performance as part of a recital or other relatively formal social occasion Exceptions can be found to any of these rules. Although piano accompaniment is usual, the singer may be accompanied by instrumental forces of any number, including a full orchestra. A guitar, a harp or a string quartet are some of the more common accompaniments. Songs may be written to be performed in a group to form a narrative or dramatic whole, comprising a song cycle. A folk song can form the basis of an art song, but a composer must reinvent it with respect to one or more of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or sonority.[citation needed] Aaron Copland and Benjamin Britten are two composers famous for their arrangements of respective American and British folk songs. An art song can be in any language, although English songs, French chansons or mélodies, German Lieder, Spanish canciones, canciones líricas or canciones de concierto, and Italian canzoni are the most numerous. The Austrian composer Franz Schubert is considered the greatest art song composer of all. Despite a brief life, Schubert created an impressive output of some 600 lieder, including "Der Erlkönig", "Die Forelle", and "Gretchen am Spinnrade" as well as the two cycles, "Winterreise" and "Die schöne Müllerin". Even though classical vocalists generally embark on successful performing careers as soloists by seeking out opera engagements, a number of today's most prominent singers have built their careers primarily by singing art songs, including Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Thomas Quasthoff, Ian Bostridge, Matthias Goerne, Susan Graham, and Elly Ameling. |
| song cycle | A song cycle is a group of songs designed to be performed in a sequence as a single entity. As a rule, all of the songs are by the same composer and often use words from the same poet or lyricist. Unification can be achieved by a narrative or a persona common to the songs, or even, as in Schumann's second Liederkreis, by the atmospheric setting of the forest. The unity of the cycle is often underlined by musical means, famously in the return in the last song of the opening music in An die ferne Geliebte. The term originated to describe cycles of art songs (often known by the German term "Lieder") in classical music, and has been extended to apply to popular music.[citation needed] |
| incidental music | Incidental music is music in a play, television program, radio program, video game, film or some other form not primarily musical. The term is less frequently applied to film music, with such music being referred to instead as the "film score" or "soundtrack". Incidental music is often "background" music, and adds atmosphere to the action. It may take the form of something as simple as a low, ominous tone suggesting an impending startling event, or, to enhance the depiction of a story-advancing sequence. It may also include pieces such as overtures, or, music played during scene changes, or at the end of an act, immediately preceding an interlude, as was customary with several nineteenth-century plays. It may also be required in plays that have musicians performing on-stage. The use of incidental music dates back at least as far as Greek drama. A number of classical composers have written incidental music for various plays, with the more famous examples including Ludwig van Beethoven's Egmont music, Franz Schubert's Rosamunde music, Felix Mendelssohn's music for A Midsummer Night's Dream, Georges Bizet's music for L'Arlésienne, and Edvard Grieg's music for Henrik Ibsen's Peer Gynt. Parts of all of these are often performed in concerts outside the context of the play. Vocal incidental music, which is included in the classical scores mentioned above, should never be confused with the score of a Broadway or film musical, in which the songs often reveal character and further the storyline. Since the score of a Broadway or film musical is what actually makes the work a musical, it is far more essential to the work than mere incidental music, which nearly always amounts to little more than a background score; indeed, many plays have no incidental music whatsoever. Some early examples of what were later called incidental music are also described as semi-operas, quasi-operas, masques, vaudevilles and melodramas. The genre of incidental music does not extend to pieces designed for concert performance, such as overtures named after a play, for example, Beethoven's Coriolanus overture, or Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet fantasy-overture. Modern composers of incidental music include John White and Lorenzo Ferrero. |
| Nationalism | Musical nationalism refers to the use of musical ideas or motifs that are identified with a specific country, region, or ethnicity, such as folk tunes and melodies, rhythms, and harmonies inspired by them. Musical nationalism can also include the use of folklore as a basis for programmatic works including opera. Although some evidence of the trend can be seen as early as the late 18th century, nationalism as a musical phenomenon is generally understood to have emerged part way into the Romantic era, beginning around the mid-19th century and continuing well into the twentieth. It initially began as a reaction against the dominance of "German" music (that is, the European classical tradition) and later developed alongside the growing movements for national liberation and self-determination that characterized much of the 19th century. Countries or regions most commonly linked to musical nationalism include Russia, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Romania, Scandinavia, Spain, UK, Latin America and the United States. It should also be noted that musical nationalism is a term often used to describe non-European 20th century music as well, in particular that originating in Latin America. |
| grand opera | Grand Opera is a genre of 19th-century opera generally in four or five acts, characterised by large-scale casts and orchestras, and (in their original productions) lavish and spectacular design and stage effects, normally with plots based on or around dramatic historic events. The term is particularly applied to certain productions of the Paris Opéra from the late 1820s to around 1850, and has sometimes been used to designate the Paris Opéra itself, but is also used in a broader application in respect of contemporary or later works of similar monumental proportions from France, Germany, Italy and other European countries.[1] |
| Operetta | Operetta (Italian, plural: operette) is a genre of light opera, light in terms both of music and subject matter. It is also closely related, in English-language works, to forms of musical theatre. Operettas have similarities to both operas and musicals, and the boundaries between the genres are sometimes blurred. For instance, American composer Scott Joplin insisted that his serious but ragtime-influenced work Treemonisha (1911) was an opera, but some reference works characterize it as an operetta. Likewise, some of Leonard Bernstein's works he designated as operas (e.g., Trouble in Tahiti) are categorized as operettas, and his operetta Candide is sometimes considered a musical. [edit]Operettas and operas Operettas are usually shorter than operas, and are usually of a light and amusing character. Operettas are often considered less "serious" than operas. Topical satire is a feature common to many operettas. However, satire is used in some "serious" operas as well: Formerly, in countries such as France, operas expressed politics in code — for example, the circumstances of the title character in the opera Robert le diable referred, at its first performance, to the French king's parental conflict and its resolution. Normally some of the libretto of an operetta is spoken rather than sung. Instead of moving from one musical number to another, the musical segments — e.g. aria, recitative, chorus — are interspersed with periods of dialogue. There is usually no musical accompaniment to the dialogue, although sometimes some musical themes are played quietly under it. Short passages of recitative are, however, sometimes used in operetta, especially as an introduction to a song. [edit]Operettas and musicals The operetta is a precursor of the modern musical theatre or "musical".[9] In the early decades of the 20th century, the operetta continued to exist alongside the newer musical, with each influencing the other. The main difference between the two genres is that most operettas can be described as light operas with acting, whereas most musicals are plays with singing. This can be seen in the performers chosen in the two forms. An operetta's cast will normally be classically-trained opera singers. A musical uses actors who sing, but usually not in an operatic style. These distinctions can be blurred: W.S. Gilbert, for example, said that he preferred to use actors who could sing for his productions, while Ezio Pinza, and other opera singers have appeared on Broadway. There are features of operetta in Kern and Hammerstein's Show Boat (1927), among others.[10] The characters in a musical may be more complex than those in an operetta, given the generally larger amount of dialogue. For example, the characters in Lerner and Loewe's musical My Fair Lady, which is based on George Bernard Shaw's 1914 play Pygmalion, are essentially unchanged from those in Shaw's stage work, because the musical version is quite faithful to the original, even to the point of retaining most of Shaw's dialogue. |
