Italian Musical Terms Used In English
A great many musical terms are in Italian. This is because many of the most important early composers from the Renaissance to the Baroque period were Italian, and that period is when numerous musical indications were used extensively for the first time. (See also sheet music.)
Here are some of these expressions:
| Italian term | Literal translation | Definition |
Read more about Italian Musical Terms Used In English: Musical Forms, Musical Instruments, Voices, Tempo, Dynamics - Volume, Moods, Musical Expression (general), Directions, Techniques, Roles, Criticism, Musical Direction
Famous quotes containing the words italian, musical, terms and/or english:
“If the study of his images
Is the study of man, this image of Saturday,
This Italian symbol, this Southern landscape, is like
A waking, as in images we awake,
Within the very object that we seek,
Participants of its being.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“Fifty million Frenchmen can’t be wrong.”
—Anonymous. Popular saying.
Dating from World War I—when it was used by U.S. soldiers—or before, the saying was associated with nightclub hostess Texas Quinan in the 1920s. It was the title of a song recorded by Sophie Tucker in 1927, and of a Cole Porter musical in 1929.
“The great pagan world of which Egypt and Greece were the last living terms ... once had a vast and perhaps perfect science of its own, a science in terms of life. In our era this science crumbled into magic and charlatanry. But even wisdom crumbles.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“I am sure my bones would not rest in an English grave, or my clay mix with the earth of that country. I believe the thought would drive me mad on my death-bed could I suppose that any of my friends would be base enough to convey my carcass back to her soil. I would not even feed her worms if I could help it.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)