Gradus ad Parnassum

Last updated

The Latin phrase gradus ad Parnassum means "a step towards Parnassus". [1] It is sometimes shortened to gradus. Parnassus is the prominence of a mountain range in central Greece, a few kilometres north of Delphi, of which the two summits, in Classical times, were called Tithorea and Lycoreia . In Greek mythology, one of the peaks was sacred to Apollo and the nine Muses, the inspiring deities of the arts, and the other to Dionysus. [2] The phrase came to be used by authors of various books of instruction with the aid of which gradual progress and mastery in an art or scholarly discipline is sought.

Contents

Classics

The first application of the phrase is to a kind of Latin or Greek dictionary, in which the quantities of the vowels are marked in the words, to help beginners to understand the principles of Latin verse composition, in relation to the values of the metrical feet.

The Gradus ad Parnassum made famous under the name of Jesuit Paul Aler (1656–1727), [3] a schoolmaster, published in 1686, presented anew an earlier Thesaurus attributed to Pierre Joulet, sieur de Chastillon (1545–1621). [4] This was not a general dictionary but a thesaurus of synonyms, epithets, verses and phrases in classical poetic usage. The work in Alers' form existed into the 19th century with the definitions as well as the entries written in Latin. Known to many generations of students throughout Europe, and passing through numerous editions, 19th century English-speaking schoolchildren knew the 1818 revision by Dr John Carey (1756–1826) [5] simply as 'Carey's Gradus'. It was specially intended for the study and appreciation of Latin poetry of the classical period, and to aid students in the practice of verse composition. There is also a Latin gradus by C.D. Yonge (1850); English-Latin by AC Ainger and HG Wintle (1890); Latin-French by F.J.M. Noël (1810); Greek by Thomas Morell (1762, new ed. ed. by E. Maltby, Bishop of Durham, 1815); John Brasse (1828).

The large general dictionaries of Greek and Latin adopted this pattern of information. For example, the Liddell-Scott-Jones Greek-English Lexicon (1843) and its current derivatives give quantity information where it is crucial and where it is available; so do Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short's A Latin Dictionary (1879) and its derivatives. The synonyms, epithets, poetical expressions and extracts became incorporated under the more important headings.

Yonge

Charles Duke Yonge published A gradus ad Parnassum: For the use of Eton, Westminster, Harrow, and Charterhouse schools, King's college, London, and Marlborough college in 1850 a work that was still in print in 1902, by then titled ...For the use of Eton, Westminster, Harrow, Charterhouse and Rugby schools, King's college, London, and Marlborough college and bound with A Dictionary of Epithets: Classified according to their English meaning.

Music and art

Works entitled Gradus ad Parnassum include:

Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum is a satirical piano composition by Claude Debussy, from his suite Children's Corner , poking fun at one or the other of these sets of exercises (Czerny's, according to Myriam Chimènes's notes to the Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli version).

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor wrote a nonet, his Op. 2, subtitled Gradus ad Parnassum, not as a pedagogical work but to display composition skills while he was a student at London's Royal College of Music. [7]

Ad Parnassum is a significant painting in the divisionist style by Paul Klee. [8]

Since the year 2000, the name Gradus ad Parnassum was incorporated as the name of a small music school in New Jersey, Gradus ad Parnassum Inc.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Muzio Clementi</span> Italian-English composer and pianist (1752–1832)

Muzio Filippo Vincenzo Francesco Saverio Clementi was an Italian-British composer, virtuoso pianist, pedagogue, conductor, music publisher, editor, and piano manufacturer, who was mostly active in England.

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1725.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Étude</span> Type of instrumental musical composition

An étude or study is an instrumental musical composition, usually short, designed to provide practice material for perfecting a particular musical skill. The tradition of writing études emerged in the early 19th century with the rapidly growing popularity of the piano. Of the vast number of études from that era some are still used as teaching material, and a few, by major composers such as Frédéric Chopin, Franz Liszt and Claude Debussy, achieved a place in today's concert repertory. Études written in the 20th century include those related to traditional ones and those that require wholly unorthodox technique.