| Leitmotif | A leitmotif (sometimes written leit-motif) (pronounced /ˌlaɪtmoʊˈtiːf/) (from the German Leitmotiv, lit. "leading motif", or perhaps more accurately "guiding motif") is a musical term (though occasionally used in theatre or literature), referring to a recurring theme, associated with a particular person, place, or idea.[1] It is closely related to the musical idea of idée fixe. [2] In particular such a theme should be 'clearly identified so as to retain its identity if modified on subsequent appearances' whether such modification be in terms of rhythm, harmony, orchestration or accompaniment. It may also be 'combined with other leitmotifs to suggest a new dramatic condition' or development.[3] The term is notably associated with the operas of Richard Wagner, although he was not the originator of the concept.[4] Although usually a short melody, it can also be a chord progression or even a simple rhythm. Leitmotifs can help to bind a work together into a coherent whole, and also enable the composer to relate a story without the use of words, or to add an extra level to an already present story. By extension, the word has also been used to mean any sort of recurring theme, (whether or not subject to developmental transformation) in music, literature, or (metaphorically) the life of a fictional character or a real person. It is sometimes also used in discussion of other musical genres, such as instrumental pieces, cinema, and video game music, sometimes interchangeably with the more general category of 'theme'. Such usages typically obscure the crucial aspect of a leitmotif, as opposed to the plain musical motif or theme - that it is transformable and recurs in different guises throughout the piece in which it occurs. |
| ballet russe | The Ballets Russes (French for The Russian Ballets) was an itinerant ballet company which performed under the directorship of Sergei Diaghilev between 1909 and 1929. They performed in many countries, including England, the U.S.A., and Spain. Many of the company's dancers originated from the Imperial Ballet of Saint Petersburg. Younger dancers were trained in Paris, within the community of exiles after the Russian Revolution of 1917. The company featured and premiered now-famous (and sometimes notorious) works by the great choreographers Marius Petipa and Mikhail Fokine, as well as new works by Bronislava Nijinska, Léonide Massine, Vaslav Nijinsky, and a young George Balanchine at the start of his career. |
| expressionism | Expressionism as a musical genre is difficult to exactly define. It is, however, one of the most important movements of 20th Century music. The three central figures of musical expressionism are Arnold Schoenberg and his pupils, Anton Webern and Alban Berg, the so-called Second Viennese School. Musical expressionism is defined in a narrow sense as embracing most of Schoenberg's post-tonal but pre-twelve-tone music, which is to say that of his "free atonal" period, roughly from 1908 to 1921. More broadly, other music from the same period with shared characteristics is also included (Fanning 2001). It can therefore be said to begin with Schoenberg's Second String Quartet (written 1907-08) in which each of the four movements gets progressively less tonal. The third movement is arguably atonal and the introduction to the finale is very chromatic, arguably has no tonal centre, and features a soprano singing "Ich fühle Luft von anderem Planeten" ("I feel the air of another planet"), taken from a poem by Stefan George. This may be representative of Schoenberg entering the 'new world' of atonality. In 1909, Schoenberg composed the one act 'monodrama' Erwartung (Expectation). This is a thirty minute, highly expressionist work in which atonal music accompanies a musical drama centered around a nameless woman. Having stumbled through a disturbing forest, trying to find her lover, she reaches open countryside. She stumbles across the corpse of her lover near the house of another woman, and from that point on the drama is purely psychological: the woman denies what she sees and then worries that it was she who killed him. The plot is entirely played out from the subjective point of view of the woman, and her emotional distress is reflected in the music. The plot to Erwartung has some grounding in reality in the true story of the lunatic Anna O. (real name Bertha Pappenheim). Her sister, Marie, is the author of the libretto. In 1909, Schoenberg completed the Five Orchestral Pieces. These were constructed freely, based upon the subconscious will, unmediated by the conscious, anticipating the main shared ideal of the composer's relationship with the painter Wassily Kandinsky. As such, the works attempt to avoid a recognisable form, although the extent to which they achieve this is debatable. Between 1908-1913, Schoenberg was also working on a musical drama, Die Glückliche Hand. The music is again atonal. The plot begins with an unnamed man, cowered in the centre of the stage with a beast upon his back. The man's wife has left him for another man; he is in anguish. She attempts to return to him, but in his pain he does not see her. Then, to prove himself, the man goes to a forge, and in a strangely Wagnerian scene (although not musically), forges a masterpiece, even with the other blacksmiths showing aggression towards him. The woman returns, and the man implores her to stay with him, but she kicks a rock upon him, and the final image of the act is of the man once again cowered with the beast upon his back. This plot is highly symbolic, written as it was by Schoenberg himself, at around the time when his wife had left him for a short while for the painter Richard Gerstl. Although she had returned by the time Schoenberg began the work, their relationship was far from easy. The central forging scene is seen as representative of Schoenberg's disappointment at the negative popular reaction to his works. His desire was to create a masterpiece, as the protagonist does. Once again, Schoenberg is expressing his real life difficulties. At around 1911, the painter Wassily Kandinsky wrote a letter to Schoenberg, which initiated a long lasting friendship and working relationship. The two artists shared a similar viewpoint, that art should express the subconscious (the 'inner necessity') unfettered by the conscious. Kandinsky's Concerning The Spiritual In Art (1914) expounds this view. The two exchanged their own paintings with each other, and Schoenberg contributed articles to Kandinsky's publication Der Blaue Reiter. This inter-disciplinary relationship is perhaps the most important relationship in musical expressionism, other than that between the members of the Second Viennese School. The inter-disciplinary nature of expressionism found an outlet in Schoenberg's paintings, encouraged by Kandinsky. An example is the self portrait Red Gaze (see [1]), in which the red eyes are the window to Schoenberg's subconscious. Webern's music was close in style to Schoenberg's expressionism for only a short while, c. 1909-13. His Five Pieces for Orchestra, Op. 10 (1911-13) are an example of his expressionist output, and might be compared to Schoenberg's Five Orchestral Pieces, Op. 16, composed 1909. Berg's contribution includes his Op. 1 Piano Sonata, and the Four Songs of Op. 2. His major contribution to the genre, however, is the opera Wozzeck, composed between 1914-25, a very late addition to the genre. The opera is highly expressionist in subject material in that it expresses mental anguish and suffering and is not