Paraphrase (music)

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Paraphrase (Greek para = 'to', next to and fraseïn = 'talk', 'say') describes the reworking and implementation of an existing work in the context of another style area.

Musical meaning

A paraphrase here is understood to mean freely playing around or embellishing a melody. The paraphrase is to be placed approximately between the two poles of the transcription or the arrangement , and the variation and improvisation on a theme or an entire work.

The paraphrase in the 19th century

In the 19th century music, the term refers to a fantasy about just popular, mostly of songs and operas originating melodies which frequently with additional virtuoso be provided ingredients and otherwise freely edited , arranged or transcribed can be. The artistic value of these concert fantasies , mostly in the area of salon music , mostly written for the piano , is now generally no longer estimated as high as at the time of their creation. Well-known examples are the paraphrases of Franz Liszt (paraphrase on Verdi's operas Ernani and Rigoletto , 3 paraphrases on Swiss melodies, the paraphrase on the wedding march and elves from Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night's Dream , as well as Dance of Death. Paraphrase on dies irae for piano and orchestra ).

The paraphrase in popular music

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker (March) was published in January 1962 by B. Bumble & the Stingers as a nut rocker in a boogie piano arrangement . The number two hit Hello Muddah hello Fadduh by Allan Sherman with a funny text about a student's changeable summer camp stay (August 1963) was based on Amilcare Ponchielli's dance of the hours . Paraphrasing has been a popular stylistic device, particularly in Baroque Rock / Symphonic Rock , which was heavily influenced by classical music. Mention should be made of Procol Harum's million seller A Whiter Shade of Pale with Bach's Wachet on, calls us the voice ( BWV 140 ; May 1967), The Nice with the Allegro from Bach's Third Brandenburg Concerto (LP Ars Longa Vita Brevis ; December 1968) or the Dutch group Ekseption with the Fifth Symphony in C minor by Ludwig van Beethoven (May 1969), which is often taken up in popular music . This is also the most famous “classic reef ”. It is the opening motif from “Beethoven's Fifth Symphony” with the distinctive three eighth notes on G, which is followed by a long id in the same dynamic ( fortissimo ). Beethoven's work, which was completed in spring 1808, made the sequence of these four notes so famous that it was often adapted in paraphrases (in addition to ekseption, the intro in Roll Over Beethoven by the Electric Light Orchestra , January 1973) or as the basis for the number one hit A Fifth of Beethoven by Walter Murphy (May 1976) serves.

The first performed on December 3, 1942 Saber Dance by Aram Khachaturian in the Presto came in an equally fast-paced instrumental version on 22 November 1968 as Saber Dance with the blues rock group Love Sculpture (Lead Guitar: Dave Edmunds ) (extended to 4:50 minutes) on the market, Ekseption released their version in March 1969 with an interplay of piano, organ and wind instruments.

Textual paraphrases

In the field of sacred music, the term is used for the textual revision of Psalms and other Bible passages . The hymns of the 16th and 17th centuries are often paraphrases of biblical or early church texts. So, for example, does not have to be the man from Nicolaus Bruhns , which is a paraphrase of Job 7.1 LUT . These revisions can in turn become the basis for new paraphrases, such as recitatives and arias by Johann Sebastian Bach , which in turn are based on songs by Martin Luther . An example of this is the cantata From Deep Not, BWV 38, which is based on the Luther song From Deep Not I Scream to You ( Evangelical Hymn Book 299), which in turn is based on Psalm 130  LUT .

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