This is a list of music-related events in 1819.

Children's Corner, L. 113, is a six-movement suite for solo piano by Claude Debussy. It was published by Durand in 1908, and was first performed by Harold Bauer in Paris on 18 December that year. In 1911, an orchestration by André Caplet was premiered and subsequently published.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Johann Joseph Fux</span> Austrian composer (1660–1741)

Johann Joseph Fux was an Austrian composer, music theorist and pedagogue of the late Baroque era. His most enduring work is not a musical composition but his treatise on counterpoint, Gradus ad Parnassum, which has become the single most influential book on the Palestrinian style of Renaissance polyphony.

In Western music and music theory, augmentation is the lengthening of a note or the widening of an interval.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Louise Farrenc</span> French composer and pianist (1804–1875)

Louise Farrenc was a French composer, virtuoso pianist and teacher of the Romantic period. Her compositions include three symphonies, a few choral works, numerous chamber pieces and a wide variety of piano music.

Charles Duke Yonge was an English historian, classicist and cricketer. He wrote numerous works of modern history, and translated several classical works. His younger brother was George Edward Yonge.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lorenz Christoph Mizler</span> German music historian and polymath (1711–1778)

Lorenz Christoph Mizler von Kolof was a German physician, historian, printer, mathematician, Baroque music composer, and precursor of the Enlightenment in Poland.

In music, voice crossing is the intersection of melodic lines in a composition, leaving a lower voice on a higher pitch than a higher voice. Because this can cause registral confusion and reduce the independence of the voices, it is sometimes avoided in composition and pedagogical exercises.

Jakob Dont was an Austrian violinist, composer, and teacher.

Rolv Berger Yttrehus was an American composer of contemporary classical music.

Pieter Snapper is a mastering engineer, producer, and composer of contemporary classical and electronic music, living in Istanbul, Turkey. His works have been played in the U.S., Europe, and Asia by groups such as KammarensembleN in Stockholm, and Klangforum in Vienna. He has received awards from BMI, ASCAP, UC Berkeley, the Union League Foundation, and commissions from the Fromm Foundation at Harvard University, Yamaha Corporation of America, the ensemble Eighth Blackbird, and the Memphis Symphony Orchestra.

John Carey LL.D. (1756–1826) was an Irish classical scholar.

Georg Aenotheus Koch was a German classical philologist and lexicographer.

References

  1. ↑ Zhu, X. (December 2023). "Gradus ad Parnassum: Step or Steps?". Notes and Queries. 70 (4): 270–1. doi:10.1093/notesj/gjad098.
  2. ↑ Warrington, John. (1961) Everyman's Classical Dictionary, J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd., London. See also J. Carey, Gradus ad Parnassum (Stationers', London 1914), 404.
  3. ↑ Early editions of Aler's work Gradus ad Parnassum: Novus synonymorum, epithetorum, versuum ac phrasium poeticarum thesaurus carry a reproduction of the Imprimatur of Robert Midgley, September 30th 1686.
  4. ↑ Pierre Joulet, Synonymorum et Epithetorum Thesaurus (Paris 1652): see A. de Baecker, Publications de la Compagnie de Jésus (Somervogel), Vol. I (1890), columns 164–166. cf Hugh Chisholm, in Encyclopædia Britannica (1910) VIII, p. 192.
  5. ↑ Carey drew upon the revision of Aler by Thomas Morell (1703–84), which was further improved by Adam Dickinson (S. Doig & A. Stirling, Edinburgh 1813).
  6. ↑ Jean Rondeau - The Official Website
  7. ↑ Samuel Coleridge-Taylor: Nonet, Piano Trio, Piano Quintet Apple Music, 27 May 2022, Retrieved 27 May 2022.
  8. ↑ The Artchive
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.