objective, presented, as it is, largely from Wozzeck's point of view, but it presents this expressionism within a cleverly constructed form. The opera is divided into three acts, the first of which serves as an exposition of characters. The second develops the plot, while the third is a series of musical variations (upon a rhythm, or a key for example). Berg unashamedly uses sonata form in one scene in the second act, describing himself how the first subject represents Marie (Wozzeck's mistress), while the second subject coincides with the entry of Wozzeck himself. This heightens the immediacy and intelligibility of the plot, but is somewhat contradictory with the ideals of Schoenberg's expressionism, which seeks to express musically the subconscious unmediated by the conscious. While Wozzeck helped to popularise the genre, it did so at the expense of the ideals. Indeed, by the time Wozzeck was performed in 1925, Schoenberg had introduced his twelve-tone technique to his pupils, representing the end of his expressionist period (in 1923) and roughly the beginning of Serialism. As such, musical expressionism can be said to be chiefly centred upon the ideas and work of Arnold Schoenberg (1907-1923), although Berg and Webern did also contribute significantly to the genre. It was a significant, if not altogether popular style, and some of its influences can be seen in Béla Bartók's opera Bluebeard's Castle (1911), with its emphasis on psychological drama represented in music. |
| Tone Row | In music, a tone row or note row (German: Reihe or Tonreihe), also series and set,[2] refers to a non-repetitive ordering of a set of pitch-classes, typically of the twelve notes in musical set theory of the chromatic scale, though both larger and smaller sets are sometimes found. |
| Ragtime | Ragtime (alternately spelled rag-time)[1] is an original musical genre which enjoyed its peak popularity between 1897 and 1918.[2] Its main characteristic trait is its syncopated, or "ragged," rhythm.[2] It began as dance music in the red-light districts of American cities such as St. Louis and New Orleans years before being published as popular sheet music for piano.[3][4] It was a modification of the march made popular by John Philip Sousa, with additional polyrhythms coming from African music.[5] The ragtime composer Scott Joplin became famous through the publication in 1899 of the "Maple Leaf Rag" and a string of ragtime hits that followed, although he was later forgotten by all but a small, dedicated community of ragtime aficionados until the major ragtime revival in the early 1970s.[6][7] For at least 12 years after its publication, the "Maple Leaf Rag" heavily influenced subsequent ragtime composers with its melody lines, harmonic progressions or metric patterns.[8] Ragtime fell out of favor as jazz claimed the public's imagination after 1917, but there have been numerous revivals since as the music has been re-discovered. First in the early 1940s many jazz bands began to include ragtime in their repertoire and put out ragtime recordings on 78 RPM records. A more significant revival occurred in the 1950s as a wider variety of ragtime styles of the past were made available on records, and new rags were composed, published, and recorded. In 1971 Joshua Rifkin brought out a compilation of Scott Joplin's work which was nominated for a Grammy Award,[9] and in 1973, the motion picture The Sting brought ragtime to a wide audience with its soundtrack of Joplin tunes. Subsequently the film's rendering of Joplin's 1902 rag "The Entertainer" was a top 40 hit in 1974. Ragtime (with Joplin's work in the forefront) has been cited as an American equivalent of minuets by Mozart, mazurkas by Chopin, or Waltzes by Brahms.[10] Ragtime influenced Classical composers including Claude Debussy and Igor Stravinsky.[11] |
| swing | Swing music, also known as swing jazz or simply swing, is a form of jazz music that developed in the early 1930s and became a distinctive style by 1935 in the United States. Swing uses a strong rhythm section of double bass and drums as the anchor for a lead section of brass instruments such as trumpets and trombones, woodwinds including saxophones and clarinets, and sometimes stringed instruments such as violin and guitar, medium to fast tempos, and a "lilting" swing time rhythm. Swing bands usually featured soloists who would improvise on the melody over the arrangement. The danceable swing style of bandleaders such as Benny Goodman and Count Basie was the dominant form of American popular music from 1935 to 1945. The verb "to swing" is also used as a term of praise for playing that has a strong rhythmic "groove" or drive. |
| Fusion | A fusion genre is a music genre which combines two or more genres. For example, rock and roll originally developed as a fusion of blues, gospel and country music. The main characteristics of fusion genres are variations in tempo, rhythm and sometimes the use of long musical "journeys" that can be divided into smaller parts, each with their own dynamics, style and tempo. "Fusion" used alone often refers to jazz fusion. Artists who work in fusion genres are often difficult to categorize within non-fusion styles. Most styles of fusion music are influenced by various musical genre. There are many reasons for this, the main reason being that most genres evolved out of other genres. When the new genre finally identifies itself as separate, there is often a large gray area in which musicians are left. These artists generally consider themselves part of both genres. A musician that plays music that is dominantly blues, influenced by rock, is often labelled a blues-rock musician. An example of a blues-rock group would be Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble. Vaughan, a Texas blues guitarist used rock and blues together. Ray Charles, who recorded gospel and jazz influenced blues, creating what would become known as soul, also recorded country music with his trademark sound. By fusing the two genres, Charles pioneered the style of country soul, most famously on his landmark album Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music, and influenced similar efforts by Candi Staton and Solomon Burke. A very strong example of fusion music can be seen in the Middle Eastern influenced Franco-Arabic music as personified by Aldo. In Franco-Arabic music we see a blend of Arabic music styles with many western styles from rock to pop and Euro styles to folk music. Another interesting example of fusion music can be found in the blend of traditional Chinese instruments (pipa and ruan) and Western and jazz compositions blended by Jie Ma. Fusion music, as a genre, changed everything. Now there were not any one set of rules that an artist had to follow in order to achieve a would be "hit" song. A perfect example of this would be Herbie Hancock Herbie Hancock - fusing jazz, funk, rock, and smooth tones to accomplish a new, rounder, more cultured sound for his band. See Head Hunters or Thrust. These sounds generally consisted of a standard rhythm section: Bass, drums, and guitar (sometimes) and then layered keyboard tracks of rhodes, strings, clavinet, organ and synthesizers. Atop all of this, sampling had been introduced as well as new technologies such as the "talk box, or vocator. |
| New Virtuosity | **** If i know |
| Musique Concrete | Musique concrète (French for "concrete music" or "real music") is a form of electroacoustic music that utilises acousmatic sound as a compositional resource. The compositional material is not restricted to the inclusion of sounds derived from musical instruments or voices, nor to elements traditionally thought of as "musical" (melody, harmony, rhythm, metre and so on). The theoretical underpinnings of the aesthetic were developed by Pierre Schaeffer, beginning in the late 1940s. |
| Lied | (lēt) n., pl., lie·der (lē'dər). A German art song for solo voice and piano. |
