Italian & french Music
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Italian Music
Opera
Opera (English plural: operas; Italian plural: opere) is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text (called a libretto) and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance. The performance is typically given in an opera house, accompanied by an orchestra or smaller musical ensemble.
Opera is part of the Western classical music tradition. It started in Italy at the end of the 16th century (with Jacopo Peri's lost Dafne, produced in Florence in 1598) and soon spread through the rest of Europe: Schütz in Germany, Lully in France, and Purcell in England all helped to establish their national traditions in the 17th century. In the 18th century, Italian opera continued to dominate most of Europe (except France), attracting foreign composers such as Handel. Opera seria was the most prestigious form of Italian opera, until Gluck reacted against its artificiality with his "reform" operas in the 1760s. Today the most renowned figure of late 18th century opera is Mozart, who began with opera seria but is most famous for his Italian comic operas, especially The Marriage of Figaro (Le Nozze Di Figaro), Don Giovanni, and Così fan tutte, as well as The Magic Flute (Die Zauberflöte), a landmark in the German tradition.
The first third of the 19th century saw the high point of the bel canto style, with Rossini, Donizetti and Bellini all creating works that are still performed today. It also saw the advent of Grand Opera typified by the works of Auber and Meyerbeer. The mid-to-late 19th century was a "golden age" of opera, led and dominated by Wagner in Germany and Verdi in Italy. The popularity of opera continued through the verismo era in Italy and contemporary French opera through to Puccini and Strauss in the early 20th century. During the 19th century, parallel operatic traditions emerged in central and eastern Europe, particularly in Russia and Bohemia. The 20th century saw many experiments with modern styles, such as atonality and serialism (Schoenberg and Berg), Neoclassicism (Stravinsky), and Minimalism (Philip Glass and John Adams). With the rise of recording technology, singers such as Enrico Caruso became known to audiences beyond the circle of opera fans. Operas were also performed on (and written for) radio and television.
Operatic terminology
The words of an opera are known as the libretto (literally "little book"). Some composers, notably Richard Wagner, have written their own libretti; others have worked in close collaboration with their librettists, e.g. Mozart with Lorenzo Da Ponte. Traditional opera, often referred to as "number opera", consists of two modes of singing: recitative, the plot-driving passages sung in a style designed to imitate and emphasize the inflections of speech, and aria (an "air" or formal song) in which the characters express their emotions in a more structured melodic style. Duets, trios and other ensembles often occur, and choruses are used to comment on the action. In some forms of opera, such as Singspiel, opéra comique, operetta, and semi-opera, the recitative is mostly replaced by spoken dialogue. Melodic or semi-melodic passages occurring in the midst of, or instead of, recitative, are also referred to as arioso. During the Baroque and Classical periods, recitative could appear in two basic forms: secco (dry) recitative, sung with a free rhythm dictated by the accent of the words, accompanied only by continuo, which was usually a harpsichord and a cello; or accompagnato (also known as strumentato) in which the orchestra provided accompaniment. By the 19th century, accompagnato had gained the upper hand, the orchestra played a much bigger role, and Richard Wagner revolutionised opera by abolishing almost all distinction between aria and recitative in his quest for what he termed "endless melody". Subsequent composers have tended to follow Wagner's example, though some, such as Stravinsky in his The Rake's Progress have bucked the trend. The terminology of the various kinds of operatic voices is described in detail below.
Origins
The Italian word opera means "work", both in the sense of the labour done and the result produced. The Italian word derives from the Latin opera, a singular noun meaning "work" and also the plural of the noun opus. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the Italian word was first used in the sense "composition in which poetry, dance, and music are combined" in 1639; the first recorded English usage in this sense dates to 1648.
