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Instru Mental Music: Instru mental Musicmental Music. The same adjustment of means to occasion distinguishes Handel's Instru mental Musicmental music. This ranges from numerous harpsichord works for domestic and Instru mental Musicctional use to the Water Music and Fireworks Music involving the broader effects required in open-air performance. The duet and chamber sonatas often develop, with economy and charm, ideas used elsewhere. In the concerti grossi, especially the great set of 12 (Opus 6), Handel carried the baroque concerto to a peak of invention and varied design.
Over a period of almost 15 years, Purcell provided incidental music for more than 40 dramas by Dryden, Congreve, Shadwell, and others and composed more ambitious scores for productions of such plays as The Fairy Queen (1692), probably written by Dryden, and Bonduca (1695), attributed to Beaumont and Fletcher. Instru mental Musicmental pieces from this considerable body of work appeared in Ayres for the Theatre (1697).
This concept is manifest in ya yiieh (ritual music) and the music for ch'in (zither). Ya yiieh is closely related to the idea of order in the universe and to the elements in nature. Pitches and Instru mental Musicments, when carefully ordered, are believed capable of regulating the affairs of state and the minds and passions of people. Ch'in music is especially associated with man's spiritual life. Each excitation of the strings and subsequent inflections in pitch and timbre are controlled to express poetic and philosophical contemplations. Besides the dominating influence of Confucianism, the solo music for ch'in and other Instru mental Musicments also bears the imprint of Taoist and Buddhist thought.
Prehistory. According to prehistoric legends, music began with the mythical emperor Fu Hsi. |
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