| Character Piece | Character piece is a literal translation of the German Charakterstück, a term, not very precisely defined, used for a broad range of 19th century piano music based on a single idea or program. The term is less frequently applied to music for another instrument (never voice) with piano accompaniment, but very seldom for larger ensembles. Character pieces are a staple of Romantic music, and are essential to that movement's interest in the evocation of particular moods or moments. What distinguishes character pieces is the specificity of the idea they invoke. Many character pieces are composed in ternary form, but that form is not universal in the genre. A common feature is a title expressive of the character intended, such as Stephen Heller's Voyage autour de ma chambre ("Voyage around my room"), an early example of the genre. Other character pieces have titles suggesting brevity and singularity of concept, such as Beethoven's Bagatelles or Debussy's Préludes, or casual construction: the title Impromptu is common. Many 19th century nocturnes and intermezzi are character pieces as well, including those of Chopin and Brahms, respectively. Large sets of many individual character pieces, intended to be played as a single piece of music, were not uncommon; Schumann's many works of this form (including Kreisleriana and Carnaval) are the best known examples. In the late 19th and twentieth centuries, as piano music became ambitious and larger in scale, the scope of what a character piece could reference grew as well. The New Grove cites Smetana's "Festival of the Gypsy Peasants" and Sibelius's "The Oarsman" as examples of this later trend. |
| Program Symphony | Program music or programme music is a type of art music that attempts to musically render an extra-musical narrative. The narrative itself might be offered to the audience in the form of program notes, inviting imaginative correlations with the music. The paradigm example is Hector Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique, which relates a drug-induced series of morbid fantasies concerning the unrequited love of a sensitive poet involving murder, execution, and the torments of Hell. The genre culminates in the symphonic works of Richard Strauss that include narrations of the adventures of Don Quijote, Till Eulenspiegel, the composer's domestic life, and an interpretation of Nietzsche's philosophy of the Superman. Following Strauss, the genre declined and new works with explicitly narrative content are rare. Nevertheless the genre continues to exert an influence on film music, especially where this draws upon the techniques of late romantic music. Absolute music, in contrast, is intended to be appreciated without any particular reference to the outside world. The term is almost exclusively applied to works in the European classical music tradition, particularly those from the Romantic music period of the 19th century, during which the concept was popular, but pieces which fit the description have long been a part of music. The term is usually reserved for purely instrumental works (pieces without singers and lyrics), and not used, for example for Opera or Lieder. |
| Exoticism | Exoticism (from 'exotic') is a trend in art and design, influenced by some ethnic groups or civilizations since the late 19th-century. In music exoticism is a genre in which the rhythms, melodies, or instrumentation are designed to evoke the atmosphere of far-off lands or ancient times (e.g. Ravel's Daphnis et Chloé and Tzigane for Violin and Orchestra, Debussy's Syrinx for Flute Solo or Rimsky-Korsakov's Capriccio espagnol). Like orientalist subjects in 19th century painting, exoticism in the decorative arts and interior decoration was associated with fantasies of opulence. Exoticism, by definition, is "the charm of the unfamiliar." Scholar Alden Jones defines exoticism in art and literature as the representation of one culture for consumption by another.[1] An archetypical exoticist is the artist and writer Paul Gauguin, whose visual representations of Tahitian people and landscapes were targeted at a French audience. While exoticism is closely linked to Orientalism, it is not a movement necessarily associated with a particular time period or culture. Exoticism may take the form of primitivism, ethnocentrism, or humanism. |
| Rescue Opera | A rescue opera was a popular subject of opera in the nineteenth century. Generally, rescue operas dealt with the rescue of a main character from some sort of danger. The genre became popular in France at around the time of the French Revolution, and many such operas dealt with the rescue of a political prisoner. The most famous example of a rescue opera is Ludwig van Beethoven's Fidelio. Examples also exist by Luigi Cherubini (Les deux journées), Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Die Entführung aus dem Serail), Ferdinando Paer (Leonora) and Bedřich Smetana (Dalibor). |
| Bel Canto | Bel canto (Bel-Canto) (Italian, "beautiful singing"), along with a number of similar constructions ("bellezze del canto"/"bell'arte del canto"), is an Italian opera term. It has several different meanings and is subject to a wide array of interpretations.[1] The earliest use of the term "bel canto" occurred in late 17th-century Italy, when it was applied to a sophisticated model of singing that was evolving there among practitioners of operatic and sacred music. The term did not become fairly widely used, however, until the middle of the next century, which was the heyday of opera seria, the static but technically challenging da capo aria, and the now-extinct castrato voice. In the mid-19th century, bel canto gained a more specific meaning when it was employed to distinguish what by now had developed into the traditional Italian vocal model from more forceful, less ingratiating styles of singing. These newer styles of singing had arisen as a result of 19th-century operas growing increasingly dramatic, pitting performers against louder and denser orchestral accompaniments in bigger theatres. Nonetheless, "neither musical nor general dictionaries saw fit to attempt [a] definition [of bel canto] until after 1900". The term remains vague and ambiguous in the 21st century and is often used nostalgically to evoke a lost singing tradition.[2] |
| Sprechgesang | Sprechgesang and Sprechstimme (German for spoken-song and spoken-voice) are musical terms used to refer to an expressionist vocal technique between singing and speaking. Though sometimes used interchangeably, sprechgesang is a term directly related to the operatic recitative manner of singing (in which pitches are sung, but the articulation is rapid and loose like speech), whereas sprechstimme is closer to speech itself (because it does not emphasise any particular pitches).[1] |
| Verismo | Verismo (meaning "realism", from Italian vero, meaning "true") was an Italian literary movement which peaked between approximately 1875 and the early 1900s. Giovanni Verga and Luigi Capuana were its main exponents and the authors of a verismo manifesto. Capuana published the novel Giacinta, generally regarded as the "manifesto" of Italian verismo. [1] Unlike French naturalism, which was based on positivistic ideals, Verga and Capuana rejected claims of the scientific nature and social usefulness of the movement. Verismo is also employed by musicologists to refer to a post-Romantic operatic tradition associated with Italian composers such as Pietro Mascagni, Ruggiero Leoncavallo, Umberto Giordano and Giacomo Puccini. They sought to bring the naturalism of influential late 19th-century writers such as Emile Zola and Henrik Ibsen into opera. |
| Primitivism | prim·i·tiv·ism [prim-i-ti-viz-uhm] Show IPA -noun 1. a recurrent theory or belief, as in philosophy or art, that the qualities of primitive or chronologically early cultures are superior to those of contemporary civilization. 2. the state of being primitive: the primitivism of the Stone Age peoples. 3. the qualities or style characterizing primitive art. |
| Intellectualism | ... |
| blues | Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the Deep South of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads.[1] The blues form, ubiquitous in jazz, rhythm and blues, and rock and roll, is characterized by specific chord progressions, of which the twelve-bar blues chord progression is the most common. The blue notes that, for expressive purposes are sung or played flattened or gradually bent (minor 3rd to major 3rd) in relation to the pitch of the major scale, are also an important part of the sound. The blues genre is based on the blues form but possesses other characteristics such as specific lyrics, bass lines and instruments. Blues can be subdivided into several subgenres ranging from country to urban blues that were more or less popular during different periods of the 20th century. Best known are the Delta, Piedmont, Jump and Chicago blues styles. World War II marked the transition from acoustic to electric blues and the progressive opening of blues music to a wider audience. In the 1960s and 1970s, a hybrid form called blues-rock evolved. The term "the blues" refers to the "blue devils", meaning melancholy and sadness; an early use of the term in this sense is found in George Colman's one-act farce Blue Devils (1798).[2] Though the use of the phrase in African-American music may be older, it has been attested to since 1912, when Hart Wand's "Dallas Blues" became the first copyrighted blues composition.[3][4] In lyrics the phrase is often used to describe a depressed mood.[5] |