Dafne by Jacopo Peri was the earliest composition considered opera, as understood today. It was written around 1597, largely under the inspiration of an elite circle of literate Florentine humanists who gathered as the "Camerata de' Bardi". Significantly, Dafne was an attempt to revive the classical Greek drama, part of the wider revival of antiquity characteristic of the Renaissance. The members of the Camerata considered that the "chorus" parts of Greek dramas were originally sung, and possibly even the entire text of all roles; opera was thus conceived as a way of "restoring" this situation. Dafne is unfortunately lost. A later work by Peri, Euridice, dating from 1600, is the first opera score to have survived to the present day. The honour of being the first opera still to be regularly performed, however, goes to Claudio Monteverdi's L'Orfeo, composed for the court of Mantua in 1607. The Mantua court of the Gonzagas, employers of Monteverdi, played a significant role in the origin of opera employing not only court singers of the concerto delle donne (till 1598), but also one of the first actual "opera singers"; Madama Europa.
Aria
An aria (Italian: air; plural: arie, or arias in common usage, diminutive form arietta) in music was originally any expressive melody, usually, but not always, performed by a singer. The term became used almost exclusively to describe a self-contained piece for one voice, with or without orchestral accompaniment, normally part of a larger work. The typical context for arias is opera, but vocal arias also feature in oratorios and cantatas, sharing features of the operatic arias of their periods.
Origins of the term
The term, which derives from the Greek and Latin 'aer' (air) first appeared in relation to music in the 14th century when it simply signified a manner or style of singing or playing. By the end of the 16th century, the term 'aria' refers to an instrumental form (cf. Santino Garsi da Parma lute works, 'Aria del Gran Duca' ). By the early 16th century it was in common use as meaning a simple setting of strophic poetry; melodic madrigals, free of complex polyphony, were known as madrigale arioso.
Concert arias
Concert arias, which are not part of any larger work, (or were sometimes written to replace or insert arias in their own operas or operas of other composers) were written by composers to provide the opportunity for vocal display for concert singers; examples are "Ah perfido!", Op. 65, by Beethoven, and a number of concert arias by Mozart, including "Conservati fedele."
Instrumental Music
The term 'aria' was frequently used in the 17th and 18th centuries for instrumental music used for dancing or variation, and modelled on vocal music. For example, J. S. Bach's so-called "Goldberg Variations" were titled at their 1741 publication "Clavier Ubung bestehend in einer ARIA mit verschiedenen Verænderungen" ("Keyboard exercise, consisting of an ARIA with diverse variations.")
The word is sometimes used in contemporary music as a title for instrumental pieces, e.g. Robin Holloway's 1980 'Aria' for chamber ensemble.
Opera
Opera (English plural: operas; Italian plural: opere) is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text (called a libretto) and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance. The performance is typically given in an opera house, accompanied by an orchestra or smaller musical ensemble.
Opera is part of the Western classical music tradition. It started in Italy at the end of the 16th century (with Jacopo Peri's lost Dafne, produced in Florence in 1598) and soon spread through the rest of Europe: Schütz in Germany, Lully in France, and Purcell in England all helped to establish their national traditions in the 17th century. In the 18th century, Italian opera continued to dominate most of Europe (except France), attracting foreign composers such as Handel. Opera seria was the most prestigious form of Italian opera, until Gluck reacted against its artificiality with his "reform" operas in the 1760s. Today the most renowned figure of late 18th century opera is Mozart, who began with opera seria but is most famous for his Italian comic operas, especially The Marriage of Figaro (Le Nozze Di Figaro), Don Giovanni, and Così fan tutte, as well as The Magic Flute (Die Zauberflöte), a landmark in the German tradition.
The first third of the 19th century saw the high point of the bel canto style, with Rossini, Donizetti and Bellini all creating works that are still performed today. It also saw the advent of Grand Opera typified by the works of Auber and Meyerbeer. The mid-to-late 19th century was a "golden age" of opera, led and dominated by Wagner in Germany and Verdi in Italy. The popularity of opera continued through the verismo era in Italy and contemporary French opera through to Puccini and Strauss in the early 20th century. During the 19th century, parallel operatic traditions emerged in central and eastern Europe, particularly in Russia and Bohemia. The 20th century saw many experiments with modern styles, such as atonality and serialism (Schoenberg and Berg), Neoclassicism (Stravinsky), and Minimalism (Philip Glass and John Adams). With the rise of recording technology, singers such as Enrico Caruso became known to audiences beyond the circle of opera fans. Operas were also performed on (and written for) radio and television.
