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Dido's Lament
Dido's Lament is the aria "When I am laid in earth" from the opera ''Dido and Aeneas'' by Henry Purcell (libretto by Nahum Tate). It is included in many classical music textbooks on account of its exemplary use of the passus duriusculus in the ground bass. The conductor Leopold Stokowski wrote a transcription of the piece for symphony orchestra. It is played annually in London by the massed bands of the Guards Division at the Cenotaph remembrance parade in Whitehall on Remembrance Sunday, the Sunday nearest to November 11 (Armistice Day). The ''Aeneid'' The text, and Purcell's opera, alludes to the ''Aeneid'', the Roman legend of the Trojan warrior Aeneas, travelling to Italy from the betrayed and fallen Troy in order to settle there and secure his son Ascanius's lineage. Their ship is blown off course from Sicily, and they land on the shore of North Africa, in Carthage, a town newly settled by refugees from Tyre. Aeneas falls in love with their queen, Dido, but dutifull ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henry Purcell "Dido & Aeneas" (extrait) - Les Arts Florissants, William Christie
Henry may refer to: People *Henry (given name) *Henry (surname) * Henry Lau, Canadian singer and musician who performs under the mononym Henry Royalty * Portuguese royalty ** King-Cardinal Henry, King of Portugal ** Henry, Count of Portugal, Henry of Burgundy, Count of Portugal (father of Portugal's first king) ** Prince Henry the Navigator, Infante of Portugal ** Infante Henrique, Duke of Coimbra (born 1949), the sixth in line to Portuguese throne * King of Germany **Henry the Fowler (876–936), first king of Germany * King of Scots (in name, at least) ** Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley (1545/6–1567), consort of Mary, queen of Scots ** Henry Benedict Stuart, the 'Cardinal Duke of York', brother of Bonnie Prince Charlie, who was hailed by Jacobites as Henry IX * Four kings of Castile: **Henry I of Castile **Henry II of Castile **Henry III of Castile **Henry IV of Castile * Five kings of France, spelt ''Henri'' in Modern French since the Renaissance to italianize the name and to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Whitehall
Whitehall is a road and area in the City of Westminster, Central London. The road forms the first part of the A roads in Zone 3 of the Great Britain numbering scheme, A3212 road from Trafalgar Square to Chelsea, London, Chelsea. It is the main thoroughfare running south from Trafalgar Square towards Parliament Square. The street is recognised as the centre of the Government of the United Kingdom and is lined with numerous departments and ministries, including the Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom), Ministry of Defence, Horse Guards (building), Horse Guards and the Cabinet Office. Consequently, the name "Whitehall" is used as a metonymy, metonym for the British Civil Service (United Kingdom), civil service and British government, government, and as the geographic name for the surrounding area. The name was taken from the Palace of Whitehall that was the residence of Kings Henry VIII of England, Henry VIII through to William III of England, William III, before its destruction b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Passacaglia
The passacaglia (; ) is a musical form that originated in early seventeenth-century Spain and is still used today by composers. It is usually of a serious character and is often based on a bass-ostinato and written in triple metre. Origin The term passacaglia ( es, pasacalle; french: passacaille; Italian: ''passacaglia'', ''passacaglio'', ''passagallo'', ''passacagli'', ''passacaglie'') derives from the Spanish ''pasar'' (to walk) and ''calle'' (street). It originated in early 17th-century Spain as a strummed interlude between instrumentally accompanied dances or songs. Despite the form's Spanish roots (confirmed by references in Spanish literature of the period), the first written examples of passacaglias are found in an Italian source dated 1606. These pieces, as well as others from Italian sources from the beginning of the century, are simple, brief sequences of chords outlining a cadential formula. The passacaglia was redefined in the late 1620s by Italian composer Girolamo F ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chromatic Fourth