| Cool | HOW IS GOOGLE SUPPOSED TO HELP ME WITH THIS. |
| Acid jazz | Acid jazz is a musical genre that combines elements of jazz, funk and hip-hop[1], particularly looped beats. It developed in the UK over the 1980s and 1990s and could be seen as tacking the sound of jazz-funk onto electronic dance: jazz-funk musicians such as Roy Ayers, Donald Byrd and Grant Green are often credited as forerunners of acid jazz.[2] Acid jazz has also experienced minor influences from soul, house, acid rock[citation needed], and disco. While acid jazz often contains various types of electronic composition (sometimes including sampling or live DJ cutting and scratching), it is just as likely to be played live by musicians, who often showcase jazz interpretation as part of their performance. The compositions of groups such as Jamiroquai, The Brand New Heavies, Los Amigos Invisibles and Incognito often feature chord structures usually associated with jazz music. The acid jazz "movement" is also seen as a revival of jazz-funk or jazz fusion or soul jazz by leading DJs such as Norman Jay or Gilles Peterson or Patrick Forge, also known as "rare groove crate diggers" or "Cataroos". |
| New Romanticism | New Romanticism was a youth fashion and music movement in the United Kingdom that began in the late 1970s in England and during the early 1980s. Originally often associated with the New Wave music scene that had become popular at that time, it has seen several revivals since then, and continues to influence popular culture. Developing in London nightclubs such as Billy's and The Blitz, the movement was associated with bands such as Visage, Culture Club, Adam and the Ants, Ultravox, Duran Duran, Japan and Spandau Ballet.[1] Other artists, such as Brian Eno and Roxy Music, had significant influence on the movement.[1] As a whole, the movement was largely a response to the ethos and style of early punk rock, which had been enjoying widespread popularity around this time. Although punk initially had great appeal as a vehicle of self-expression and entertainment, by the final days of the 1970s, some had felt that it had lost its original excitement and degenerated into an overly political and bland movement instead. The New Romantic image ultimately sought to contrast with the austerity of punk as a whole by celebrating artifice in music and culture as opposed to rejecting it. |
| Tintinnabulation | noun the ringing or sound of bells. Origin: |
| strophic | Strophic form (verse-repeating or chorus form) is the simplest and most durable of musical forms, elaborating a piece of music by repetition of a single formal section. This may be analyzed as "A A A...". This additive method is the musical analogue of repeated stanzas in poetry or lyrics and, in fact, where the text repeats the same rhyme scheme from one stanza to the next the song's structure also often uses either the same or very similar material from one stanza to the next. A modified strophic form varies the pattern in some stanzas (A A' A"...) somewhat like a rudimentary Theme and variations. Contrasting verse-chorus form is a binary form that alternates between two sections of music (ABAB) although this may too be interpreted as constituting a larger strophic verse-refrain form. Many folk and popular songs are strophic in form, including the twelve bar blues, ballads, hymns and chants. Many classical songs are also in strophic form, from the 17th century French air de cour to 19th century German lieder. |
| tempo rubato | Tempo rubato (Italian stolen time) is a musical term referring to expressive and rhythmic freedom by a slight speeding up and then slowing down of the tempo of a piece at the discretion of the soloist or the conductor. Rubato is an expressive shaping of music that is a part of phrasing[1]. [...] this loose term "rubato." It describes the practice of playing with expressive and rhythmic freedom. Specifically "tempo rubato" [...] some time is "robbed" from one passage or group of notes and given to another.[2] One can distinguish two types of rubato: in one the tempo of the melody is flexible, while the accompaniment was kept in typical regular pulse (yet not rigidly in mechanical fashion; but adjusting to the melody as necessary—see below). Another type affects melody and accompaniment. While it is often associated with music of the Romantic Period, classical performers frequently use rubato for emotional expressiveness in all kinds of works. Rubato, even when not notated, is often used liberally by musicians; e.g. singers frequently use it intuitively to let the tempo of the melody expressively shift slightly and freely above that of the accompaniment. This intuitive shifting leads to rubato's main effect: to make music sound expressive and natural. Frédéric Chopin is often mentioned in context with rubato (see Chopin and Rubato). While rubato is often taken to loosely mean playing with expressive and rhythmic freedom; it traditionally was used specifically in the context of expression by speeding up and then slowing down. In the past expressive and free playing (beyond only rubato) was often associated with the terms "ad libitum": Tempo rubato (or a tempo rubato) means literally in robbed time, i.e., duration taken from one measure or beat and given to another, but in modern practice the term is quite generally applied to any irregularity of rhythm or tempo not definitely indicated in the score. The terms ad libitum, (ad lib.), a piacere, and a capriccio, also indicate a modification of the tempo at the will of the performer. Ad libitum means at liberty; a piacere, at pleasure; and a capriccio, at the caprice (of the performer).[3] —Music notation and terminology (1921) by Karl Wilson Gehrkens A tempo rubato. Lit. "in robbed time", i. e. time in which, while every bar is of its proper time value, one portion of it may be played faster or slower at the expense of the remaining portion, so that, if the first half be somewhat slackened, the second half is somewhat quickened, and vice versa. With indifferent performers, this indication is too often confounded with some expression signifying ad libitum. [4] —A dictionary of foreign musical terms and handbook of orchestral instruments (1907) by Tom S. Wotton The opinion given by Tom S. Wotton, that "every bar has its proper time value" may be regarded as an inaccurate description: Karl Wilson Gehrkens mentions "duration taken from one measure [...] and given to another" which implies bars of differing duration. Rubato relates to phrasing; and since phrases often go over multiple bars; it is often impossible (and also not desired) for each bar to be identically long. |
| symphonic poem | A symphonic poem or tone poem is a piece of orchestral music in a single continuous section (a movement) in which the content of a poem, a story or novel, a painting, a landscape or another (non-musical) source is illustrated or evoked. The term was first applied by Hungarian composer Franz Liszt to his 13 works in this vein. A symphonic poem is different from a concert overture (a form from which it may be regarded as an evolution), which may also be illustrative in nature, in that it aims at an enlarged musical and emotional range and scope. As musicologist Hugh Macdonald wrote of Liszt's works in this genre, the intent was "to display the traditional logic of symphonic thought;"[1] that is, to display a comparable complexity in the interplay of musical themes and tonal 'landscape' to those of the Romantic symphony. In its aesthetic objectives, the symphonic poem is in some ways related to opera; whilst it does not use a sung text, it seeks like opera a union of music and drama.