Mezza voce, normal loudness of sound.
Affettuoso.
(Or agrémens. Nouns in -ment often lose the final ‘t’ in plural form.) Graces, embellishments sometimes indicated by a sign. The agréments are integral parts of the musical grammar and cannot be omitted, even when they are not written in the score. ‘Those who unreasonably hold forth that the French ornaments only obscure the melody or harmony and are composed only of trills, have not properly considered the matter … There is a greater number and variety of ornaments than many believe … There are easily four thing which work against this most important part of the melody, which certain idle scoffers consider useless: namely omission, impropriety, excess, and incompetence.’ (Georg Muffat, Florilegium secundum, 1695.) The following are examples of a few types of principal agréments presented in their respective contexts – in the fourth line, balancement, also called flattement, means ‘(finger) vibrato’ (Alexandre de Villeneuve, Nouvelle méthode … pour apprendre la musique et les agréments du chant, 1733):
1. Tune, piece. — 2. In vocal music: aria, i.e. all measured chants that are not recitatives.
Lovingly.
Lively. More or less like Gai, Vif (see below).
Quite, pretty. Assez lent, ‘pretty slow’.
With.
Basso continuo, thorough bass. ‘It will be absolutely necessary to use a Bass Viol, and a Theorbo, or a Harpsichord, or both together; but I believe that the Theorbo is to preferred to the Harpsichord: for it seems to me that the sound of the gut strings are better suited to the sound of the Transverse Flute than brass strings.’ (Michel de La Barre, Avertissement of Premier livre de pièces pour la flûte traversière, 1710, translated by Charles Whitfield.)
Half note, minim.
A sort of tender, sentimental and very popular song. Its name, according to Christophe Ballard’s Avertissement (Brunettes…, 1703), comes from the refrain of Le beau berger Tircis: ‘Ah! little brunette, / Ah! you make me die’. Air de cour-style diminution is often added to the later verses (see DOUBLE).
(Also spelled champestre.) Rustic, rural, e.g. rondeau champêtre, ‘country rondo’.
1.Singing. — 2. Song, chant. — 3. Melody.
Eighth note, quaver.
See POINTÉ.
Of (from, for, by, to…). In some cases, this preposition indicates the manner in which a piece should be performed: ‘with’ – e.g. d’une légèreté gracieuse, ‘with a graceful lightness’ (Jacques-Martin Hotteterre’s indication in his opus 6 duo, 1717).
Literally ‘with taste’, i.e. with French ornaments. ‘Goût du chant [taste in melody], in music: this is what is called in France the art of singing the notes with the appropriate agréments [ornaments]’ (Denis Diderot, Encyclopédie, 1751–65). In his treatise (Traité général des élémens du chant, 1766), Mons. Martin de Lacassagne begins the chapter entitled Observations on taste with these words: ‘This is where we usually put the article on agréments’. Similarly, he points out in the section on agréments that ‘one should early on train the ear and the throat to certain vocal inflections that clarity [propreté] and taste in singing [goût du chant] often require’. See PROPREMENT (synonym) and AGRÉMENTS.
See À DEMI.
Treble instrument (or soprano voice). Suite pour deux dessus, ‘suite for two treble instruments’.
Detached. A shortening of a sound, also called aspiration or son coupé. Often used before an ornament (as articulation silence), in fast movements (staccato), and in other places.
Decrescendo.
Ornamentation, diminution, division of a piece containing only the always obligatory ornaments, called agréments. It means either 1. an air de cour-style diminution of a piece in a slow or moderate tempo (e.g. sarabande, brunette), see Jean Millet (1666), La Belle Méthode ou l’Art de bien chanter; Bertrand de Bacilly (1668), Remarques curieuses sur l’Art de bien chanter; Father Marin Mersenne (1636), Harmonie universelle; or 2. a division of a fast movement (e.g. courante in 3/4, canarie).
Sixteenth note, semiquaver.
Double tongue (did’ll).
Gently and slowly.
Sorrowfully, doloroso.
Piano, soft.
Swelled note (crescendo).
Also called flûte douce, fluste d’Angleterre… Recorder.
Also called flûte allemande, flûte d’Allemagne, fluste d’allemand… Transverse flute (German flute).
Proud, proudly.
1. Forte, loud. — 2. Very (synonym of très), e.g. fort tendrement, ‘very tenderly’.
Allegro. From the 1730s, this word can also refer to the character of the music regardless of tempo.
(Also spelled goust.) Taste. See also DE GOÛT.
(Sometimes spelled gratieusement.) Gracefully, grazioso, and in a moderate tempo.
