In musical notation, obbligato indicates that an instrument or voice is essential and not to be omitted. However, some composers have used this term with the opposite meaning in mind: that an instrument or voice may be omitted if so desired. Generally, the older the notation, the more likely it is that obbligato retains its original meaning of an 'obliged', essential part. Research Obbligato
In music an oblique motion is a kind of motion or progression in which one part ascends or descends, while the other prolongs or repeats the same tone. Research Oblique Motion
The oboe is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. It is a double-reed wind instrument with a wood body and narrow conical bore invented by the French musicians Jean Hotteterre and Michel Philidor, who modified the louder shawm (the prevailing double-reed instrument) for indoor use. Their oboe, called hautbois, as was the shawm, had a narrower bore than the shawm' s, a body in three sections instead of one, and a smaller reed grasped near its tip by the player's lips (on a shawm the mouth encloses the entirereed, the lips resting on a wooden disk at the base of the reed) . By 1700 most orchestras included a pair of oboes. Early oboes had seven finger holes and two keys; by the 1700s, four-keyed models were also in use. In the 1800s additional keys were added, reaching fifteen or more, and the bore and sound holes were redesigned.
Oboes of the French school (played in most countries today) have a very narrow bore and a penetrating, focused sound. Those of the German school (also played in Vienna and Vienna-influenced countries) have a wider bore and a more easily blending sound. The range of the modern oboe extends two and one-half octaves upward from the B below middle C. Composers of solo works for the oboe include George Frideric Handel, Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, Robert Schumann, and Carl Nielsen. Research Oboe
An oboe d'amore is a type of oboe pitched a minor third lower than the oboe itself. It is used chiefly in the performance of baroque music. Research Oboe d'amore
The ocarina is a small wind instrument consisting of a pipe pierced with holes for the fingers. They are usually made of terra-cotta, but sometimes of metal. The modern ocarina originated in Italy in the early 19th century and gained popularity among street players and was made in families from soprano to bass for ensemble playing. Research Ocarina
An octave is the eighth tone in the scale; the interval between one and eight of the scale, or any interval of equal length; an interval of five tones and two semitones. The term octave is also applied to the whole diatonicscale itself. The ratio of a musical tone to its octave above is 1: 2 as regards the number of vibrations producing the tones. Research Octave
The ombgwe is a South African flute comprising a hollow nsala fruit joined to a bamboopipe. The round end is bored with up to four finger holes to affect different pitches, and the instrument is played with one hand, leaving the other hand free for a shaken idiophone. Research Ombgwe
An open diapason is a certain stop in an organ, in which the pipes or tubes are formed like the mouthpiece of a flageolet at the end where the wind enters, and are open at the other end. Research Open Diapason
Opera is a stage entertainment consisting of a play sung to music in its entirety, with no spoken dialogue at all. Opera originated in Italy around 1600 and has subsequently spread throughout the world. Research Opera
An opera comique was a type of opera, not necessarily comic, current in France during the 19th century and characterised by spoken dialogue. It originated in satirical parodies of grand opera. Research Opera comique
The ophicleide was a brass wind instrument, now replaced by the brasstuba, developed about the beginning of the 19th century from an ancient wind instrument called the serpent. It had a bell bottom, conical tube, and cupped mouthpiece, and usually contained eleven keys. Alto and double- bass forms of the instrument were constructed: but it was usually set in C, and had its music written in the bass clef. Research Ophicleide
An oratorio is a sacred musical composition of an extended nature, the words generally taken from Scripture. The term 'oratorio' comes from the Oratory in which Saint Philip Neri assembled his congregation to listen to tentative experiments of the kind.
The first oratorios dealt almost exclusively with Christ's sufferings, and consisted chiefly of antiphonies and short choruses. Italian composers, such as Scarlatti and Carissimi, subsequently selected other Biblical subjects for treatment, but it was not until Handel operated on the form that oratorio assumed its highest power and interest. Handel's Messiah still remains the most popular of all oratorios, the leader in a series, which includes Israel in Egypt, Samson, and Judas Maccabceus. After Handel, as a master of oratorio, came Felix Mendelssohn, whose Elijah and Saint Paul which are both highly regarded. Haydn's Creation stands in a manner by itself, the style being somewhat light and the text a hybrid recast of Scripture and Milton's Paradise Lost. Research Oratorio
Originally, an orchestra was a semi-circular space in front of a stage where in Ancient Greek theatre the chorus sang and danced. Today the term applies to a body of instrumental performers and also to the part of the theatre where they are positioned. The orchestra is faced by a conductor in the middle, who stands with his back to the audience, and the performers have set locations in front of him. The first violins are positioned at the front-left of the orchestra, the violas in the centre with the cellos to their left and the harp to the front-right, and other instruments simularly arranged with the percussion at the back and left and the trombones at the centre back and the tuba at the back-right corner.
The modern use of orchestral accompaniment to dramatic music was begun in Italy and France about the beginning of the 17th century, Monteverde of Mantua probably having most to do with its development. In his opera Orfeo, produced in1608, he employed an orchestra of thirty-six instruments, consisting of harpsichords, violins, viols, lutes, guitars, organs of wood, trumpets, flutes, and other instruments. Orchestral music gradually developed into a separate branch of music. Comparatively early, the violin became the leading instrument a position which it has maintained and subsequently all instruments of the viol class were discarded in favour of the violin, viola, violoncello, and double bass. This family of instruments constitutes what is termed the
full-stringed band.
