Episode (music)

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An episode (Greek έπεισόδιον, insertion, addition) is a part inserted into a composition that plays a subordinate role for the development within the work and is outside the actual thematic work . The following definitions can be found in narrower habitual parlance:

  • In the fugue , the interludes between the performances are called episodes. They use thematic material or have been developed from new motifs and take on the task of modulation . In the fugitive main part of the French overture after 1700, the interludes in the form of trio episodes stand out against the tuttifugation (e.g. JSBachs orchestral overtures ).
  • In works with main thoughts (main parts) recurring like a refrain, such as the rondo , the intermediate links (episodes, also called couplets here ) form a contrast to the main thought.
  • Episodes in sonata form are thematic and motivic insertions that are not processed further and lie outside the actual thematic event (e.g. introduction of a new theme in Beethoven's Sinfonia eroica , bars 284ff.).
  • For opera literature, episode is used in the literary sense as a self-contained insertion that is not directly related to the main plot (lever scene in Rosenkavalier , act 1; romance and aria of Ännchen in Freischütz , act 2).
  • Episode as a work name can be found e.g. B. Reger : Episodes, Piano Pieces op.115.

In a more general and principled way, the episodic means what is added . In this respect, the episodic contrasts with the periodic . A distinction must also be made with the periodical, between the special meaning of the period , which is more narrowly defined in music terminology, and the periodical in principle, which generally relates to the self-contained. An episodic part of music can therefore be more general than the incomplete part that is part of the whole. From this point of view z. B. the parts of a sonata episodically, and only the entire sonata movement is a complete whole. In contrast, z. For example, a fugue theme (be it a single or double theme ) periodically, although it is not referred to as a period in music terminology (see song ) and although it has a conceivably unfinished ending: it does not aim to be an imperfect (see main theme ) on complementary (see secondary topic), but always only on the wholeness (or uniqueness) of oneself.

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