Scan 90
The New Encyclopedia Of Music And Musicians, 1929
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1without losing identity. In elaborateness and variety of application, therefore, Wagner's use of the device went far beyond anything attempted by Loewe in his ballads or Weber in his operas or by any of the classical symphonists.
3Lento. An indication of slow tempo (usually intermediate between adagio and largo); see Terms of Performance. Also a work or passage in such tempo. G.
5Lesser. In harmony, same as minor.
7Lesser appoggiatura, a short or quick appoggiatura.
9Lesson, Leçon. A name used in the 17–18th centuries for such instrumental pieces as were combined into partite, ordres or suites. G.
11Letter-name. An alphabetic name or symbol for a tone, a pitch, a key (of the keyboard), a degree (of the staff) or a note on such a degree and denoting a tone or pitch; see Notation, Keyboard and Staff. Sometimes opposed to syllable-name.
13Lexicons of Music. See Dictionaries.
15Libraries, Musical. The striking advance in the scientific study of music-history during the past few decades has called attention to the wealth of source-material contained in the libraries and archives of Europe. This material is not only accumulated in the great national collections at capitals like Vienna, Berlin, Paris and London, but is also profusely scattered in the possession of countless smaller cities and towns, of courts and noble families, of cathedrals and religious houses, of conservatories and various musical organizations and of individual collectors. As to the magnitude of this material it is enough to examine the pages of such a summary as Eitner's stately Quellen-Lexikon (1899–1904), with the serial studies that preceded and followed it.
17The primary division of this bibliographical wealth consists of music itself, particularly in the form of autographs or early manuscript-copies, original published editions or those later editions and collected republications as rest on originals. But with this is closely associated whatever throws authentic light on the history of performance, of instruments, of the theory of composition, of institutions expository or educational, of criticism and pedagogical effort, and all sorts of data bearing upon the lives and personalities of musicians, especially those who have most affected the current of progress.
19Associated with this primary material is the multitude of historical and critical summaries of fact and inference that proceed from the workshops of investigators, analysts and educators who seek to mass together, codify and annotate what the sources contain and indicate, so as to facilitate the growth of knowledge and culture on the part of the average student and inquirer. The literature that is thus always gathering about music itself is not only extensive, but in many cases of extreme practical value. It includes various kinds of dictionaries and similar books of reference, the larger historical summaries, both general and special, a host of biographies, various analyses and critiques of styles and works, manuals and text-books in practical composition and interpretation, studies in the physical, psychological and philosophical aspects of musical art, etc. These are relatively accessible to all libraries and it is in such secondary material that many libraries are strong even when they contain little or nothing in the way of 'sources.' G.
21For information about particular libraries in Europe and America, see the articles in Grove's Dictionary, ii. 690–720, and vi, 271, and in Riemann's Musiklexikon, 10th ed., 122–3, with the works there mentioned. Of special value as a conspectus of the theory of the subject is the Classification issued by the Music Division of the Library of Congress (1904). The Bulletin of the U. S. Bureau of Education (1921) is also important as concerns American libraries.
23Libretto. The literary text of an extended vocal composition (like an opera, oratorio or cantata), whether or not published separately from the music. The author or editor of such a text is called a librettist. G.
25The original meaning of the term is 'booklet,' referring to the form in which texts for operas have usually been put forth for the use of listeners (cf. opera-book). Many important works, especially oratorios and cantatas, have utilized poetic texts that were not made in the first instance for specific musical setting. But in the early history of the opera the exigencies of the form itself, combined with various conditions in its first development, tended to make the writing of librettos a specialty, if not a mere trade. The mechanical ideal of the librettist's art continued as long as the stereotyped notion of the opera remained supreme, and has not yet been wholly laid aside. But from the time of Gluck, still more after the form of the opera began to be varied in the early 19th century and, most of all, when Wagner set up his strenuous doctrine of the intimate union of poetry and music in his dramas, the function of the libretto has tended to regain its rightful dignity.
27Among the numerous librettists prior to 1800 the most famous were Apostolo Zeno (from 1696), Pietro Metastasio (from 1724) and Carlo Goldoni (from 1735), but many others might be added, like Aurelio Aureli (from 1652), G. A. Moniglia (from 1661), G. C. Corradi (from 1674), Philippe Quinault (from 1674), Francesco Silvani (from 1683), Silvio Stampiglia (from 1697), Ranciro da Calzabigi (from 1762), Giovanni Bertati (from 1770) and Lorenzo da Ponte (from 1783). In the early 19th century the most fertile librettists were Gaetano Rossi of Venice and Eugène Scribe of Paris, each of whom supplied about 100 texts. Wagner was his own librettist throughout, developing not only a novel method of construction, but even a novel style of verse. The composer Boito supplied texts for many of the strongest works of Verdi's last period and of his immediate followers.
29From the literary point of view the usual standard of oratorio-librettos is far above that of opera-librettos, although their total number is relatively small and their popular appeal more limited.
31License. In counterpoint or harmony, an intentional deviation from regular procedure; it may be permissible or unwarranted according to the point of view of the critic.
33The term is often used in a more general sense, meaning a deviation from custom, as in the treatment of a form or in a particular method of performance.
35Licenza. A kind of epilogue appended to some of the older operas, sometimes as a conclusion to the action, but often in compliment to those under whose patronage the performance took place.
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