[2][3] While many symphonic poems may compare in size and scale to symphonic movements (or even reach the length of an entire symphony), they are unlike traditional classical symphonic movements, in that their music is intended to inspire listeners to imagine or consider scenes, images, specific ideas or moods, and not to focus on following traditional patterns of musical form (e.g. sonata form). This intention to inspire listeners was a direct consequence of Romanticism which encouraged literary, pictorial and dramatic associations in music. Musical works which attempt to inspire listeners in this way are often referred to as program music, while music which has no such associations may be called absolute music. Some piano and chamber works, such as Arnold Schoenberg's string sextet Verklärte Nacht, have similarities with symphonic poems in their overall intent and effect. However, the term symphonic poem is generally accepted to refer to orchestral works. A symphonic poem may stand on its own, or it can be part of a series combined into a symphonic suite . For example, The Swan of Tuonela (1895) is a tone poem from Jean Sibelius's Lemminkäinen Suite. A symphonic poem can also be part of a cycle of interrelated works, such as Vltava (The Moldau) as part of the six-work cycle Má vlast by Bedřich Smetana. Also, while the terms "symphonic poem" and "tone poem" have often been used interchangeably, some composers such as Richard Strauss and Jean Sibelius have preferred the latter term for pieces which were less symphonic in design and in which there is no special emphasis on thematic or tonal contrast.[4] According to Macdonald, the symphonic poem met three 19th century aesthetic goals: it related music to outside sources; it often combined or compressed multiple movements into a single principal section; and it elevated instrumental program music to an aesthetic level which could be regarded as equivalent to, or higher than opera.[3] The symphonic poem remained popular from the 1840s until the 1920s, when the genre suffered a severe decline in popularity. |
| Requiem | A Requiem or Requiem Mass, also known as Mass for the dead (Latin: Missa pro defunctis) or Mass of the dead (Latin: Missa defunctorum), is Mass celebrated for the repose of the soul or souls of one or more deceased persons, using a particular formula of the Roman Missal. It is frequently, but not necessarily, celebrated in the context of a funeral. Musical settings of the propers of the Requiem Mass are also called Requiems, and the term has subsequently been applied to other musical compositions associated with death and mourning, even when they lack religious or liturgical relevance. The term is also used for similar ceremonies outside the Catholic Church, especially in the Anglo-Catholic branch of Anglicanism and in certain Lutheran churches. A comparable service, with a wholly different ritual form and texts, exists in the Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches. The Mass and its settings draw their name from the introit of the liturgy, which begins with the words "Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine" - "Grant them eternal rest, O Lord". ("Requiem" is the accusative singular form of the Latin noun requies, "rest, repose".) The Roman Missal as revised in 1970 employs this phrase as the first entrance antiphon among the formulas for Masses for the dead, and it remains in use to this day. |
| Opera comique | Opéra comique (plural: opéras comiques) is a genre of French opera that contains spoken dialogue and arias. It emerged out of the popular opéra comiques en vaudevilles of the Fair Theatres of St Germain and St Laurent (and to a lesser extent the Comédie-Italienne),[1] which combined existing popular tunes with spoken sections. Associated with the Paris theatre of the same name, the Opéra-Comique, opéra comique is not always comic or light in nature — indeed, Carmen, probably the most famous opéra comique, is a tragedy. |
| music drama | music drama, type of serious musical theatre, first advanced by Richard Wagner in his book Oper und Drama (1850-51; "Opera and Drama"), that was originally referred to as simply "drama." (Wagner himself never used the term music drama, which was later used by his successors and by critics and scholars.) This new type of work was intended as a return to the Greek drama as Wagner understood it—the public expression of national human aspirations in symbolic form by enacting racial myths and using music for the full expression of the dramatic action. Wagner's emphasis on opera as drama merely resumed and developed the ideas of Claudio Monteverdi and Christoph Gluck. He envisaged the disappearance of the old type of opera, with its libretto provided by a hack versifier, as an opportunity for the composer to make a "set piece" opera out of purely musical forms separated by a recitative. Briefly put, the new art form would be created by a single artist, who would write a poetic drama that should find full expression when it was set to a continuous vocal-symphonic texture. This texture would be woven from basic thematic ideas, or leitmotivs ("leading motives"); these would arise naturally as expressive vocal phrases sung by characters at crucial emotional points of the drama and then be developed by the orchestra as "reminiscences" in accordance with the expressive need of the dramatic and psychological development of the action. This conception found full embodiment in Der Ring des Nibelungen, a cycle of four operas first performed in 1876; the only variation from Wagner's theory was that the leading motives did not always arise as vocal utterances but were often introduced by the orchestra to portray characters, emotions, or events. |
| Endless melody | he principle of the endless melody is the perpetual becoming of a music that never had any reason for starting, any more than it has any reason for ending. |
| impressionism | The impressionist movement in music was a movement in European classical music, mainly in France, that began in the late nineteenth century and continued into the middle of the twentieth century. Like its precursor in the visual arts, musical Impressionism focused on suggestion and atmosphere rather than strong emotion or the depiction of a story as in program music. Musical Impressionism occurred as a reaction to the excesses of the Romantic era. While this era was characterized by a dramatic use of the major and minor scale system, Impressionist music tends to make more use of dissonance and more uncommon scales such as the whole tone scale. Romantic composers also used long forms of music such as the symphony and concerto, while Impressionist composers favored short forms such as the nocturne, arabesque, and prelude. Musical Impressionism was based in France, and the French composers Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel are generally considered to be the two "great" Impressionists. However, composers are generally not as accurately described by the term "Impressionism" as painters in the genre are. Debussy renounced it, saying, "I am trying to do 'something different' - in a way realities - what the imbeciles call 'impressionism' is a term which is as poorly used as possible, particularly by art critics."[1] Maurice Ravel composed many other pieces that aren't identified as Impressionist. Nonetheless, the term is widely used today to describe the music seen as a reaction to 19th century Romanticism. Many musical instructions in impressionist pieces are written in French, as opposed to Italian. Impressionism also gained a foothold in England, where its traits were assimilated by composers such as Ralph Vaughan Williams, Arnold Bax, and Frederick Delius. Vaughan Williams in particular exhibited music infused with Impressionistic gestures--this was not coincidence, as he was a student of Maurice Ravel. Vaughan Williams' music utilizes melodies and harmonies found in English folk music, such as the pentatonic scale and modes, making it perfectly suited to the polarity-breaking ideals of the Impressionist movement, which began moving away from the Major-minor based tonality of the Romantic composers. |
