*** Welcome to piglix ***

Barcarole


A barcarolle (from French, also barcarole; originally, Italian barcarola or barcaruola, from barca 'boat') is a traditional folk song sung by Venetian gondoliers, or a piece of music composed in that style. In classical music, two of the most famous barcarolles are Jacques Offenbach's "Belle nuit, ô nuit d'amour", from his opera The Tales of Hoffmann; and Frédéric Chopin's "Barcarolle in F-sharp major" for solo piano.

A barcarolle is characterized by a rhythm reminiscent of the gondolier's stroke, almost invariably in 6/8 meter at a moderate tempo.

While the most-famous barcarolles are from the Romantic period, the genre was well-enough known in the 18th century for Burney to mention, in The Present State of Music in France and Italy (1771), that it was a celebrated form cherished by "collectors of good taste".

The barcarolle was a popular form in opera, where the apparently artless sentimental style of the folklike song could be put to good use. In addition to the Offenbach example: Paisiello, Weber, and Rossini wrote arias that were barcarolles; Donizetti set the Venetian scene at the opening of Marino Faliero (1835) with a barcarolle for a gondolier and chorus; and Verdi included a barcarolle in Un ballo in maschera (i.e., Richard's atmospheric "Di’ tu se fidele il flutto m’aspetta" in Act I). The traditional Neapolitan barcarolle "Santa Lucia" was published in 1849.


...
Wikipedia

...