The different kinds of instruments used in the modern orchestra and their numerical proportion to one another are determined partly by the size of the combination and partly by the nature of the works to be performed. An example of a typical orchestra contains fourteen first violins, twelve second violins, ten violas, eight violoncellos, eight double-basses, one harp, three flutes, one piccolo, three oboes, one cor anglais, three clarinets, one bass clarinet, three bassoons, one contra fagotto, four horns, four trumpets and cornets, three trombones, one bass tuba, three kettledrums (also known as tympani), one side drum, one bass drum, one triangle, and one pair of cymbals. The manner in which the tones of the different instruments are blended or contrasted in an orchestral composition is termed orchestration or instrumentation. Orchestral music, apart from its use in connection with works of a dramatic nature, received little attention until the beginning of the 18th century. Amongst those most intimately associated with its development are Johann Sebastian Bach, Christoph Willibald Von Gluck, Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Schubert, Robert Schumann, Felix Mendelssohn, Hector Berlioz, Wilhelm Wagner, Johannes Brahms, Peter Tchaikovsky, Antonin Dvorak, and Richard Strauss. Research Orchestra
In music, an organ is a wind instrument containing numerous pipes of various dimensions and kinds, which are filled with wind from a bellows, and played upon by means of keys similar to those of a piano, and sometimes by foot keys or pedals.
Stainer described the history of the organ as 'nothing more than a narrative of the efforts made by men to bring under the control of one performer a large number of the instruments called flutes'. The particular sort of pipe or flute, the use of which led eventually to the construction of an organ, was the flute-d'bec or beak-flute that is, a pipe with a mouth-piece, which was placed against the lips to receive the breath of the player. The first step in organ building was to set several flutes
on end over a box of wind supplied by bellows. The contrivance known as Paris Pipes, a
graduated series of open pipes fixed together, may have furnished the idea for this. Early organs have not survived, but we know that the Romans had musical instruments similar to an organ and the keyboard was invented, in the 6th or 7th century, the early keys being so large and clumsy that
they had to be struck with the clenched fist. As late as the 12th century, the compass did not exceed
two octaves, usually without semitones.
An organ set up in Winchester Cathedral in 951 was the largest then known, having twenty-six pairs of bellows operated by seventy men. This instrument had ten keys, with forty pipes to each key. Gradually the keys approximated more to the modern form, though for long the sharps were white and the naturals black, the reverse of the present colours.
Early in the 15th century the important addition of pedals or keys for the feet was made. This now
essential feature of the organ progressed quickly in Germany, where it originated, but was slow in reaching England. Another important invention was the swell, the enclosing of a complete department in a box, the front of which is constructed on the Venetian-blind principle, so that the sound 'swells' out or diminishes under the control of a foot-pedal. The swell was first applied by Abraham Jordan to a London church organ in 1712. Research Organ
In music, the organ point is a passage in which the tonic or dominant is sustained continuously by one part, while the other parts move. Research Organ Point
Orphism was a mystic cult of ancient Greece, believed to have been drawn from the writings of the legendary poet and musician Orpheus. Fragmentary poetic passages, including inscriptions on gold tablets found in the graves of Orphic followers from the 6th century BC, indicate that Orphism was based on a cosmogony that centred on the myth of the god DionysusZagreus, the son of the deities Zeus and Persephone. Furious because Zeus wished to make his son ruler of the universe, the jealous Titans dismembered and devoured the young god. Athena, goddess of wisdom, was able to rescue his heart, which she brought to Zeus, who swallowed it and gave birth to a new Dionysus. Zeus then punished the Titans by destroying them with his lightning and from their ashes created the human race. As a result, humans had a dual nature: the earthly body was the heritage of the earth-born Titans; the soul came from the divinity of Dionysus, whose remains had been mingled with that of the Titans. According to the tenets of Orphism, people should endeavour to rid themselves of the Titanic or evil element in their nature and should seek to preserve the Dionysiac or divine nature of their being. The triumph of the Dionysiac element would be assured by following the Orphic rites of purification and asceticism. Through a long series of reincarnated lives, people would prepare for the afterlife. If they had lived in evil, they would be punished, but if they had lived in holiness, after death their souls would be completely liberated from Titanic elements and reunited with the divinity. Research Orphism
In music, an overtone is one of the harmonics faintly heard with and above a tone as it dies away, produced by some aliquot portion of the vibrating sting or column of air which yields the fundamental tone; one of the natural harmonicscale of tones, as the octave, twelfth, fifteenth, etc. Research Overtone
An overture is a piece of music for the opening of a concert. For a considerable period, overtures existed only in the form of a short instrumental introduction to an operatic work. Lully was the first to develop the overture to dimensions of importance, and the form originated by him was still further enlarged by Henry Purcell, George Frideric Handel, and others. Christoph Willibald Von Gluck was the earliest of the operatic composers who wrote the overture in a form which portrays the dramatic action of the work it proceeds; in overtures belonging to this class that to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Magic Flute is second only to the greatest of all - Ludwig van Beethoven's Leonara No. 3. Some operatic overtures consist entirely of subject-matter contained in the following work; in this form Weber and Wilhelm Wagner have left unrivalled examples. The title is also given to orchestral productions written solely for concert use. Research Overture
Abbreviations
Music
Research Obbligato
