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Landini cadence -
A pattern used at the end of phrases in the renaissance. In *solfeggio it is represented by 'ti, la, do'. It sounds odd to our ears because we are used to hearing cadences which use "ti, do".
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Laredo, Jaime (as violist) -
Mr. Laredo is quite well known as a violist as well as violinist. It is he who is the viola soloist on the NJSO's recording of John Harbison's Viola Concerto.
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Larghetto -
"A little large"; slowly, but not so slowly as Largo.
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Largo -
Large, i.e. slowly.
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Largo e spiccato -
Broadly and marked by the bow 'flying' off the strings.
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Leading motives -
see Leitmotif
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Leading tone -
A tone which naturally proceeds to the next tone a half-step up. In a major scale this is step seven (VII) and has a strong tendency to move to step one, a half-step up. It "pulls the ear" and gets its "leading" name that way.
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Lee Hoiby -
A living American composer. He has a large body of choral and vocal music which is increasingly popular with singers because it plays well with audiences without being cheap or cloying. He also has a rip-roaring piano concerto that should become popular with pianists as soon as they discover it.
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Left hand (conductor beating time with) -
is very unusual. Musicians are quite used to watching the right hand for the beat. But being a lefty seems to work quite well for Craig Denison of the American Boychoir and Westminster Schola Cantorum.
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Left hand pizzicato -
Usually *pizzicato is executed with the right hand, which holds the bow. Left hand pizzicato is usually a plucking of open strings.
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Legato -
Smoothly, connected.
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Leggierissimo -
Very lightly.
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Leggiero -
Lightly
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Leitmotif -
'Leading (or guiding) motive'; a short musical idea which takes on extra-musical meanings and is thus able to carry an operatic production forward or comment upon it without the use of singers' texts. The appearance of the theme always carries with it that extra meaning like a label.The term and its extensive use were devised by Richard Wagner. Though carrying elements of Berlioz' *idée fixe, it is a much more involved process, designed to give unity to music dramas of great length. The technique was also used by Humperdinck (a Wagner disciple) and Richard Strauss (and others).The famous Siegfried's Rhein Journey is a tone poem which actually can be followed nearly in the manner of a narrative if one is acquainted with the Leitmotif canon of the Ring Cycle. And when Gunther greets Siegfried with 'Hiel, Siegfried, theurer Held,' (Hail, Siegfried, honored hero), he sings the motive of 'The curse.' So we know where that encounter is going.
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Lento -
Slowly.
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Lento assai -
Very slowly.
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Les Six -
A group of six French composers who flourished after WWI. The best known are Francis Poulenc, Darius Milhaud, and Arthur Honegger. The ability to name all six is considered to be a generally useless, though impressive, achievement. Okay, the others were Germaine Tailleferre, Louis Durey, and Georges Auric. Tailleferre's music is becoming more appreciated in the 1990s.
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Libretto -
The sung text of an opera (or musical). The spoken text, if any, is dialogue.
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Lieder -
German for "Songs". But of course more than just that. The term is used for songs setting poetry not of folk derivation. A high degree of textual expressivity is expected from Lieder singers.
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Lift Every Voice and Sing -
The James Weldon Johnson words with music by J. Rosamond Johnson dates from 1921. It is now considered to be the African-American national anthem. It is customary for an audience to stand when it is played. The stirring hymn and hymn tune now appear in many mainline Protestant hymnbooks. It is still under copyright.
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Limited transposition -
Some constructions, since they are made with symmetrical components (like a *whole-tone scale) can only be transposed one or two times. A whole-tone scale, for instance can only appear beginning on, say, "A" and "A-sharp." To transpose it to "B" is to just go to the same pitches as in the scale on "A".
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Line -
Ongoing shape to a vocal melody. Lack of line is an inability to make it coherent and connected.
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Lion roar -
A string is passed through a very tight hole in the head of a drum. The 'roar' is generated by sliding the hand down the string while gripping it.
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Lip-trill -
Alternation of neighboring tones very fast is the trill. The lip part means that the player used nothing but the lips to produce the effect.
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Locrian mode -
One of the early church modes, characterized by half-steps between steps one and two, and steps four and five. This can be played on the white keys of a piano by starting and ending on B.Because it does not have a naturally occurring *perfect fifth from the first tone of the scale, instead having a *diminished fifth, it was considered to be an unusable mode. Indeed, its use was forbidden because the diminished fifth was considered to be "the devil in music."
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"Lots of ink" -
An expression meaning many fast notes.
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Lower case -
Musicians' short hand uses lower case for minor. Thus writing lower case for a key name followed by the word 'minor' is actually redundant.
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Lower neighbor (auxiliary) -
A *non-harmonic tone a step below a harmonic tone which is both preceded and followed by that pitch.
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Luftpause -
German for Air (breath) Pause, or a small break the length of grabbing a breath. The term is used even for string and piano playing.
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Lydian -
One of the early church modes, characterized by half-steps between steps four and five, and steps six and seven. This can be played on the white keys of a piano by starting and ending on F.
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Lyric Suite by Berg -
The composer's musical retelling of an affair he had. Permeating the work is the motive A, B-flat, B-natural, F. Since what for Germans is B is for us B-flat and what is for them H is B for us, we see the letter names of the motive to be Alban Berg (A, B) and Hanna Fuchs-Robettin (H, F). Without this knowledge, the piece can lose some of its intensity.
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Ländler -
Austrian folk-waltz. The popularity of the ball-room waltz had its seed in the earlier popularity of the Ländler. Its word-root is 'land', as opposed to the city, so it could be translated as 'country dance'.
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L'anima della primavera -
'The spirit (or soul) of spring.