Bravura

Look up bravura in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
For other uses, see Bravura (disambiguation).

In classical music, a bravura is a style of both music and its performance intended to show off the skill of a performer. [1] Commonly it is a virtuosic passage performed as a solo, and often in a cadenza.

The term implies "effect for effect's sake". Therefore, while many pieces of Beethoven do require a high skill, they are not described as "bravura". Fuller-Maitland suggests the following arias as examples of bravura: Let the bright Seraphim, "Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen" (Act II of The Magic Flute) and "Non più mesta" from La Cenerentola. [1]

Musical terms "allegro di bravura" and "con bravura" indicate boldness, fire and brilliancy.[1]

The term "bravura" also refers to daring performance in ballet, e.g., in reference of the pas de deux from Le Corsaire.[2] Lynn Garafola describes the Russian ballet school of Marius Petipa as "marrying the new Italian bravura technique to its more lyrical French counterpart".[3]

References

  1. 1 2 3 John Alexander Fuller-Maitland, A dictionary of music and musicians (A.D. 1450-1889) p. 271-272
  2. ↑
  3. ↑ The Cambridge Companion to Ballet, p. 151
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 8/14/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.