Gravely, solemnly, and slowly. Usually somewhat faster than lent.
The same character as GRAVE (see above), but not necessarily slow.
Breath mark in Michel Blavet’s works.
(Also spelled hardy.) Brave, valiant, courageously.
High tenor.
(Or CROCHES, NOIRES… INÉGALES.) Inequality, unequal notes. Hierarchical order between the nature of essential and passing notes: one long and one short. The intensity of this difference is determined by the character and tempo of the musical context, the phrasing and articulation, ranging from near-equal to piqué (sharply dotted), and often varying within a measure, just as there are hardly two identical syllables in a declamation. Generally speaking, Father Marie-Dominique-Joseph Engramelle indicates that a 3:1 ratio is suitable for a number of marches, 2:1 for a moderate “trumpet menuet”, and a less marked 3:2, 7:5, etc. for many other menuets (Tonotechnie, 1775). Quarter notes are played unequally in 3/2 time. Eighth notes are unequal in 2, ¢, 3, 3/4, 6/4. Sixteenth notes are unequal in C, 2/4, 2/8, 3/8, 6/8, 9/8, 12/8 – and rarely in ¢ when beaten in four, with sixteenth notes. Several repeated notes and very disjunct motions are ordinarily equal (although there are always exceptions, like the first three repeated eighth notes in the anacrusis of La Marseillaise, written equal but sung piqué). These values also become equal when they are mixed with a shorter value (e.g. in chaconnes, when sixteenth notes are introduced among the eighth notes) – in which case, the shorter notes become unequal. Dots placed above or below the notes indicate that they are equal (not to be confused with staccato dots). Following an equal section, dotted notes may indicate the return of inequality. Contrary to modern custom, quick tempo has never been a reason to remove inégalité. See also NOTES ÉGALES.
Al Fine, until the word ‘end’.
Light, lightly, swift, allegro moderato.
Slow, slowly.
To slur, slurred. According to Michel de La Barre’s Avertissement (Pièces pour la flûte traversière, 1702), when two notes are slurred, a tremblement (also called cadence, trill) is made on the second note if the interval is descending, and a battement (also called pincé, mordent) when the interval is ascending. This rule applies to each pair of slurred notes (even in a fast gigue, and even in the continuo line) but not to unequal notes (like eighth notes slurred by two in a menuet).
To slur somewhat unequally and PESAMMENT (see below). (From loure, a sort of bagpipe from Normandy during the 16th and 17th centuries, on which the dance of the same name was played.) ‘Lourer is a way of singing that consists of giving a bit more time and strength to the first of two notes of like value, for example two quarter notes, two eighth notes, etc., than to the second, without however playing the note pointé [unequal] or piqué [sharply dotted]’ (Sébastien de Brossard, Dictionnaire de musique, 1703).
But.
Majestic, majestically.
1. To express the beats of each measure clearly and regularly. — 2. When referred to articulation, it takes on the meaning of marcato, indicated by little pikes over or under the notes.
(Also spelled mesme.) Same.
Regularly, not freely, tempo giusto. In operas: a tempo, return to the correct tempo after a deviation (rubato) or an unmeasured (non mesuré) recitative.
Moderato, in a moderate tempo, between lent and gai.
Less.
Literally ‘movement’. 1. ‘A degree of quickness or slowness, which the character of the piece we execute gives to the measure. Every kind of measure has a movement peculiar to itself, and which is designed in Italian by these words, tempo giusto [correct tempo]. But besides this, there are five principal modification of movement, which, in the order from slow to quick, are expressed by the words largo, adagio, andante, allegro, presto; and these words in English are rendered, by slow, moderate, pleasing, gay, quick. We must, however, take notice, that, the movement always having much less precision in the French music, the words that express it have a sense much more vague than in the Italian. Each of these degrees is sub-divided and modified into others also, in which we must distinguish those which express the degree only of quickness or slowness, as larghetto, andantino, allegretto, prestissimo, and those, moreover, which mark the character and expression of the air, as agitato, vivace, gustoso, combrio [sic], &c. The first may be rendered by all the musicians, but there are only those whish have sentiment and taste, who feel and render the others. Tho’, in general, slow movements are suitable to sorrowful passions, and animated movements to the gay, there are, however, often modifications by which a passion speaks on the tone of another. It is true, that gayety cannot be expressed with slowness, but often the most lively griefs have the most unbounded language.’ (Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Dictionnaire de musique, 1768.) — 2. De mouvement: ‘Thus one says a mouvement gai, a mouvement lent, a mouvement vif, etc., and in this sense it also often means an equalness that is regular and clearly marked for all the beats of the measure. It is in this sense that recitatives are not sung de mouvement and that the menuet, the gavotte, the sarabande, etc., are airs de mouvement.’ (Sébastien de Brossard, Dictionnaire de musique, 1703.)