| Atonality | Atonality in its broadest sense describes music that lacks a tonal center, or key. Atonality in this sense usually describes compositions written from about 1908 to the present day where a hierarchy of pitches focusing on a single, central tone is not used, and the notes of the chromatic scale function independently of one another (Kennedy 1994). More narrowly, the term describes music that does not conform to the system of tonal hierarchies that characterized classical European music between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries (Lansky, Perle, and Headlam 2001). More narrowly still, the term is sometimes used to describe music that is neither tonal nor serial, especially the pre-twelve-tone music of the Second Viennese School, principally Alban Berg, Arnold Schoenberg, and Anton Webern (Lansky, Perle, and Headlam 2001). According to John Rahn, however, "[a]s a categorical label, 'atonal' generally means only that the piece is in the Western tradition and is not 'tonal' " (Rahn 1980, 1); "serialism arose partly as a means of organizing more coherently the relations used in the preserial 'free atonal' music. ... Thus many useful and crucial insights about even strictly serial music depend only on such basic atonal theory" (Rahn 1980, 2) Composers such as Alexander Scriabin, Claude Debussy, Béla Bartók, Paul Hindemith, Sergei Prokofiev, Igor Stravinsky, and Edgard Varèse have written music that has been described, in full or in part, as atonal (Baker 1980 & 1986; Bertram 2000; Griffiths 2001; Kohlhase 1983; Lansky and Perle 2001; Obert 2004; Orvis 1974; Parks 1985; Rülke 2000; Teboul 1995-96; Zimmerman 2002). |
| Anti-intellectualism | Anti-intellectualism is hostility towards and mistrust of intellect, intellectuals, and intellectual pursuits, usually expressed as the derision of education, philosophy, literature, art, and science, as impractical and contemptible. Alternately, self-described intellectuals who are alleged to fail to adhere to strict standards of rigorous scholarship may be described as anti-intellectuals.[citation needed] In public discourse, anti-intellectuals usually perceive and publicly present themselves as champions of the common folk — populists against political elitism and academic elitism — proposing that the educated are a social class detached from the everyday concerns of the majority, and that they dominate political discourse and higher education.[citation needed] As a political adjective, anti-intellectual variously describes an education system emphasising minimal academic accomplishment, and a government who formulate public policy without the advice of academics and their scholarship.[citation needed] Because "anti-intellectual" can be a pejorative, defining specific cases of anti-intellectualism can be troublesome; one can object to specific facets of intellectualism or the application thereof without being dismissive of intellectual pursuits in general. Moreover, allegations of anti-intellectualism can constitute an appeal to authority or an appeal to ridicule that attempt to discredit an opponent rather than specifically addressing his or her arguments.[1] |
| blue notes | In jazz and blues, a blue note (also "worried" note[1]) is a note sung or played at a slightly lower pitch than that of the major scale for expressive purposes. Typically the alteration is a semitone or less, but this varies among performers and genres. Country blues, in particular, features wide variations from the diatonic pitches with emotive blue-notes. Blue notes are often seen as akin to relative pitches found in traditional African work songs. Blue notes (*): b3, (#4)/b5, b7 The blue notes are usually said to be flattened third, flattened fifth, and flattened seventh scale degrees[2]. Though the blues scale has "an inherent minor tonality, it is commonly 'forced' over major-key chord changes, resulting in a distinctively dissonant conflict of tonalities"[3] as well as the blue notes. A similar conflict occurs between the notes of the minor scale and the minor blues scale, as heard in songs such as "Why Don't You Do Right?". In the case of the flattened third over the root (or the flattened seventh over the dominant), the resulting chord is a neutral mixed third chord. Blue notes are used in many twelve-bar and eight-bar blues, and also in blues ballads, many types of modern jazz, and in conventional popular songs with a "blue" feeling, such as Harold Arlen's "Stormy Weather". Blue notes are also prevalent in English folk music[4]. Bent or "blue notes", called in Ireland "long notes", play a vital part in Irish music and can be heard on any instrument capable of producing them.[5] |
| bebop | Bebop or bop is a style of jazz characterized by fast tempo, instrumental virtuosity and improvisation based on the combination of harmonic structure and melody. It was developed in the early and mid-1940s. It first surfaced in musicians' argot some time during the first two years of American involvement in the Second World War. This style of jazz ultimately became synonymous with modern jazz, as either category reached a certain final maturity in the 1960s. |
| Musical | Come on now |
| Minimalism | Minimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is stripped down to its most fundamental features. As a specific movement in the arts it is identified with developments in post-World War II Western Art, most strongly with American visual arts in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with this movement include Donald Judd, John McLaughlin, Agnes Martin, Dan Flavin, Robert Morris, Anne Truitt, and Frank Stella. It is rooted in the reductive aspects of Modernism, and is often interpreted as a reaction against Abstract expressionism and a bridge to Postmodern art practices. The terms have expanded to encompass a movement in music which features repetition and iteration, as in the compositions of La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, Philip Glass, and John Adams. (See also Postminimalism). The term "minimalist" is often applied colloquially to designate anything which is spare or stripped to its essentials. It has also been used to describe the plays and novels of Samuel Beckett, the films of Robert Bresson, the stories of Raymond Carver, and even the automobile designs of Colin Chapman. The word was first used in English in the early 20th century to describe the Mensheviks.[1] |
| Through Composed | Through-composed music is relatively continuous, non-sectional, and/or non-repetitive. A song is said to be through-composed if it has different music for each stanza of the lyrics. This is in contrast to strophic form, in which each stanza is set to the same music. Sometimes the German durchkomponiert is used to indicate the same concept. Many examples of this form can be found in Schubert's "Lieder", where the words of a poem are set to music and each line is different, and "Der Erlkönig" (The Erl King), in which the setting proceeds to a different musical arrangement for each new stanza and whenever the piece comes to each character, the character portrays its own voice register and tonality. Also Haydn's 'Farewell Symphony'. [1] "Happiness Is a Warm Gun", by The Beatles, is an example of this form's application in popular music. No section of Ary Barroso's 1939 samba "Brazil" repeats; however, a second set of lyrics in Portuguese allows the melody to be sung through twice. The term is also applied to opera and other dramatic works involving music, to indicate the extent of music (as opposed to recitative and dialogue). For example the musicals of Stephen Sondheim and Andrew Lloyd Webber have been part of a modern trend towards through-composed works, rather than collections of songs. In musical theater, works with no spoken dialogue, such as Les Misérables are usually referred to by the term "through-sung." A work composed chronologically (from the beginning of the piece to the end, in order) without a precompositional formal plan is also through-composed. ^ Haydn's 'Farewell' Symphony and the Idea of Classical Style: Through-Composition and Cyclic Integration in his Instrumental Music by James Webster. Cambridge Studies in Music Theory and Analysis |
| Concert overture | verture (from the French ouverture, meaning opening) in music is the instrumental introduction to a dramatic, choral or, occasionally, instrumental composition. During the early Romantic era, composers such as Beethoven and Mendelssohn began to use the term to refer to instrumental, programmatic works that presaged genres such as the symphonic poem. |
| Idee fixe | ects of the topic idée fixe are discussed in the following places at Britannica. Assorted References Berlioz (in cyclic form (music); ...Robert Schumann, in which the cyclic material is extensively melodic rather than motivic (using brief melodic-rhythmic fragments). This tendency culminated in the idée fixe (literally, "fixed idea"), or recurrent theme, of the French composer Hector Berlioz. In his Harold en Italie... in symphony (music): Berlioz and Liszt; ...and stands as a musical unity without regard to the program, which Berlioz himself eventually withdrew. A very personal expression nevertheless, the Fantastique introduces a structural idée fixe, a theme (representing his mistress?) recurring throughout the five movements in various rhythmic forms, serving to unite the "scenes" musically as well as... in sonata (music): The Classical era and later ) ...on transformed versions of a single theme. Similarly, in France, Hector Berlioz (1803-69) in his Symphonie fantastique transformed the theme representing the artist's beloved (the idée fixe, or fixed idea) so that it took different forms in each movement. In this case the transformation was affected by the program or "plot" of the symphony. This was a... |