In music theory, a chromatic fourth, or ''passus duriusculus'',Monelle, Raymond (2000). ''The Sense of Music: Semiotic Essays'', p.73. . is a melody or melodic fragment spanning a perfect fourth with all or almost all chromatic intervals filled in ( chromatic line). The quintessential example is in D minor with the tonic and dominant notes as boundaries: \relative c The chromatic fourth was first used in the madrigals of the 16th Century. The Latin term itself—"harsh" or "difficult" (''duriusculus'') "step" or "passage" (''passus'')—originates in Christoph Bernhard's 17th century ''Tractatus compositionis augmentatus'' (1648–49), where it appears to refer to repeated melodic motion by semitone creating consecutive semitones. The term may also relate to the ''pianto'' associated with weeping. In the Baroque, Johann Sebastian Bach used it in his choral as well as his instrumental music, in the ''Well-Tempered Clavier'', for example (the chromatic fourth is indicated by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chromaticism
Chromaticism is a compositional technique interspersing the primary diatonic scale, diatonic pitch (music), pitches and chord (music), chords with other pitches of the chromatic scale. In simple terms, within each octave, diatonic music uses only seven different notes, rather than the twelve available on a standard piano keyboard. Music is chromatic when it uses more than just these seven notes. Chromaticism is in contrast or addition to tonality or diatonic and chromatic, diatonicism and modality (music), modality (the major scale, major and minor scale, minor, or "white key", scales). Chromatic elements are considered, "elaborations of or substitutions for diatonic scale members".Matthew Brown; Schenker, "The Diatonic and the Chromatic in Schenker's "Theory of Harmonic Relations", ''Journal of Music Theory'', Vol. 30, No. 1 (Spring 1986), pp. 1–33, citation on p. 1. Development of chromaticism Chromaticism began to develop in the late Renaissance music, Renaissance p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Word Painting
Word painting, also known as tone painting or text painting, is the musical technique of composing music that reflects the literal meaning of a song's lyrics or story elements in programmatic music. Historical development Tone painting of words goes at least as far back as Gregorian chant. Musical patterns expressed both emotive ideas and theological meanings in these chants. For instance, the pattern ''fa-mi-sol-la'' signifies the humiliation and death of Christ and his resurrection into glory. ''Fa-mi'' signifies deprecation, while ''sol'' is the note of the resurrection, and ''la'' is above the resurrection, His heavenly glory ("''surrexit Jesus''"). Such musical words are placed on words from the Biblical Latin text; for instance when ''fa-mi-sol-la'' is placed on "''et libera''" (e.g., introit for Sexagesima Sunday) in the Christian faith it signifies that Christ liberates us from sin through his death and resurrection. Word painting developed especially in the late 16th cen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Basso Continuo
Basso continuo parts, almost universal in the Baroque era (1600–1750), provided the harmonic structure of the music by supplying a bassline and a chord progression. The phrase is often shortened to continuo, and the instrumentalists playing the continuo part are called the ''continuo group''. Forces The composition of the continuo group is often left to the discretion of the performers (or, for a large performance, the conductor), and practice varied enormously within the Baroque period. At least one instrument capable of playing chords must be included, such as a harpsichord, organ, lute, theorbo, guitar, regal, or harp. In addition, any number of instruments that play in the bass register may be included, such as cello, double bass, bass viol, or bassoon. In modern performances of chamber works, the most common combination is harpsichord and cello for instrumental works and secular vocal works, such as operas, and organ and cello for sacred music. A double bass may ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Recitative
Recitative (, also known by its Italian name "''recitativo''" ()) is a style of delivery (much used in operas, oratorios, and cantatas) in which a singer is allowed to adopt the rhythms and delivery of ordinary speech. Recitative does not repeat lines as formally composed songs do. It resembles sung ordinary speech more than a formal musical composition. Recitative can be distinguished on a continuum from more speech-like to more musically sung, with more sustained melodic lines. The mostly syllabic ''recitativo secco'' ("dry", accompanied only by continuo, typically cello and harpsichord) is at one end of the spectrum, through ''recitativo accompagnato'' (using orchestra), the more melismatic arioso, and finally the full-blown aria or ensemble, where the pulse is entirely governed by the music. Secco recitatives can be more improvisatory and free for the singer, since the accompaniment is so sparse; in contrast, when recitative is accompanied by orchestra, the singer must per ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tyre, Lebanon
