Hi Andrew,

The reason i find my question interesting (if I may say so) is that there
seemed to be so much nationalism and fervour about the superiority of
French music if you were French, German music if you were German, Italian
music if you were Italian, and so on, for every nation you can think of. I
would have expected it to be natural for German speakers to use German
words for dynamics. Given that Italian was by no means a lingua franca
across Europe at any time - although Latin was - I find it surprising how
Italian terms came to prominence in musical notation all of a sudden, and
why non-Italian speaking nations adopted the convention. Grove Online gives
an argument in the article on dynamics suggesting something along the lines
that dynamics were basically invented in Italian vocal practice, and the
use of dynamics as a musical parameter or axis or dimension (my
terminology) spread from there. That still does not imply that Italian
terms should have automatically been applied to an Italian musical concept.

I note that Praetorius introduced ‘pian’ and ‘fort’. Perhaps as an
influential German writer he started this off in Germany? Or was he merely
reporting on already established practice?

Was it fashion? Like Prada and Gucci and Armani? The eternal appeal of
Italian style?

Andrew


On 30 May 2016 at 10:34:15 PM, Andrew Appel wrote:

Well. I wonder about terminology moving north! Schutz spent loads of time
in Venice. Wrote those Italian madrigals. Froberger influenced by italian
toccatas ricercares etc. Muffat and Corelli. Handel and italian everything.
Bach and Vivaldi. Caldara in Vienna. Pizza!!!

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