Operas: Relationship Between Words And Music
2. Discuss the relationship between words and music in the operas of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.
Words and music have been playing an important role in the human culture, people express themselves and communicate with each other through words and music. Different styles and techniques in music and the link between words and music are found in operas. Opera was born in Italy around the year 1600, and Italian opera has continued to play a dominant role in music history until now.
Music and language are related in so many ways. In operas, words that are not always audible are more easily interpreted by music therefore music can illustrate the words with different tempos, textures, dynamics in order to help the audience understand the opera better. A tremolo effect used on different instruments creates …show more content…
different kind of effects. For example, a tremolo on a string instrument creates a thin and reedy effect, often perceived to be a “ghostly” feeling. Some instruments can even imitate the sounds of animals, for example, the flute can create similar sound as the bird, the variety of different dynamics illustrates different moods and it brings out different messages to the audience.
There are a number of specific musical features that has a connection with particular words, music tempo is the most obvious and important musical features. Tempo is the speed or pace of a musical piece, it affects an audience in a most directly way. A fast tempo has an expression of excitement, joy, happiness, anger, anxiety or even fear while a slow tempo has an expression of peace, relax, restful, or sadness. Both fast and slow tempo influence the valence of the musical piece when it combines with certain words, fast tempo is generally linked to a higher activation while slow tempo is linked to a lower activation.
A musical piece in a major key may be linked to happiness while minor key gives the listener a sad feeling. Major key may also be associated with expressions as graceful, joy, minor key with expressions as fear, tension or anger. The difference between tempo and keys in a musical piece is tempos are mainly associated with activation while the keys in a musical piece are mainly associated with the positive or negative emotional valence.
Word painting is another way for music and words to be associated in operas.
Word painting is the musical technique of writing music that reflects the meaning of certain words in a song. For example, ascending scales would accompany lyrics about going up; slow, dark music would accompany lyrics about death. (1) Word painting occurs when the music is composed to symbolize the ideas in the words. Word painting generally appears on words that express emotions, for example, L’Orfeo (1607) by Claudio Monteverdi, a recitatives opera, it is a Greek mythology about Orpheus, a god who’s able to move people with his music and poetry. In this story, his wife, Eurydice died from snakebite. Orpheus was so distraught he went to the Underworld wanted to retrieve his wife back from Hades with his music. Monteverdi used word painting on ‘morta’ (‘death’), the musical pitch here is lower; ‘più profondi abissì (‘the deepest abysses’) in a low pitch; and ‘riveder le stelle’ (’see the stars again’) in higher pitch. Example 1: Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643), Recitative: "Tu se ' morta" from L 'Orfeo (1607) (Naxos: OP30439, track
12)1 Another well-flourished word painting example occurs in Handel’s Messiah, where a tenor aria contains Handel’s setting of the text:
“Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill made low; the crooked straight, and the rough places plain. (Isaiah 40:4)”
The word “valley” ends on a low note, “exalted” and “mountain” is a rising figure there fore they formed a peak in the melody. “Crooked” is sung faster in four different notes, while “straight” is sung on a single note, and in “the rough places plain” “the rough places” is sung over short, separate notes while the final word “plain” is extended in long low notes.
Example 2: Handel’s Messiah
The operas in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries developed an important feature, which were aria and recitative. Arias are lyrical pieces that pause the action and allow a single character to express their emotions, it is accompanied by the full orchestra and it is sung with more emotions in a lyrical form. The aria evolved typically in one or two forms, Binary form arias were in two sections (A-B) and arias in ternary form (A-B-A). Arias have more memorable melodies, Recitative, on the other hand, is designed to emulate speech by using free rhythms and melodies that approximate the pitches of normal speech. It’s in a half-singing-half-talking form and accompanied only by basso continuo, sung by soloist and has a simple accompaniment. It’s really different when a soloist is singing a musical piece in an aria form or a recitative form, a full orchestra presents a more dramatic and emotional feeling to the listener.
In conclusion, music and words are related in many ways. Tempos affects the emotional expression, it is considered the most decisive. The keys of the musical pieces affects the mode of the song and the dynamics creates a more interesting music when it’s added into the musical pieces. The textures affects the character of the musical pieces, therefore it plays an important role in a musical piece. Actually, a perfect musical piece needs tempos, textures, dynamics, keys, word paintings and singers, all of them has an important role to play in a musical piece.
BIBLIOGRAPHY http://alanbelkinmusic.com/bk.O/O-3.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messiah_(Handel) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_and_emotion#Conveying_emotion_through_music http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_painting http://www.henrikstrindberg.se/sv/content/relations-between-text-and-music http://www.themeandvariations.org/Topics/words.html
http://www2.lawrence.edu/fast/KOOPMAJO/standard.html
Words and music have been playing an important role in the human culture, people express themselves and communicate with each other through words and music. Different styles and techniques in music and the link between words and music are found in operas. Opera was born in Italy around the year 1600, and Italian opera has continued to play a dominant role in music history until now.