Tyre (; ar, صور, translit=Ṣūr; phn, 𐤑𐤓, translit=Ṣūr, Greek language, Greek ''Tyros'', Τύρος) is a city in Lebanon, one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest continually inhabited cities in the world, though in medieval times for some centuries by just a tiny population. It was one of the earliest Phoenician metropolises and the legendary birthplace of Europa (mythology), Europa, her brothers Cadmus and Phoenix (son of Agenor), Phoenix, as well as Carthage's founder Dido (Elissa). The city has many ancient sites, including the Tyre Hippodrome, and was added as a whole to UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites in 1984. The historian Ernest Renan noted that "One can call Tyre a city of ruins, built out of ruins". Today Tyre is the fourth largest city in Lebanon after Beirut, Tripoli, Lebanon, Tripoli, and Sidon. It is the capital of the Tyre District in the South Governorate. There were approximately 200,000 inhabitants in the Tyre urban ar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carthage
Carthage was the capital city of Ancient Carthage, on the eastern side of the Lake of Tunis in what is now Tunisia. Carthage was one of the most important trading hubs of the Ancient Mediterranean and one of the most affluent cities of the classical world. The city developed from a Canaanite Phoenician colony into the capital of a Punic empire which dominated large parts of the Southwest Mediterranean during the first millennium BC. The legendary Queen Alyssa or Dido, originally from Tyre, is regarded as the founder of the city, though her historicity has been questioned. According to accounts by Timaeus of Tauromenium, she purchased from a local tribe the amount of land that could be covered by an oxhide. As Carthage prospered at home, the polity sent colonists abroad as well as magistrates to rule the colonies. The ancient city was destroyed in the nearly-three year siege of Carthage by the Roman Republic during the Third Punic War in 146 BC and then re-developed as Roman Car ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ascanius
Ascanius (; Ancient Greek: Ἀσκάνιος) (said to have reigned 1176-1138 BC) was a legendary king of Alba Longa and is the son of the Trojan hero Aeneas and Creusa, daughter of Priam. He is a character in Roman mythology, and has a divine lineage, being the son of Aeneas, who is the son of the goddess Venus and the hero Anchises, a relative of the king Priam; thus Ascanius has divine ascendents by both parents, being descendants of god Jupiter and Dardanus. He is also an ancestor of Romulus, Remus and the Gens Julia. Together with his father, he is a major character in Virgil's ''Aeneid'', and he is depicted as one of the founders of the Roman race. Mythology In Greek and Roman mythology, Ascanius was the son of the Trojan prince Aeneas and Creusa, daughter of Priam. After the Trojan War, as the city burned, Aeneas escaped to Latium in Italy, taking his father Anchises and his child Ascanius with him, though Creusa died during the escape. According to Dionysius of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Troy
Troy ( el, Τροία and Latin: Troia, Hittite language, Hittite: 𒋫𒊒𒄿𒊭 ''Truwiša'') or Ilion ( el, Ίλιον and Latin: Ilium, Hittite language, Hittite: 𒃾𒇻𒊭 ''Wiluša'') was an ancient city located at Hisarlik in present-day Turkey, south-west of Çanakkale and about miles east of the Aegean Sea. It is known as the setting for the Greek mythology, Greek myth of the Trojan War. In Ancient Greek literature, Troy is portrayed as a powerful kingdom of the Greek Heroic Age, Heroic Age, a mythic era when monsters roamed the earth and gods interacted directly with humans. The city was said to have ruled the Troad until the Trojan War led to its complete destruction at the hands of the Greeks. The story of its destruction was one of the cornerstones of Greek mythology and literature, featuring prominently in the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', and referenced in numerous other poems and plays. Its legacy played a large role in Greek society, with many prominent ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
