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La Donna è Mobile
"" (; "Woman is fickle") is the Duke of Mantua's canzone from the beginning of act 3 of Giuseppe Verdi's opera ''Rigoletto'' (1851). The canzone is famous as a showcase for tenors. Raffaele Mirate's performance of the bravura aria at the opera's 1851 premiere was hailed as the highlight of the evening. Before the opera's first public performance (in Venice), the aria was rehearsed under tight secrecy: a necessary precaution, as "" proved to be incredibly catchy, and soon after the aria's first public performance it became popular to sing among Venetian gondoliers. As the opera progresses, the reprise of the tune in the following scenes contributes to Rigoletto's confusion as he realizes from the sound of the Duke's lively voice coming from the tavern (offstage) that the body in the sack over which he had grimly triumphed was not that of the Duke after all: Rigoletto had paid Sparafucile, an assassin, to kill the Duke, but Sparafucile had deceived Rigoletto by indiscriminately ki ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Canzone
Literally "song" in Italian, a ''canzone'' (, plural: ''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. Derived from the Pro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Time Signature
The time signature (also known as meter signature, metre signature, or measure signature) is a notational convention used in Western musical notation to specify how many beats (pulses) are contained in each measure (bar), and which note value is equivalent to a beat. In a music score, the time signature appears at the beginning as a time symbol or stacked numerals, such as or (read ''common time'' or ''four-four time'', respectively), immediately following the key signature (or immediately following the clef symbol if the key signature is empty). A mid-score time signature, usually immediately following a barline, indicates a change of meter. There are various types of time signatures, depending on whether the music follows regular (or symmetrical) beat patterns, including simple (e.g., and ), and compound (e.g., and ); or involves shifting beat patterns, including complex (e.g., or ), mixed (e.g., & or & ), additive (e.g., ), fractional (e.g., ), and irrational met ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Barrel Organ
A barrel organ (also called roller organ or crank organ) is a French mechanical musical instrument consisting of bellows and one or more ranks of pipes housed in a case, usually of wood, and often highly decorated. The basic principle is the same as a traditional pipe organ, but rather than being played by an organist, the barrel organ is activated either by a person turning a crank, or by clockwork driven by weights or springs. The pieces of music are encoded onto wooden barrels (or cylinders), which are analogous to the keyboard of the traditional pipe organ. A person (or in some cases, a trained animal) who plays a barrel organ is known as an organ grinder. Terminology There are many names for the barrel organ, such as hand organ, cylinder organ, box organ (though that can also mean a positive organ), street organ, grinder organ, and Low Countries organ. In French names include ''orgue à manivelle'' ("crank organ") and ''orgue de Barbarie'' ("Barbary organ"); German names i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ritornello
A ritornello (Italian; "little return") is a recurring passage in Baroque music for orchestra or chorus. Early history The earliest use of the term "ritornello" in music referred to the final lines of a fourteenth-century madrigal, which were usually in a rhyme scheme and meter that contrasted with the rest of the song. Scholars suggest that the word "ritornello" comes either from the Italian word ''ritorno'' (meaning return), or from ''tornando'' (meaning turnaround or flourish). Literally, in Italian it means "little return". Baroque music The ritornello as a recurring tutti passage can be traced back to the music of sixteenth-century Venetian composer Giovanni Gabrieli. According to Richard Taruskin, these repeating passages are "endemic to the ''concertato'' style" which Gabrieli is credited with developing. The idea of an orchestral ritornello played an important role in the structure of opera in the eighteenth century. The most common form for an aria during the Baroque per ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Strophic Form
Strophic form – also called verse-repeating form, chorus form, AAA song form, or one-part song form – is a song structure in which all verses or stanzas of the text are sung to the same music. Contrasting song forms include through-composed, with new music written for every stanza, and ternary form, with a contrasting central section. The term is derived from the Greek word , '' strophē'', meaning "turn". It is the simplest and most durable of musical forms, extending 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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Submediant
In music, the submediant is the sixth degree () of a diatonic scale. The submediant ("lower mediant") is named thus because it is halfway between tonic and subdominant ("lower dominant") or because its position below the tonic is symmetrical to that of the mediant above. (See the figure in the Degree (music) article.) In the movable do solfège system, the submediant is sung as ''la'' in a major mode and ''fa'' in a minor mode. It is occasionally called superdominant, as the degree above the dominant. This is its normal name (''sus-dominante'') in French. In Roman numeral analysis, the triad formed on the submediant is typically symbolized by "VI" if it is a major triad (the default in a minor mode) and by "vi" if it is a minor triad (the default in a major mode). The term ''submediant'' may also refer to a relationship of musical keys. For example, relative to the key of C major, the key of A minor is the submediant. In a major key, the submediant key is the relative mino ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dominant (music)