Music and language are related in so many ways. In operas, words that are not always audible are more easily interpreted by music therefore music can illustrate the words with different tempos, textures, dynamics in order to help the audience understand the opera better. A tremolo effect used on different instruments creates …show more content…
different kind of effects. For example, a tremolo on a string instrument creates a thin and reedy effect, often perceived to be a “ghostly” feeling. Some instruments can even imitate the sounds of animals, for example, the flute can create similar sound as the bird, the variety of different dynamics illustrates different moods and it brings out different messages to the audience.
There are a number of specific musical features that has a connection with particular words, music tempo is the most obvious and important musical features. Tempo is the speed or pace of a musical piece, it affects an audience in a most directly way. A fast tempo has an expression of excitement, joy, happiness, anger, anxiety or even fear while a slow tempo has an expression of peace, relax, restful, or sadness. Both fast and slow tempo influence the valence of the musical piece when it combines with certain words, fast tempo is generally linked to a higher activation while slow tempo is linked to a lower activation.
A musical piece in a major key may be linked to happiness while minor key gives the listener a sad feeling. Major key may also be associated with expressions as graceful, joy, minor key with expressions as fear, tension or anger. The difference between tempo and keys in a musical piece is tempos are mainly associated with activation while the keys in a musical piece are mainly associated with the positive or negative emotional valence.
Word painting is another way for music and words to be associated in operas.
Word painting is the musical technique of writing music that reflects the meaning of certain words in a song. For example, ascending scales would accompany lyrics about going up; slow, dark music would accompany lyrics about death. (1) Word painting occurs when the music is composed to symbolize the ideas in the words. Word painting generally appears on words that express emotions, for example, L’Orfeo (1607) by Claudio Monteverdi, a recitatives opera, it is a Greek mythology about Orpheus, a god who’s able to move people with his music and poetry. In this story, his wife, Eurydice died from snakebite. Orpheus was so distraught he went to the Underworld wanted to retrieve his wife back from Hades with his music. Monteverdi used word painting on ‘morta’ (‘death’), the musical pitch here is lower; ‘più profondi abissì (‘the deepest abysses’) in a low pitch; and ‘riveder le stelle’ (’see the stars again’) in higher pitch. Example 1: Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643), Recitative: "Tu se ' morta" from L 'Orfeo (1607) (Naxos: OP30439, track
12)1 Another well-flourished word painting example occurs in Handel’s Messiah, where a tenor aria contains Handel’s setting of the text:
“Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill made low; the crooked straight, and the rough places plain. (Isaiah 40:4)”
The word “valley” ends on a low note, “exalted” and “mountain” is a rising figure there fore they formed a peak in the melody. “Crooked” is sung faster in four different notes, while “straight” is sung on a single note, and in “the rough places plain” “the rough places” is sung over short, separate notes while the final word “plain” is extended in long low notes.
Example 2: Handel’s Messiah
The operas in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries developed an important feature, which were aria and recitative. Arias are lyrical pieces that pause the action and allow a single character to express their emotions, it is accompanied by the full orchestra and it is sung with more emotions in a lyrical form. The aria evolved typically in one or two forms, Binary form arias were in two sections (A-B) and arias in ternary form (A-B-A). Arias have more memorable melodies, Recitative, on the other hand, is designed to emulate speech by using free rhythms and melodies that approximate the pitches of normal speech. It’s in a half-singing-half-talking form and accompanied only by basso continuo, sung by soloist and has a simple accompaniment. It’s really different when a soloist is singing a musical piece in an aria form or a recitative form, a full orchestra presents a more dramatic and emotional feeling to the listener.
In conclusion, music and words are related in many ways. Tempos affects the emotional expression, it is considered the most decisive. The keys of the musical pieces affects the mode of the song and the dynamics creates a more interesting music when it’s added into the musical pieces. The textures affects the character of the musical pieces, therefore it plays an important role in a musical piece. Actually, a perfect musical piece needs tempos, textures, dynamics, keys, word paintings and singers, all of them has an important role to play in a musical piece.
BIBLIOGRAPHY http://alanbelkinmusic.com/bk.O/O-3.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messiah_(Handel) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_and_emotion#Conveying_emotion_through_music http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_painting http://www.henrikstrindberg.se/sv/content/relations-between-text-and-music http://www.themeandvariations.org/Topics/words.html
http://www2.lawrence.edu/fast/KOOPMAJO/standard.html