Operatic terminology
The words of an opera are known as the libretto (literally "little book"). Some composers, notably Richard Wagner, have written their own libretti; others have worked in close collaboration with their librettists, e.g. Mozart with Lorenzo Da Ponte. Traditional opera, often referred to as "number opera", consists of two modes of singing: recitative, the plot-driving passages sung in a style designed to imitate and emphasize the inflections of speech, and aria (an "air" or formal song) in which the characters express their emotions in a more structured melodic style. Duets, trios and other ensembles often occur, and choruses are used to comment on the action. In some forms of opera, such as Singspiel, opéra comique, operetta, and semi-opera, the recitative is mostly replaced by spoken dialogue. Melodic or semi-melodic passages occurring in the midst of, or instead of, recitative, are also referred to as arioso. During the Baroque and Classical periods, recitative could appear in two basic forms: secco (dry) recitative, sung with a free rhythm dictated by the accent of the words, accompanied only by continuo, which was usually a harpsichord and a cello; or accompagnato (also known as strumentato) in which the orchestra provided accompaniment. By the 19th century, accompagnato had gained the upper hand, the orchestra played a much bigger role, and Richard Wagner revolutionised opera by abolishing almost all distinction between aria and recitative in his quest for what he termed "endless melody". Subsequent composers have tended to follow Wagner's example, though some, such as Stravinsky in his The Rake's Progress have bucked the trend. The terminology of the various kinds of operatic voices is described in detail below.
Origins
The Italian word opera means "work", both in the sense of the labour done and the result produced. The Italian word derives from the Latin opera, a singular noun meaning "work" and also the plural of the noun opus. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the Italian word was first used in the sense "composition in which poetry, dance, and music are combined" in 1639; the first recorded English usage in this sense dates to 1648.
Dafne by Jacopo Peri was the earliest composition considered opera, as understood today. It was written around 1597, largely under the inspiration of an elite circle of literate Florentine humanists who gathered as the "Camerata de' Bardi". Significantly, Dafne was an attempt to revive the classical Greek drama, part of the wider revival of antiquity characteristic of the Renaissance. The members of the Camerata considered that the "chorus" parts of Greek dramas were originally sung, and possibly even the entire text of all roles; opera was thus conceived as a way of "restoring" this situation. Dafne is unfortunately lost. A later work by Peri, Euridice, dating from 1600, is the first opera score to have survived to the present day. The honour of being the first opera still to be regularly performed, however, goes to Claudio Monteverdi's L'Orfeo, composed for the court of Mantua in 1607. The Mantua court of the Gonzagas, employers of Monteverdi, played a significant role in the origin of opera employing not only court singers of the concerto delle donne (till 1598), but also one of the first actual "opera singers"; Madama Europa.
Aria
An aria (Italian: air; plural: arie, or arias in common usage, diminutive form arietta) in music was originally any expressive melody, usually, but not always, performed by a singer. The term became used almost exclusively to describe a self-contained piece for one voice, with or without orchestral accompaniment, normally part of a larger work. The typical context for arias is opera, but vocal arias also feature in oratorios and cantatas, sharing features of the operatic arias of their periods.
Origins of the term
The term, which derives from the Greek and Latin 'aer' (air) first appeared in relation to music in the 14th century when it simply signified a manner or style of singing or playing. By the end of the 16th century, the term 'aria' refers to an instrumental form (cf. Santino Garsi da Parma lute works, 'Aria del Gran Duca' ). By the early 16th century it was in common use as meaning a simple setting of strophic poetry; melodic madrigals, free of complex polyphony, were known as madrigale arioso.
Concert arias
Concert arias, which are not part of any larger work, (or were sometimes written to replace or insert arias in their own operas or operas of other composers) were written by composers to provide the opportunity for vocal display for concert singers; examples are "Ah perfido!", Op. 65, by Beethoven, and a number of concert arias by Mozart, including "Conservati fedele."
