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Music in the Renaissance Italy
Music in the Renaissance Italy
The history of classical music
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Opera in the Romantic Period was a time when opera changed drastically, especially in the country of Italy. The recognition of singers as being important, almost irreplaceable, in the art of “bel canto” opera changed the idea of a vocalist in opera forever. A singer’s voice was prized and Italian composers, like Rossini, Donizetti, and Bellini wrote operas and works to showcase the voice, it’s color, range and agility. These Italian composers were moving away from the normal style of composition of the time, and the composer Rossini, who set the stage for many other followers. Many of the operas written during this time are still performed today and are highly acclaimed. For the most part, before Italy became a main player, France and Germany were the main areas for music. These composer’s lives were extremely important in the development of the romantic period of opera and they really put Italy in the eye of the public for their amazing operas and musical styles.
“Bel canto,” which translated literally means “beautiful singing,” was a very important factor taken into consideration in the romantic era. According to Charles Osborne, bel canto singing can be defined as “a method of singing taught by the Italian masters […] in which smooth emission of tone, beauty of timbre and elegance of phrasing are among the most important elements (Osborne, intro).” The main style of voice for this “bel canto” singing is the coloratura. Coloraturas have a very wide range and have a lot of vocal agility, moving from note to note extremely fast. In a lot of romantic music, cadenzas were written with this kind of singing in mind. Image 1 is the score from Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia and shows an example of the coloratura singi...
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...anged the way that opera was to be written in Italy, but they set the standard for the entire world and therefore their works are classic and timeless and will be performed for an extremely long time to come.
Works Cited
Gossett, Philip, William Ashbrook, Julian Budden, Friedrich Lippmann, Andrew Porter, Mosco Carner. Masters of Italian Opera. New York: Norton and Company, 1980.
Grout, Donald Jay, and Williams, Hermine Weigel. A Short History of Opera: 4th Edition. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003
Simon, Henry W. 100 Great Operas and Their Stories. New York: Anchor Books, 1989
Osborne, Charles. The Bel Canto Operas of Rossini, Donizetti and Bellini. Portland, Oregon: Amadeus Press, 1994
Weaver, William. The Golden Century of Italian Opera: From Rossini to Puccini. New York: Thames and Hudson, Inc, 1988
Piero Veneziano, Bianco Alfani, in Lauro Martines (ed.) An Italian Renaissance Sextet: Six Tales in Historical Context (University of Toronto Press, 1994), pp. 100
Austell, Edmund S. "Great Opera Singers." : Farinelli: The Great Castrato. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Apr. 2014.
The event I attended for MUS111 was Mozart’s Opera Buffa, Abduction from the Seraglio, first presented in Vienna July 16, 1782. The opera was presented by Opera Atelier with musical accompaniment by Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra at Toronto’s Elgin Theatre. The Abduction from the Seraglio is an opera Singspiel in three acts. It is an irreverent comic opera based in the commedia dell’arte tradition. The Abduction from the Seraglio, or in the original German, Die Entführung aus dem Serail, was written in German for Vienna’s new national Burgtheatre, established by Emperor Joseph II as a venue for German language operas (Osborne 181). Opera Atelier’s production was sung in German with English surtitles and recitatives. Opera Atelier specializes in opera, ballet and drama from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Opera Atelier’s productions draw from the aesthetics and ideals of the period represented, and feature period ballet, costumes and original instruments (OA Program 39).
John Dowland (1563-1626) was a composer of Renaissance England and considered one of the most prolific and well-known composers of English lute song. A composer and accomplished lutenist, he is probably the most well traveled English composer of his time. Through his travels he was exposed to the musical elements of his Italian, French and German contemporaries. He developed his own musical language, in which he created a unique style for the lute song. As a composer, he focused on the development of melodic material and was able to elegantly blend words and music with a wide range of emotion and technique. For the purpose of this document we will focus on the influence of his Italian travels. John Dowland’s use of chromaticism in his lute songs as can be directly associated with such as “All ye whom love or fortune.” In these pieces, we can see the influence on this genre through his travels to Italy and encounters with such composers as Marenzio.