In music, the dominant is the fifth scale degree () of the diatonic scale. It is called the ''dominant'' because it is second in importance to the first scale degree, the tonic. In the movable do solfège system, the dominant note is sung as "So(l)". The triad built on the dominant note is called the dominant chord. This chord is said to have dominant function, which means that it creates an instability that requires the tonic for resolution. Dominant triads, seventh chords, and ninth chords typically have dominant function. Leading-tone triads and leading-tone seventh chords may also have dominant function. Dominant chords In music theory, the dominant triad is a major chord, symbolized by the Roman numeral "V" in the major scale. In the natural minor scale, the triad is a minor chord, denoted by "v". However, in a minor key, the seventh scale degree is often raised by a half step ( to ), creating a major chord. These chords may also appear as seventh chords: ty ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tonic (music)
In music, the tonic is the first scale degree () of the diatonic scale (the first note of a scale) and the tonal center or final resolution tone that is commonly used in the final cadence in tonal (musical key-based) classical music, popular music, and traditional music. In the movable do solfège system, the tonic note is sung as ''do''. More generally, the tonic is the note upon which all other notes of a piece are hierarchically referenced. Scales are named after their tonics: for instance, the tonic of the C major scale is the note C. The triad formed on the tonic note, the tonic chord, is thus the most significant chord in these styles of music. In Roman numeral analysis, the tonic chord is typically symbolized by the Roman numeral "I" if it is major and by "i" if it is minor. These chords may also appear as seventh chords: in major, as IM7, or in minor as i7 or rarely iM7: The tonic is distinguished from the root, which is the reference note of a chord, rathe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Subject (music)
In music, a subject is the material, usually a recognizable melody, upon which part or all of a composition is based. In forms other than the fugue, this may be known as the theme. Characteristics A subject may be perceivable as a complete musical expression in itself, separate from the work in which it is found. In contrast to an idea or motif, a subject is usually a complete phrase or period. The ''Encyclopédie Fasquelle'' defines a theme (subject) as " y element, motif, or small musical piece that has given rise to some variation becomes thereby a theme". Thematic changes and processes are often structurally important, and theorists such as Rudolph Reti have created analysis from a purely thematic perspective. Fred Lerdahl describes thematic relations as "associational" and thus outside his cognitive-based generative theory's scope of analysis. In different types of music Music based on a single theme is called 'monothematic', while music based on several themes is ca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bar (music)
In musical notation, a bar (or measure) is a segment of time corresponding to a specific number of beats in which each beat is represented by a particular note value and the boundaries of the bar are indicated by vertical bar lines. Dividing music into bars provides regular reference points to pinpoint locations within a musical composition. It also makes written music easier to follow, since each bar of staff symbols can be read and played as a batch. Typically, a piece consists of several bars of the same length, and in modern musical notation the number of beats in each bar is specified at the beginning of the score by the time signature. In simple time, (such as ), the top figure indicates the number of beats per bar, while the bottom number indicates the note value of the beat (the beat has a quarter note value in the example). The word ''bar'' is more common in British English, and the word ''measure'' is more common in American English, although musicians generally u ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tessitura
In music, tessitura (, pl. ''tessiture'', "texture"; ) is the most acceptable and comfortable vocal range for a given singer or less frequently, musical instrument, the range in which a given type of voice presents its best-sounding (or characteristic) timbre. This broad definition is often interpreted to refer specifically to the pitch range that most frequently occurs within a given part of a musical piece. Hence, in musical notation, ''tessitura'' is the ambitus, or a narrower part of it, in which that particular vocal (or less often instrumental) part lies—whether high or low, etc. However, the tessitura of a part or voice is not decided by the extremes of its range, but rather by the share of this total range which is most used. Hence, it is referred to as the "heart" of a range. For example, throughout the entirety of Wagner's ''Ring'', the music written for the tenor role of Siegfried ranges from C to C, but the tessitura is described as high because the phrases are mos ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