| Singspiel | A Singspiel (German literally meaning "song-play") (plural: Singspiele) is a form of German-language music drama, now regarded as a genre of opera.[1] It is characterized by spoken dialogue, which is alternated with ensembles, songs, ballads, and arias (which were often lyrical, strophic, or folk-like), rather like an operetta. |
| Lyric Opera | the most opulent and grandiose musico-dramatic spectacle of the first half of the century. During the later 19th century, opéra comique and grand opera merged to produce the prevailing French lyric opera. At the same time, opéra comique branched off in another direction to produce operettas, which developed into the musical comedies of the 20th century. Indigenous opera appeared in... |
| A Gesamtkunstwerk | A Gesamtkunstwerk (translated as total work of art,[1] ideal work of art,[2] universal artwork, synthesis of the arts, comprehensive artwork, all-embracing art form, or total artwork) is a work of art that makes use of all or many art forms or strives to do so.[3] The term is a German word which has come to be accepted in English as a term in aesthetics. The term was first used by the German writer and philosopher K. F. E. Trahndorff in an essay in 1827. The German opera composer Richard Wagner used the term in an 1849 essay. It is unclear whether Wagner knew of Trahndorff's essay. The word has become particularly associated with Wagner's aesthetic ideals. |
| ballet | Ballet is a formalized kind of performance dance, which originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century, and which was further developed in France, England, and Russia as a concert dance form. The early portions preceded the invention of the proscenium stage and were presented in large chambers with most of the audience seated on tiers or galleries on three sides of the dancing floor. It has since become a highly technical form of dance with its own vocabulary. It is primarily performed with the accompaniment of classical music and has been influential as a form of dance globally. Ballet has been taught in ballet schools around the world, which use their own cultures and societies to inform the art. Ballet dance works (ballets) are choreographed and performed by trained artists, include mime and acting, and are set to music (usually orchestral but occasionally vocal). It is a poised style of dance that incorporates the foundational techniques for many other dance forms. This genre of dance is very hard to master and requires much practice. It is best known in the form of Late Romantic Ballet or Ballet Blanc, which preoccupies itself with the female dancer to the exclusion of almost all else, focusing on pointe work, flowing, precise acrobatic movements, and often presenting the dancers in the conventional short white French tutu. Later developments include expressionist ballet, Neoclassical ballet, and elements of Modern dance. |
| Gamelan | A gamelan is a musical ensemble from Indonesia, typically from the islands of Bali or Java, featuring a variety of instruments such as metallophones, xylophones, drums and gongs; bamboo flutes, bowed and plucked strings. Vocalists may also be included. The term refers more to the set of instruments than to the players of those instruments. A gamelan is a set of instruments as a distinct entity, built and tuned to stay together — instruments from different gamelan are generally not interchangeable. The word gamelan comes from the Javanese word gamels, meaning "to strike or hammer", and the suffix an, which makes the root a collective noun. |
| Serialism | In music, serialism is a method or technique of composition (Griffiths 2001, 116) that uses a series of values to manipulate different musical elements. Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, though his contemporaries were also working to establish serialism as one example of post-tonal thinking (Whittall 2008, 1). Twelve-tone technique orders the 12 notes of the chromatic scale, forming a row or series and providing a unifying basis for a composition's melody, harmony, structural progressions, and variations. Other types of serialism also work with sets, collections of objects, but not necessarily with fixed-order series, and extend the technique to other musical dimensions (often called "parameters"), such as duration, dynamics, and timbre. The idea of serialism is also applied in various ways in the visual arts, design, and architecture (Bandur 2001, 5, 12, 74; Gerstner 1964, passim). The musical use of the word "series" should not be confused with the mathematical term "series." Integral serialism or total serialism is the use of series for aspects such as duration, dynamics, and register as well as pitch (Whittall 2008, 273). Other terms, used especially in Europe to distinguish post-World War II serial music from twelve-tone music and its American extensions, are general serialism and multiple serialism (Grant 2001, 5-6). Composers such as Arnold Schoenberg, Anton Webern, Alban Berg, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Pierre Boulez, Luigi Nono, Milton Babbitt and Jean Barraqué, used serial techniques of one sort or another in most of their music. Other composers such as Béla Bartók, Luciano Berio, Benjamin Britten, Aaron Copland, Olivier Messiaen, Arvo Pärt, Walter Piston, Alfred Schnittke, Dmitri Shostakovich, Igor Stravinsky, and even some jazz composers such as Yusef Lateef and Bill Evans, used serialism only for some of their compositions or only for some sections of pieces. Richard Yardumian used a unique variation of the 12-tone scale.[vague][citation needed] |
| Sprechstimme | Sprechgesang and Sprechstimme (German for spoken-song and spoken-voice) are musical terms used to refer to an expressionist vocal technique between singing and speaking. Though sometimes used interchangeably, sprechgesang is a term directly related to the operatic recitative manner of singing (in which pitches are sung, but the articulation is rapid and loose like speech), whereas sprechstimme is closer to speech itself (because it does not emphasise any particular pitches).[1] |
| Dixieland | ixieland music, sometimes referred to as Hot jazz, Early Jazz or New Orleans jazz, is a style of jazz music which developed in New Orleans at the start of the 20th century, and was spread to Chicago and New York City by New Orleans bands in the 1910s. Well-known jazz standard songs from the Dixieland era, such as "Basin Street Blues" and "When the Saints Go Marching In", are known even to non-jazz fans |
| Third Stream | Third stream is a term coined in 1957 by composer Gunther Schuller, within a lecture at Brandeis University, to describe a musical genre which is a synthesis of classical music and jazz. Improvisation — a key element of jazz, but far less common in classical music — is generally seen as a vital component of Third Stream |
| Aelatoric music | Aleatoric music (also aleatory music or chance music; from the Latin word alea, meaning "dice") is music in which some element of the composition is left to chance, and/or some primary element of a composed work's realization is left to the determination of its performer(s). The term is most often associated with procedures in which the chance element involves a relatively limited number of possibilities. The term became known to European composers through lectures by acoustician Werner Meyer-Eppler at Darmstadt International Summer Courses for New Music in the beginning of the 1950s. According to his definition, "a process is said to be aleatoric ... if its course is determined in general but depends on chance in detail" (Meyer-Eppler 1957, 55). |
| Post Minimaalism | Postminimalism is an art term coined by Robert Pincus-Witten in 1971[1] used in various artistic fields for work which is influenced by, or attempts to develop and go beyond, the aesthetic of minimalism. The expression is used specifically in relation to music and the visual arts, but can refer to any field using minimalism as a critical reference point. |
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