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Leitmotif associated with Siegfried's horn call in Richard Wagner's 1876 opera, Siegfried. A leitmotif or Leitmotiv [1] (/ ˌ l aɪ t m oʊ ˈ t iː f /) is a "short, recurring musical phrase" [2] associated with a particular person, place, or idea. It is closely related to the musical concepts of idée fixe or motto-theme. [2]
Arguably Beethoven achieved the highest elaboration of this technique; the famous "fate motif" —the pattern of three short notes followed by one long one—that opens his Fifth Symphony and reappears throughout the work in surprising and refreshing permutations is a classic example.
Thematic transformation (also known as thematic metamorphosis or thematic development) is a musical technique in which a leitmotif, or theme, is developed by changing the theme by using permutation (transposition or modulation, inversion, and retrograde), augmentation, diminution, and fragmentation.
Music without subjects/themes, or without recognizable, repeating, and developing subjects/themes, is called athematic. Examples include the pre-twelve-tone or early atonal works of Arnold Schoenberg, Anton Webern, Alban Berg, and Alois Hába. Schoenberg once said that, "intoxicated by the enthusiasm of having freed music from the shackles of ...
A musical figure or figuration is the shortest idea in music; a short succession of notes, often recurring. It may have melodic pitch , harmonic progression , and rhythmic meter . The 1964 Grove's Dictionary defines the figure as "the exact counterpart of the German 'motiv' and the French 'motif ' ": it produces a "single complete and distinct ...
A musical cryptogram is a cryptogrammatic sequence of musical symbols which can be taken to refer to an extra-musical text by some 'logical' relationship, usually between note names and letters. The most common and best known examples result from composers using musically translated versions of their own or their friends' names (or initials) as ...
Theme music is a musical composition which is often written specifically for radio programming, television shows, video games, or films and is usually played during the title sequence, opening credits, closing credits, and in some instances at some point during the program. [1] The purpose of a theme song is often similar to that of a leitmotif.
The term "riff-driven" is used to describe a piece of music that relies on a repeated instrumental riff as the basis of its most prominent melody, cadence, or (in some cases) leitmotif. Riff-driven songs are largely a product of jazz , blues , and post-blues era music (rock and pop). [ 10 ]