At 2:44 PM -0400 5/30/08, dhbailey wrote:
Robert Patterson wrote:
[snip]> every language came into the language from some other language, and
musical terms in English are no exception.
[snip]
You had me until here -- words have to begin somewhere, so in some
language, each word has been original at some point. :-)
Yes, they ran into that in Israel, when they decided to make Hebrew a
modern, living language again. There were a few millennia when it
was only a ritual language (like Church Latin) that had to be made up
for!
I also point out that in dealing with Italian words in older music
such as by Bach and Mozart and Haydn and people of that vintage (and
into the Classical era and Romantic era as well), those composers
spoke Italian and so their use of any musical terms from Italian is
much more idiomatic and not merely taken from a music dictionary,
and so need to be considered more carefully than, for example, an
American who only speaks English deciding to write Allegro at the
start of a musical work.
You may be aware of things that I am not, David (not difficult!), but
why do you assume that the composers you named spoke Italian? True,
Mozart did travel in Italy, and with his musical ear I'm sure he
picked up as much as he needed, but Bach and Haydn never visited
Italy as far as I know. Handel was in Italy for four years, as was
Muffat before him. French, of course, was the universal language of
diplomacy, and Latin of scholarship and the Roman Catholic Church.
I'm not sure what the language of international business would have
been.
In the movie "Faranelli," Handel (despite the 4 years he spent in
Italy) is depicted as speaking French, not Italian, which surprised
me because I had always assumed that he spoke bad Italian in Italy
and equally bad English in London! But of course we all know how
accurate movies always are!!
I wonder why violins and violas have different genders in Italian?
They're very sexy instruments. Where to you think 16th sized violins
come from?!!!
John
--
John R. Howell, Assoc. Prof. of Music
Virginia Tech Department of Music
College of Liberal Arts & Human Sciences
Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A. 24061-0240
Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034
(mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED])
http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html
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