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The term totalist refers to the aims of the music, in trying to have enough surface rhythmic energy, but also to contain enough background complexity. There is also an echo in the term of serialism 's "total organization," here drawn not from the 12-tone row , but from Henry Cowell 's theories about using the same structuring devices for rhythm ...
In instrumental music, a style of playing that imitates the way the human voice might express the music, with a measured tempo and flexible legato. cantilena a vocal melody or instrumental passage in a smooth, lyrical style canto Chorus; choral; chant cantus mensuratus or cantus figuratus (Lat.) Meaning respectively "measured song" or "figured ...
Comes before other terms; e.g. poco diminuendo ("a little diminishing") poco a poco: little by little "Slowly but steadily." Comes before other terms; e.g. poco a poco crescendo ("increasing little by little") ma non tanto: but not so much: Comes after other terms; e.g. adagio ma non tanto ("not quite at ease") ma non troppo: but not too much
The term musical form (or musical architecture) refers to the overall structure or plan of a piece of music, and it describes the layout of a composition as divided into sections. [60] In the tenth edition of The Oxford Companion to Music , Percy Scholes defines musical form as "a series of strategies designed to find a successful mean between ...
"But that music is a language by whose means messages are elaborated, that such messages can be understood by the many but sent out only by the few, and that it alone among all language unites the contradictory character of being at once intelligible and untranslatable—these facts make the creator of music a being like the gods and make music itself the supreme mystery of human knowledge."
The first studies of Western musical history date back to the middle of the 18th century. G.B. Martini published a three volume history titled Storia della musica [2] (History of Music) between 1757 and 1781. Martin Gerbert published a two volume history of sacred music titled De cantu de musica sacra [3] in 1774.
Musical era (or period) – distinct time frame in the history of music characterized by specific styles, practices, and conventions. Each period reflects the cultural, social, and political contexts of its time. The following is an overview of the stylistic movements within each period.
Similar terms include "dirge", "coronach", "lament" and "elegy". The Epitaphios Threnos is the lamentation chanted in the Eastern Orthodox Church on Holy Saturday . John Dryden commemorated the death of Charles II of England in the long poem Threnodia Augustalis , and Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote a "Threnody" in memory of his son.