Eastern Washington University Department of Music presented a program of Opera works by Giacomo Puccini, Aron Copland, W.A. Mozart, John Dowland, Franz Shubert, Maurice Ravel, and Robert Schumann on Friday, March 7, 6:30 p.m., in the Music Building, Recital Hall. These Opera works were sung by Senior Recitalist, Alexandra Rannow.
Barry Millington, et al. "Wagner." The New Grove Dictionary of Opera. Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press, accessed March 23, 2014,
Hanan, Partick and Yu Li. Silent Operas. Hong Kong: Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1990.
For the musical composer essay, I have chosen to write about a man who I felt made the greatest impact on Romantic opera in the 19th century this master of a man was given the name Giuseppe Fortunio Francesco Verdi but was commonly known as Giuseppe Verdi by all who knew and loved him. This great man was born on either October 9, or 10 in the year 1813 in the community of Le Roncole, near a small town called Busseto in the province of Parma, Italy his astrological sign is that of a Libra. His mother and father were both of Italian descent and their names were Carlo and Luigia Verdi respectively. Now this is where it gets complicated Verdi told every person that talked to him about his background that his parents were illiterate peasants. Despite this lie that Verdi told them they later discovered that his parents were not illiterate peasants as he had claimed but were very smart individuals tha...
On October 12th, I saw Tosca by Giacomo Puccini held at Atlanta Opera. Tosca is an Italian opera, directed by Tomer Zvulun, accompanied by an orchestra conducted by Arthur Fagen, included a cast of Kara Shay Thomson, Massimiliano Pisapia, and Luis Ledesma (The Atlanta Opera). Opera is an art form in which singers act out drama through a combination of acting and vocal performance. Singers deliver conversation in a musical manner, essentially singing the conversation. Since we recently learned about opera in class, I want to explore the future of opera - where it will go next with the ever advancing modern technology, media and entertainment, and what researches are currently being done at both the industry and academic levels. I will briefly describe what the traditional opera is like using Tosca as an example. Next, I will look at modern opera after the World War II. I will also select one example from the industry and university that are experimenting with opera. At last, I will offer my imagination of what the future of opera may be.
A passion for opera and its traditions. (n.d.).Retrieved from http://www.italia.it/en/focus.html?tx_ptispecials_pi1[showUid] = 246. The National Opera Center of America. n.d. - n.d. - n.d. Retrieved from http://www.operaamerica.org/content/education/learningCenter/intro.aspx.
Strozzi, Barbara. Cantate, ariete a una, doce, e tre voci, Opus 3. Ed. Gail Archer. In Recent Researches in the Music of the Baroque Era. vol. 83. Ed. Christoph Wolff. Madisono: A-R Editions, Inc., 1997.
There are two pieces in our Renaissance Era musical feature this evening, the first by Pierre Phalèse called Passamezzo d'Italye - Reprise – Gaillarde. Phalèse began as a bookseller in 1545 and not long after he set up a publishing house. By 1575 he had around 189 music books. Much of his work was devoted to sacred music but there was a small amount of Flemish songs and instrumental works. Phalèse borrowed work from many composers and did not hesitate to include other composer’s music in his works. The sec...
Harr, James. Essays on Italian Poetry and Music in the Renassisance: 1350-1600. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986.
Danson, Lawrence. The Harmonies of The Merchant of Venice. Great Britain: Yale University Press, 1978. Print.
The characteristics of romantic music are influenced by the Romantic Movement, where the arts of literature and painting play a great role in influencing romantic music. Other evidence of non-musical influences in romantic music is the popularity of romantic poetry during that era. Poems, opera arias and works form great romantic poets are transformed into instrumental works and composers like Schubert uses musical elements such as melodies inspired by poetry in his works (http://absoluteastronomy.com). The musical language itself has shown that romantic music is different from the rest of the music before its time. Extended tonal and harmonic elements are noticed in romantic music compared to those in the classical era, where chromaticism, the usage of dissonance, and modulations are used extensively.