Robert Franz was a German song-composer. He was born in 1815 at Halle and died in 1892. In 1841 he was appointed city organist in Halle and in 1859 master of music to the university and director of the symphony concerts. He wrote around 250 songs and also edited some of the work of Bach and George Frideric Handel before deafness compelled his retirement in 1868. Research Robert Franz
The allemande is a dance in moderate two-fold time. It was invented by the French during the reign of Louis XIV and is now mostly found in suites of pieces, like those of Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel. Research Allemande
An aria is a musical composition for solo voice with instrumental accompaniment, usually forming part of an opera, oratorio, or cantata. It provides a lyrical pause in the dramatic action, during which a character can comment on some aspect of the drama. Often it is also a difficult piece, designed to display the singer's skill. The aria originated in Italy in the late 16th century as a short solo song, particularly a strophic song. Composers of the early 17th century developed the 'strophic-bass' aria, in which the bass remained constant for each stanza, while the melody was varied. These strophic-bass arias were subsequently adopted by early opera composers such as the Italian Claudio Monteverdi.
Shortly before 1650 a new aria form appeared, which dominated operatic music until about 1750. This was the da capo aria, written in three sections: ABA. To indicate the repeated A section, composers simply wrote the direction da capo after the B section. The da capo aria developed into a long musical structure with the B section usually in a contrasting but related key. An instrumental introduction usually preceded the A section, and an instrumental interlude separated the A and B sections. Many singers took advantage of the repeated A section, using it as a vehicle for virtuosic improvised variations.
Alessandro Scarlatti, helped establish the nearly universal use of the da capo aria. Later the 18th-century German-born composer George Frideric Handel used it extensively in his operas and oratorios, and his contemporary Johann Sebastian Bach used it in his oratorios and cantatas. In the late 18th century, operatic reformers such as the German Christoph Von Gluck, reacting against the da capo aria, employed a variety of aria forms. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and others often used arias with two contrasting sections, and the one-section cavatina also became popular.
The romanticism of the 19th century fostered wide variety in aria forms. In the late 19th century Wilhelm Wagner dispensed with the aria almost completely in his mature works, favouring a continuous span of music rather than a separation of action and lyrical comment. Although many 20th-century opera composers follow Wilhelm Wagner' s example, others use arias of many different formats. Research Aria
Imeneo is an opera in three acts by George Frideric Handel anonymously adapted from Stampiglia's 1723 Imeneo during 1738 to 1740 and first produced in London in 1740. Research Imeneo
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 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
A roulade is a smoothly running passage of short notes (such as semi-quavers, or sixteenths) uniformly grouped, and sung upon one long syllable, as in George Frideric Handel's oratorios. Research Roulade
A serenata is a piece of vocal music, especially one on an amorous subject. The name serenata was given by Italian composers in the time of George Frideric Handel, and by George Frideric Handel himself, to a cantata of a pastoral of dramatic character, to a secular ode, etc; also by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and others to an orchestral composition, in several movements, midway between the suite of an earlier period and the modern symphony. Research Serenata
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Abbreviations
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