Cycle (music)
Cycle ( Greek: κύκλος , kýklos or Latin: cyclus "circle") describes a multi-part composition in music . Although valid as a generic term for all forms of multi-part musical works, it is mainly used when no other common form names are available. Although z. For example, sonatas , symphonies , suites , operas , oratorios , masses, etc. are definitely cycles, but in practice they are only called that way if you want to emphasize their cyclical form. In certain cases, however (e.g. Schumann 's Scenes from Childhood ) one has to rely on the term cycle as the only appropriate form designation.
In contrast to the mere collection of songs or pieces ( music album ), the existence of a context of meaning is characteristic of a cycle. This can be created in the most varied of ways, for example through the variation of a theme , through a certain sequence of keys, or through an overarching poetic idea. In the case of vowel cycles, the context is usually already given by the underlying texts.
Examples (except song and piano cycles):
- Antonio Vivaldi : The Four Seasons
- Johann Sebastian Bach : Christmas Oratorio (cantata cycle)
- Bedřich Smetana : My fatherland
- Richard Wagner : The Ring of the Nibelung
- Mussorksky - Ravel : Pictures at an Exhibition
- Karlheinz Stockhausen : LIGHT
literature
- Lemacher-Schröder: Form theory of music . Music publishers Hans Gerig, Cologne 1962.
- Marc Honegger, Günther Massenkeil (ed.): The great lexicon of music. Updated special edition. Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau a. a. 1987, ISBN 3-451-20948-9 .
- Clemens Kühn: Theory of Forms in Music. Bärenreiter, Kassel 1987.
- Ingo Müller: "One in all and all in one": On the aesthetics of the cycle of poems and songs in the light of romantic universal poetry. In: Wort und Ton, ed. by Günter Schnitzler and Achim Aurnhammer (= Rombach Sciences: Litterae series, vol. 173), Freiburg i. Br. 2011, pp. 243-274.
