Grave is a tempo mark and mood designation in music. The word originates in the Italian language and means solemn, heavy, or serious. [1] The grave tempo is very slow at a pace of approximately 20-40 musical beats per minute. [2]
The term grave did not become widely associated with a tempo designation until the latter part of the 17th century. Earlier uses of the word grave were done as an adjective or descriptor of a work, but were not associated with a tempo marking. Examples of this earlier use would be Antonio Brunelli's Ballo grave (1616) and Biagio Marini's Symphonia grave (1617). In Venetian polychoral style of the Renaissance and Baroque music era the term grave had a unique musical meaning. This type of music employed two separate choruses divided by space and singing in alternation. The upper voiced choir was referred to as the acuto and the lower voiced choir was named grave. [1]
Francesco Cavalli was among the first composers to use the word grave as a tempo marking, with that term being employed as a performance instruction within his opera Le nozze di Teti e di Peleo (1639). Other early examples of grave being used as a tempo term include Marco Uccellini's Sonate (1646), and Biagio Marini's Op. 22: Per ogni sorte di strumento musicale diversi generi di sonate, da chiesa, e da camera (1655). By the 1680s, the term was common in Italy with Henry Purcell writing in his preface to his Sonnata’s of III Parts (1683) that the term was widely used by Italian composers and musicians to refer to a "very slow movement" and that the term had spread to other parts of Europe. [1]
While today the term grave is widely understood to be slower than the tempo terms largo and adagio, music theorists and composers of the 17th and 18th century were not so consistent in their interpretation and use of these terms, with some composers marking scores with grave but with performance descriptions described elsewhere that would indicate a speed more akin to modern tempos for largo or adagio. [1]
In musical terminology, tempo, also known as beats per minute, is the speed or pace of a given composition. In classical music, tempo is typically indicated with an instruction at the start of a piece and is usually measured in beats per minute (BPM). In modern classical compositions, a "metronome mark" in beats per minute may supplement or replace the normal tempo marking, while in modern genres like electronic dance music, tempo will typically simply be stated in BPM.
In music, a sonata literally means a piece played as opposed to a cantata, a piece sung. The term evolved through the history of music, designating a variety of forms until the Classical era, when it took on increasing importance. Sonata is a vague term, with varying meanings depending on the context and time period. By the early 19th century, it came to represent a principle of composing large-scale works. It was applied to most instrumental genres and regarded—alongside the fugue—as one of two fundamental methods of organizing, interpreting and analyzing concert music. Though the musical style of sonatas has changed since the Classical era, most 20th- and 21st-century sonatas still maintain the same structure.
In music, tremolo, or tremolando, is a trembling effect. There are multiple types of tremolo: a rapid repetition of a note, an alternation between two different notes, or a variation in volume.
The concerto grosso is a form of baroque music in which the musical material is passed between a small group of soloists and full orchestra. This is in contrast to the solo concerto which features a single solo instrument with the melody line, accompanied by the orchestra.
An allemande is a Renaissance and Baroque dance, and one of the most common instrumental dance styles in Baroque music, with examples by Couperin, Purcell, Bach and Handel. It is often the first movement of a Baroque suite of dances, paired with a subsequent courante, though it is sometimes preceded by an introduction or prelude. Along with the waltz and ländler, the allemande was sometimes referred to by the generic term German Dance in publications during the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
The rondo is a musical form that contains a principal theme which alternates with one or more contrasting themes, generally called "episodes", but also occasionally referred to as "digressions" or "couplets". Some possible patterns include: ABACA, ABACAB, ABACBA, or ABACABA.
Ludwig van Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 8 in C minor, Op. 13, commonly known as Sonata Pathétique, was written in 1798 when the composer was 27 years old and was published in 1799. It has remained one of his most celebrated compositions. Beethoven dedicated the work to his friend Prince Karl von Lichnowsky. Although commonly thought to be one of the few works to be named by the composer himself, it was actually named Grande sonate pathétique by the publisher, who was impressed by the sonata's tragic sonorities.
A madrigal is a form of secular vocal music most typical of the Renaissance and early Baroque (1600–1750) periods, although revisited by some later European composers. The polyphonic madrigal is unaccompanied, and the number of voices varies from two to eight, but the form usually features three to six voices, whilst the metre of the madrigal varies between two or three tercets, followed by one or two couplets. Unlike verse-repeating strophic forms sung to the same music, most madrigals are through-composed, featuring different music for each stanza of lyrics, whereby the composer expresses the emotions contained in each line and in single words of the poem being sung.
A variety of musical terms are encountered in printed scores, music reviews, and program notes. Most of the terms are Italian, in accordance with the Italian origins of many European musical conventions. Sometimes, the special musical meanings of these phrases differ from the original or current Italian meanings. Most of the other terms are taken from French and German, indicated by Fr. and Ger., respectively.
Franchinus Gaffurius was an Italian music theorist and composer of the Renaissance.
Tempo rubato is a musical term referring to expressive and rhythmic freedom by a slight speeding up and then slowing down of the tempo of a piece at the discretion of the soloist or the conductor. Rubato is an expressive shaping of music that is a part of phrasing.
Sonata da camera is a 17th-century genre of musical composition for one or more melody instruments and basso continuo. It generally comprises a suite of several small pieces in the same mode or key that are suitable for dancing. A significant number of such works were produced during the mid- to late- 17th century by composers in Germany, including Heinrich Biber, Dietrich Becker, and Johannes Schenck. But the term sonata da camera came into use in Italy during the late 17th century, when the works of composers such as Arcangelo Corelli contributed to the popularity of both the sonata da camera and sonata da chiesa.
Biagio Marini was an Italian virtuoso violinist and composer in the first half of the seventeenth century.
Giovanni Battista Vitali was an Italian composer and violone player.
In music a voluntary is a piece of music, usually for an organ, that is played as part of a church service. In English-speaking countries, the music played before and after the service is often called a 'voluntary', whether or not it is so titled.
Fitzwilliam Sonatas is the name first given by Thurston Dart to an arrangement he made, based on two recorder sonatas by George Frideric Handel, which he recast as a group of three sonatas. The term was applied by later editors to the original two sonatas as Handel wrote them, and was also expanded to encompass several other sonatas for various instruments included in the Handel autograph manuscripts held by the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge.
Tempo giusto is a musical term that means 'in correct time'.
Antonio Vivaldi composed several sonatas for cello and continuo. A set of six cello sonatas, written between 1720 and 1730, was published in Paris in 1740. He wrote at least four other cello sonatas, with two manuscripts kept in Naples, another in Wiesentheid, and one known to be lost.
In 19th-century Italian opera, la solita forma is the formal design of scenes found during the bel canto era of Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti up to the late operas of Verdi. The English phrase—"multipartite form"—is most often used by American musicologist Philip Gossett, beginning with a 1974 essay, where referring to a general framework of melodramatic scene types, especially duets. Each scene gradually progresses from an opening static lyric moment to a finale through several standard musical tempos and set pieces, gradually adding characters and adding or unraveling complexity in the plot.
Tafelmusik is a collection of instrumental compositions by Georg Philipp Telemann (1681–1767), published in 1733. The original title is Musique de table. The work is one of Telemann's most widely known compositions; it is the climax and at the same time one of the last examples of courtly table music.