cacophony
The term cacophony or cacophony (from ancient Greek κακός kakós “bad” and φωνή phōné “loud, tone, voice”) describes sounds and noises in music and literature that sound particularly harsh, unpleasant or unaesthetic. The opposite is euphony .
In music , dissonances are often referred to and felt as cacophonic. That is why cacophony is also defined as “discord, discord”. Modern art music in particular is often pejoratively equated with cacophony by critics and listeners alike. In the historical context, the music of Richard Strauss, and in it the Elektra, was called "cacophony" by critics. Even Dmitri Shostakovich's opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk was by the Soviet state power in the Pravda called article "Muddle Instead of Music" as a cacophony.
Other uses
In linguistics , cacophony describes bad-sounding sequences of sounds or words. The term originates in this regard from the ancient rhetoric and is mostly polemical used to describe a perceived as ugly sound phenomenon and evaluate. The use is subject to the respective taste ideas.
Harsh sounding words are used in poetry to form cacophonies, e.g. B. word compositions with difficult to speak, noisy clusters of consonants such as knitted stocking .
The term cacophony is sometimes used in politics to denote discrepancies and discrepancies, e.g. B. to describe in a coalition. In December 2002, the German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder criticized politicians of his own coalition who speculated about tax increases with the words: "This kind of cacophony, even from within our own ranks, is absolutely unsuitable for a common policy". With this in mind, Cacophony was voted 4th in the 2002 Word of the Year election.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Paul Frank (Ed.), Revised by Wilhelm Altmann: Taschenbüchlein des Musikers . 28th edition, published by Carl Merseburger, Leipzig 1925, p. 74.
- ↑ Chancellor's word of power: No more red-green cacophony. In: RP Online. December 2, 2002, accessed January 2, 2019 .