Instrumental Music
The term 'aria' was frequently used in the 17th and 18th centuries for instrumental music used for dancing or variation, and modelled on vocal music. For example, J. S. Bach's so-called "Goldberg Variations" were titled at their 1741 publication "Clavier Ubung bestehend in einer ARIA mit verschiedenen Verænderungen" ("Keyboard exercise, consisting of an ARIA with diverse variations.")
The word is sometimes used in contemporary music as a title for instrumental pieces, e.g. Robin Holloway's 1980 'Aria' for chamber ensemble.
French Music
The music of France reflects a diverse array of styles. In the field of classical music, France has produced a number of legendary romantic composers, while folk and popular music have seen the rise of the chanson and cabaret style. The earliest known sound recording device in the world, the phonautograph, was patented in France by Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville in 1857. France is also the 5th largest market by value in the world, and its music industry has produced many internationally renowned artists, especially in the nouvelle chanson and electronic music.
History
Medieval
French music history dates back to organum in the 10th century, followed by the Notre Dame School, an organum composition style. Troubadour songs of chivalry and courtly love were composed in the Occitan language between the 10th and 13th centuries, and the Trouvère poet-composers flourished in Northern France during this period. By the end of the 12th century, a form of song called the motet arose, accompanied by traveling musicians called jongleurs. In the 14th century, France produced two notable styles of music, Ars Nova and Ars Subtilior.
Renaissance
Burgundy, the mostly French-speaking area unified with the Kingdom of France in 1477, became a major center for musical development in Europe. This was followed by the rise of chansons and the Burgundian School.
Baroque
Influential composers included Louis Couperin, François Couperin and Jacques Champion de Chambonnières. Jean Philippe Rameau, a prominent opera composer, wrote an influential treatise on musical theory, especially in the subject of harmony; he also introduced the clarinet into his orchestras. In the late Renaissance and early Baroque period, a type of popular secular vocal music called Air de cour spread throughout France.
Opera
The first French opera may be Akébar roi du Mogol, first performed in Carpentras in 1646. It was followed by the team of Pierre Perrin and Cambert, whose Pastoral in Music, performed in Issy, was a success, and the pair moved to Paris to produce Pomone (1671) and Les Peines et les Plaisirs de l'Amour (1672).
Jean-Baptiste Lully, who had become well known for composing ballets for Louis XIV, began creating a French version of the Italian opera seria, a kind of tragic opera known as tragédie lyrique or tragédie en musique - see (French lyric tragedy). His first was Cadmus from 1673. Lully's forays into operatic tragedy were accompanied by the pinnacle of French theatrical tragedy, led by Corneille and Racine.
Lully also developed the common beat patterns used by conductors to this day, and was the first to take the role of leading the orchestra from the position of the first violin.
The French composer, Georges Bizet, composed Carmen, one of the most well known and popular operas.
Romantic Era
One of the major French composers of the time, and one of the most innovative composers of the early Romantic era, was Hector Berlioz.
In the late 19th century, pioneers like Georges Bizet, Jules Massenet, Gabriel Fauré, Maurice Ravel and Claude Debussy revitalized French music. The last two had an enormous impact on 20th-century music - both in France and abroad - and influenced many major composers like Béla Bartók and Igor Stravinsky. Erik Satie was also a very significant composer from that era. His music is difficult to classify but sounds surprisingly ahead of its time.
20th century
The early 20th century saw neo-classical music flourish in France, especially composers like Albert Roussel and Les Six, a group of musicians who gathered around Satie. Later in the century, Olivier Messiaen, Henri Dutilleux and Pierre Boulez proved influential. The latter was a leading figure of Serialism while Messiaen incorporated Asian (particularly Indian) influences and bird song and Dutilleux translated the innovations of Debussy, Bartók and Stravinsky into his own, very personal, musical idiom.
The most important French contribution to musical innovation of the past 35 years is a form of computer-assisted composition called "spectral music". The astonishing technical advances of the spectralist composers in the 1970s are only recently beginning to achieve wide recognition in the United States; major composers in this vein include Gérard Grisey, Tristan Murail, and Claude Vivier.
Since 1998, musical works patented by René-Louis Baron made a big step in the two domains of algorithmic music and artificial intelligence.