(Also spelled muzette.) ‘A kind of air suitable to the instrument of this name, whose measure is two or three timed, the character sweet and original, the movement a little slow, bearing generally a bass in a the line or point of the organ, such as may make it a musette, and which is so called on account of this bass. On these airs we form the dances of a suitable character, and which also have the name of musettes.’ (Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Dictionnaire de musique, 1768.)
Noble, nobly.
Quarter note, crotchet.
(Or CROCHES, NOIRES… ÉGALES.) (Also spelled nottes egales.) Equal notes, without inégalité (equal eighth notes, quarter notes, etc.). Dots placed above or below the notes (that would normally be unequal) indicates that they should be played equally – not to be confused with the later staccato dot.
See POINTÉ.
Repeat something. On reprend le 1er menuet, ‘repeat the first menuet’. L’on reprend le commencement (jusqu’au mot Fin), ‘da capo (al Fine)’.
Not.
Lento, tardo, heavily. ‘Tempi, and consequently the notes, are slow and of long duration’ (Sébastien de Brossard, Dictionnaire de musique, 1703). ‘In a manner that is not vif and animé’ (Dictionnaire de Trévoux, 1738).
Piccolo.
Little, partial repetition, i.d. a second repetition of the last phrase of a strain, sometimes written out as a DOUBLE (see above) of the original phrase.
1. Sharply dotted, more than pointé (unequal). See also INÉGALITÉ. — 2. From the late 18th century: staccato.
Plaintive, sounding sad and sorrowful.
More.
Softer.
Più forte, louder than the previous dynamic level. Not too loud if the previous marking was très doux (pianissimo).
1. See PAS. — 2. Dot.
(Or CROCHES, NOIRES… POINTÉES.) Unequal notes. See INÉGALITÉ.
Literally ‘properly’, i.e. with French ornaments. ‘To sing or play properly [proprement], is to execute the French melody with the ornaments suitable to it. This melody being nothing by the force only of the sounds, and having no character by itself, takes one only by the affected turnings given to it in its execution. These turnings, taught by the masters of the taste in singing [goût du chant], are what are called the graces of the French music [agréments du chant français].’ (Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Dictionnaire de musique, 1768.) ‘One should early on train the ear and the throat to certain vocal inflections that clarity [propreté] and taste in singing [goût du chant] often require’ (Mons. Martin de Lacassagne, Traité général des élémens du chant, 1766). See DE GOÛT (synonym) and AGRÉMENTS.
Da capo.
See ON REPREND…
Repetition. See also PETITE REPRISE.
Whole note, semibreve.
In the 18th century: andante. In a moderate tempo with some forward movement (slightly less slowly than gracieusement), with regularity, without abruptness.
Without.
Without slowness.
Alone, solo. In orchestral music: flûtes seules, only flutes (without violins).
Sound. SON DIMINUÉ: see DIMINUÉ. SON ENFLÉ: see ENFLÉ.
Messa di voce.
A slight delay of a note. Affective ornament (a sort of rubato).
‘Syncopation means the joining of two notes belonging to different beats of a bar … expressed as follows: t, hé’ (Charles de Lusse, L’Art de la flûte traversière, ca. 1760). Accent falls on the middle of the note, i.e. on the strong part of the beat (tu-HU), where generally there is also a dissonance.
Tenor.
(Also spelled tems fort, tems foible.) Downbeat, upbeat.
Tender, tenderly, touching.
Turn the page (quickly), volti (subito).
Tutti.
Very.
Pianissimo, very soft.
Fortissimo, very loud.
Very slowly.
Prestissimo.
Sad, sadly.
Too (much), troppo.
A bit, un poco. Un peu plus vite, a bit faster.
Vivace, with life and spirit, in a lively character, but not necessarily vite (fast).
(Also spelled viste, vîte.) Presto
See VIF.
Clément Lefèvre is a French flautist. Primarily a baroque, renaissance, and classical flute player, he is also interested in medieval counterpoint. He regularly performs in concerts and modern world premieres resulting from the musicological researches of the Centre de musique baroque de Versailles. He has played in the ranks of various internationally renowned orchestras, and has contributed to over twenty recordings. He graduated from Conservatoire de Paris (CNSMDP) and Conservatoire de Versailles.
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