Cantare Italiano - The Language of Opera


Book Description

This book is a complete guide to the magic spells that the lyric diction of Italian Opera has cast on its audience for the last four hundred years, revealed and explained in their secrets by the author through an exact method of study whose effectiveness has been proven, over more than a decade of coaching activity, on her many students - Opera stars included - all over the world.




Singing to the Lyre in Renaissance Italy


Book Description

The first comprehensive study of the dominant form of solo singing in Renaissance Italy prior to the mid-sixteenth century.




Opera in Seventeenth-Century Venice


Book Description

"In this elegantly constructed study of the early decades of public opera, the conflicts and cooperation of poets, composers, managers, designers, and singers—producing the art form that was soon to sweep the world and that has been dominant ever since—are revealed in their first freshness."—Andrew Porter "This will be a standard work on the subject of the rise of Venetian opera for decades. Rosand has provided a decisive contribution to the reshaping of the entire subject. . . . She offers a profoundly new view of baroque opera based on a solid documentary and historical-critical foundation. The treatment of the artistic self-consciousness and professional activities of the librettists, impresarios, singers, and composers is exemplary, as is the examination of their reciprocal relations. This work will have a positive effect not only on studies of 17th-century, but on the history of opera in general."—Lorenzo Bianconi




The Melofonetica Method


Book Description

The Melofonetica Method is a transformative approach to Italian diction in opera and classical music. Based on the phonetics of sung Italian, the method pinpoints how singers can achieve clear, resonant and idiomatic singing in a performance space. The product of over a decade of research and coaching, the Melofonetica Method helps singers of all levels and language backgrounds to: Rapidly achieve clearer, more expressive, more idiomatic Italian diction Enhance vocal quality and breath support Recognise the intrinsic rhythms of Italian style Strengthen musical and dramatic interpretation Feel more self-assured performing Italian repertoire This book provides a structured approach to teaching and learning Italian lyric diction and will be an invaluable resource for singers, coaches, accompanists, conductors and directors. It includes: 180+ notation examples, 120 vocalising exercises, 4 transcribed arias, access to 340+ audio recordings and fascinating insight into the evolution of Italian as a language built to be sung.




The Complete Idiot's Guide to Learning Italian, 3rd Edition


Book Description

Learn the language of la dolce vita! For anyone who wants to learn and enjoy the most expressive and romantic of languages, the third edition of The Complete Idiot’s Guide® to Learning Italian is the first choice for a whole new generation of enthusiastic students of Italian. This updated edition includes two new quick references on verbs, grammar, and sentence structure; two new appendixes on Italian synonyms and popular idiomatic phrases; and updated business and money sections. • First two editions have sold extraordinarily well • Italian is the fourth most popular language in the United States




Rethinking Difference in Music Scholarship


Book Description

Two decades after the publication of several landmark scholarly collections on music and difference, musicology has largely accepted difference-based scholarship. This collection of essays by distinguished contributors is a major contribution to this field, covering the key issues and offering an array of individual case studies and methodologies. It also grapples with the changed intellectual landscape since the 1990s. Criticism of difference-based knowledge has emerged from within and outside the discipline, and musicology has had to confront new configurations of difference in a changing world. This book addresses these and other such challenges in a wide-ranging theoretical introduction that situates difference within broader debates over recognition and explores alternative frameworks, such as redistribution and freedom. Voicing a range of perspectives on these issues, this collection reveals why differences and similarities among people matter for music and musical thought.




Nineteenth-Century Music


Book Description

This magnificent survey of the most popular period in music history is an extended essay embracing music, aesthetics, social history, and politics, by one of the keenest minds writing on music in the world today. Dahlhaus organizes his book around "watershed" years--for example, 1830, the year of the July Revolution in France, and around which coalesce the "demise of the age of art" proclaimed by Heine, the musical consequences of the deaths of Beethoven and Schubert, the simultaneous and dramatic appearance of Chopin and Liszt, Berlioz and Meyerbeer, and Schumann and Mendelssohn. But he keeps us constantly on guard against generalization and clich . Cherished concepts like Romanticism, tradition, nationalism vs. universality, the musical culture of the bourgeoisie, are put to pointed reevaluation. Always demonstrating the interest in socio-historical influences that is the hallmark of his work, Dahlhaus reminds us of the contradictions, interrelationships, psychological nuances, and riches of musical character and musical life. Nineteenth-Century Music contains 90 illustrations, the collected captions of which come close to providing a summary of the work and the author's methods. Technical language is kept to a minimum, but while remaining accessible, Dahlhaus challenges, braces, and excites. This is a landmark study that no one seriously interested in music and nineteenth-century European culture will be able to ignore.




Translation and Music


Book Description

Popular and multimodal forms of cultural products are becoming increasingly visible within translation studies research. Interest in translation and music, however, has so far been relatively limited, mainly because translation of musical material has been considered somewhat outside the limits of translation studies, as traditionally conceived. Difficulties associated with issues such as the 'musicality' of lyrics, the fuzzy boundaries between translation, adaptation and rewriting, and the pervasiveness of covert or unacknowledged translations of musical elements in a variety of settings have generally limited the research in this area to overt and canonized translations such as those done for the opera. Yet the intersection of translation and music can be a fascinating field to explore, and one which can enrich our understanding of what translation is and how it relates to other forms of expression. This special issue is an attempt to open up the field of translation and music to a wider audience within translation studies, and to an extent, within musicology and cultural studies. The volume includes contributions from a wide range of musical genres and languages: from those that investigate translation and code-switching in North African rap and rai, and the intertextual and intersemiotic translations revolving around Mahler's lieder in Chinese, to the appropriation and after-life of Kurdish folk songs in Turkish, and the emergence of rock'n roll in Russian. Other papers examine the reception of Anglo-American stage musicals and musical films in Italy and Spain, the concept of 'singability' with examples from Scandinavian languages, and the French dubbing of musical episodes of TV series. The volume also offers an annotated bibliography on opera translation and a general bibliography on translation and music.




The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville


Book Description

This work is a complete English translation of the Latin Etymologies of Isidore, Bishop of Seville (c.560–636). Isidore compiled the work between c.615 and the early 630s and it takes the form of an encyclopedia, arranged by subject matter. It contains much lore of the late classical world beginning with the Seven Liberal Arts, including Rhetoric, and touches on thousands of topics ranging from the names of God, the terminology of the Law, the technologies of fabrics, ships and agriculture to the names of cities and rivers, the theatrical arts, and cooking utensils. Isidore provides etymologies for most of the terms he explains, finding in the causes of words the underlying key to their meaning. This book offers a highly readable translation of the twenty books of the Etymologies, one of the most widely known texts for a thousand years from Isidore's time.




Western Plainchant


Book Description

Plainchant is the oldest substantial body of music that has been preserved in any shape or form. It was first written down in Western Europe in the eighth to ninth centuries. Many thousands of chants have been sung at different times or places in a multitude of forms and styles, responding to the differing needs of the church through the ages. This book provides a clear and concise introduction, designed both for those to whom the subject is new and those who require a reference work for advanced study. It begins with an explanation of the liturgies that plainchant was designed to serve. It describes all the chief genres of chant, different types of liturgical book, and plainchant notations. After an exposition of early medieval theoretical writing on plainchant, Hiley provides a historical survey that traces the constantly changing nature of the repertory. He also discusses important musicians and centers of composition. Copiously illustrated with over 200 musical examples, this book highlights the diversity of practice and richness of the chant repertory in the Middle Ages. It will be an indispensable introduction and reference source on this important music for many years to come.