A History of Music |
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Common terms and phrases
Académie de musique admirable altogether American artistic ballet Beethoven beginning Berlioz born buffa Camille Saint-Saëns cantatas César Franck chamber-music chant character charm Chopin choral chords church classic Claude Debussy clavecin comic opera composer composition concert Conservatoire counterpoint dance Debussy drama eighteenth century emotion expression France French music fugue Gabriel Fauré genius genus German Gluck Gounod Handel harmony Haydn History of Music ideas imitation influence inspiration instruments invention Italian opera Italy Johann Sebastian Bach Liszt Lully melody Meyerbeer modes movement Mozart musicians musique nature notably Opéra-Comique oratorio orchestra organ organist overture Paris passion performed piano played poetic polyphony Quarterly Rameau recitative rhythm Romain Rolland Rossini Saint-Saëns Schubert Schumann score sentiment singers singing song soul stage style success symphonic poem Symphony theatre theme thought tion tonality trans Vienna Vincent d'Indy violin virtuoso vocal voice Wagner Weber wished write written wrote
Popular passages
Page 136 - turned it into the most tiresome and ridiculous. I sought to bring back music to her veritable function, that of seconding poetry, of strengthening the expression of the sentiments, and the interest of the situations, without interrupting the action or
Page 274 - what the Germans think: they belong to the day before yesterday and the day after to-morrow, they have not yet attained to the present day." If we make allowance for the exaggeration of this criticism, the judgment of this great enemy of Wagner nevertheless presents some of the most penetrant views which have ever been offered with regard to his works.
Page 136 - it was my intention to avoid all the abuses which the misunderstood vanity of singers and the excessive complaisance of composers had introduced into Italian opera and which, from the most magnificent and beautiful of all spectacles,
Page 303 - He undertook the musical education of France at the exact moment when Berlioz despaired of succeeding with the task, and he prepared the public for the great French school of symphonists which arose toward the end of the nineteenth century.
Page 104 - Si le difficile est le beau C'est un grand homme que Rameau. Mais si le beau, par
Page 263 - No sooner had Wagner formulated his ideas with regard to the musical drama, than he undertook to give them a grandiose application in a colossal work, " The Nibelungen Ring," a vast trilogy, preceded by a Prologue, whose four parts, "Das Rheingold" ("Rhinegold"), "Die Walkure" ("The Valkyrie"), "Siegfried," and "Gotterdammerung" ("The Twilight of the Gods"),
Page 294 - from the end of the nineteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth,
Page 284 - see why I should not write a symphony about myself. I find myself quite as interesting as Napoleon or Alexander.
Page 305 - Cesar Franck at first modelled himself upon his contemporaries; he imitated their methods and only timidly dared be himself. His three-voice " Mass," in this respect, is very characteristic. How many borrowed formulas it displays! It was his organ that saved Franck.
Page 48 - at the end of the seventeenth and at the beginning of the