Popular Music
The 19th century saw the apogee of the Cabaret style with Yvette Guilbert as a major star. The era lasted through to the 1930s and saw the likes of Édith Piaf, Charles Trenet, Maurice Chevalier, Tino Rossi, Félix Mayol, Lucienne Boyer, Marie-Louise Damien, Marie Dubas, Fréhel, Georges Guibourg and Jean Sablon.
During the 50s and 60s, it was the golden age of Chanson Française: Juliette Greco, Mireille Mathieu, Georges Brassens, Jacques Brel, Gilbert Bécaud, Monique Serf (Barbara), Léo Ferré, Charles Aznavour and Alain Barrière. The Yéyé style was popular in the 1950s and 60s with Sheila, Claude François and Françoise Hardy.
Musette
Musette is a style of French music and dance that became popular in Paris in the 1880s. Musette uses the accordion as main instrument, and often symbolizes the French art of living abroad. Émile Vacher (1883-1969) was the star of the new style. Other popular musette accordionists include Aimable Pluchard, Yvette Horner and André Verchuren. In 2001, the musette-style was a huge international success through the album Amélie composed by Yann Tiersen.
Cancan
The Cancan, also called French-Cancan, is a high-energy and physically demanding musical dance, traditionally performed by a chorus line of female dancers who wear costumes with long skirts, petticoats, and black stockings. The main features of the dance are the lifting and manipulation of the skirts, with high kicking and suggestive, provocative body movements. The Infernal Galop from Jacques Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld is the tune most associated with the Cancan. The Cancan first appeared in the working-class ballrooms of Montparnasse in Paris in around 1830. It was a more lively version of the Galop, a dance in quick 2/4 time, which often featured as the final figure in the Quadrille.
Cabaret
Cabaret is a typical form of French musical entertainment featuring chanson, music, dance, comedy and spectacles. The audience usually sits at tables, often dining or drinking, and performances are sometimes introduced by a master of ceremonies. The first cabaret was opened in 1881 in Montmartre, Paris, by Rodolphe Salis and was called Le Chat Noir (The Black Cat). Built in 1889, Moulin Rouge is famous for the large red windmill on its roof. Other popular French cabarets include the Folies Bergère and Le Lido. Cabarets were a key venue in the careers of many singers like Mistinguett, Josephine Baker, Charles Trenet and Edith Piaf. More recently, Patricia Kaas embodies the revival of the French cabaret style.
Chanson
Chanson Française is the typical style of French music (chanson means "song" in French) and is still very popular in France. Some of the most important artists included: Édith Piaf, Juliette Greco, Mireille Mathieu, Jacques Brel, Georges Brassens, Gilbert Bécaud, Monique Serf (Barbara), Léo Ferré, Charles Aznavour, Salvatore Adamo and Dalida plus the more art-house musicians like Brigitte Fontaine. Also during the 1950s one of the more representative of Montmartre cabaret singers was Suzanne Robert.
During the 1970s, new artists modernized the chanson Française (Michel Fugain, Renaud, Francis Cabrel, Alain Souchon, Jacques Higelin, Alain Chamfort, Joe Dassin) and also in the 80s (Étienne Daho, Têtes Raides) till now (Benjamin Biolay, Zaz, Vincent Delerm, Bénabar, Jean-Louis Murat, Miossec, Juliette, Mano Solo, Jacques Higelin, Matthieu Chedid, Mathieu Boogaerts, Daniel Darc, Maurane, Christina Goh, Renan Luce). Singer-songwriter Serge Gainsbourg began as a jazz musician in the 1950s and spanned several eras of French popular music including pop, rock, reggae, new wave, disco and even hip hop.
Yéyé
Yéyé is a style of popular music that emerged from France in the early 1960s. The yé-yé movement had its origins in the radio programme Salut les copains, which was first aired in October 1959. Most famous Yéyé stars include Johnny Hallyday, Claude François, Eddy Mitchell, Richard Anthony, Dick Rivers and the popular girls like France Gall, Sheila, Sylvie Vartan, and artists who fuse various music genres like Chantal Goya or Dalida. These were popular female teen idols, and included Françoise Hardy, who was the first to write her own songs.