Round (Music)

Round (music)
A round (also called a perpetual canon [canon perpetuus]

or infinite canon) is a musical composition, a limited type of
canon, in which a minimum of three voices sing exactly the
same melody at the unison (and may continue repeating it
indefinitely), but with each voice beginning at different times
so that different parts of the melody coincide in the different
voices, but nevertheless fit harmoniously together.[2] It is one
of the easiest forms of part singing, as only one line of melody
need be learned by all parts, and is part of a popular musical
"Up and Down This World Goes
tradition. They were particularly favoured in glee clubs, which
Round", three voice round by
combined amateur singing with regular drinking,[3] especially Matthew Locke .[1] Play
at 21: "Catch-singing is unthinkable without a supply of liquor
to hand..."). The earliest known rounds date from 12th century
Europe.
"Row, Row, Row Your Boat" is a well-known children's round for four
voices. Other well-known examples are "Frère Jacques", "Three Blind
Mice", and, more recently, "God Only Knows" by The Beach Boys (the
first usage in contemporary pop music). [4]
A catch is a round in which a phrase that is not apparent in a single line

of lyrics emerges when the lyrics are split between the different voices.
"Perpetual canon" refers to the end of the melody leading back to the
beginning, allowing easy and immediate repetition. Often, "the final Traditional German
cadence is the same as the first measure".[5] round. Play
Contents
History
Mechanics
Classical
See also
References
Cited souces
History
The term "round" first appears in English in the early 16th century, though the form was found
much earlier. In medieval England, they were called rota or rondellus. Later, an alternative term
was "roundel" (e.g., David Melvill's manuscript Ane Buik off Roundells, Aberdeen, 1612). Special
types of rounds are the "catch" (a comic English form found from about 1580 to 1800), and a
specialized use of the word "canon", in 17th- and 18th-century England designating rounds with
religious texts.[2] The oldest surviving round in English is "Sumer Is Icumen In" [4] Play , which
is for four voices, plus two bass voices singing a ground (that is, a never-changing repeating part),
also in canon. However, the earliest known rounds are two works with Latin texts found in the
eleventh fascicle of the Notre Dame manuscript
Pluteo 29.1. They are Leto leta concio (a two-voice
round) and O quanto consilio (a four-voice round).
The former dates from before 1180 and may be of
German origin.(Falck 1972, pp. 43–45, 57) The first
published rounds in English were printed by
Thomas Ravenscroft in 1609... "Three Blind Mice"
Play appears in this collection, although in a
somewhat different form from today's children's "Three Blinde Mice" (1609). Play
round:
Three Blinde Mice,

three Blinde Mice,
Dame Iulian,
Dame Iulian,
The Miller and his merry olde Wife,
shee scrapte her tripe licke thou the knife.
"Tod und Schlaf", a four voice round

Mechanics by Joseph Haydn[6] Play
The canon, or rule, of a simple round is that each

voice enters after a set interval of time, at the same
pitch, using the same notes.[7]
What makes a round work is that after the work is divided into equal-sized blocks of a few
measures each, corresponding notes in each block either are the same, or are different notes in the
same chord. This is easiest with one chord, as in "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" Play :
Play round
A new part can join the singing by starting at the beginning whenever another part reaches any
asterisk in the above music. If one ignores the sixteenth notes that pass between the main chords,
every single note is in the tonic triad—in this case, a C, E, or G.
Many rounds involve more than one chord, as in "Frère Jacques" Play :
Play round
The texture is simpler, but it uses a few more notes; this can perhaps be more easily seen if all four
parts are run together into the same two measures:
The second beat of each measure does not sketch out a tonic triad, it outlines a dominant seventh
chord (or "V7 chord").
Classical
Serious composers who turned their hand to the round format
include Thomas Arne, John Blow, William Byrd, Henry
Purcell, Louis Hardin, Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus
Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Benjamin Britten (for
example, "Old Joe Has Gone Fishing", sung by the villagers in
the pub to keep the peace, at the end of act 1 of Peter Grimes)
.[9] Examples by J. S. Bach include the regular canons, Var. 3
and Var. 24 of the Goldberg Variations, and the perpetual "Viva, Viva la Musica", three voice
canons, Canon 7 of The Musical Offering and Canon a 2 round by Michael Praetorius (1571–
Perpetuus (BWV 1075). [10] Several rounds are included 1621)[8] Play
amongst Arnold Schoenberg's thirty-plus canons, which
"within their natural limitations ... are brilliant pieces,
containing too much of the composer's characteristically unexpected blend of seriousness,
humour, vigour and tenderness to remain unperformed".[11]
See also
Pervading imitation
Voice crossing
Voice exchange
References
1. MacDonald & Jaeger 2006, p. 15.
2. Johnson 2001.
3. Aldrich 1989, p. introductory essay, 8–22.
4. Hoffman 1997, p. 40.
5. Walton 1974, p. 141.
6. & Norden 1970, p. 195.
7. Mead 2007, p. 371.
8. MacDonald & Jaeger 2006, p. 8.
9. Howard 1969, p. 15.
10. Smith 1996.
11. Neighbour 1964, p. 681.
Cited souces
Aldrich, Henry (1989). Robinson, B. W.; Hall, R. F. (eds.). The Aldrich Book of Catches.
London: Novello.
Falck, Robert (1972). "Rondellus, Canon, and Related Types before 1300". Journal of the
American Musicological Society. 25 (1 (Spring)): 38–57.
Hoffman, Miles (1997). The NPR Classical Music Companion: Terms and Concepts from A to
Z. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 978-0-61-861945-0.. | isbn = 978-1-43-529404-2}} }}
Howard, Patricia (1969). The Operas of Benjamin Britten; An Introduction. New York and
Washington: Frederick A. Praeger, Publishers.
Johnson, David (2001). Sadie, Stanley; Tyrell, John (eds.). Round. The New Grove Dictionary
of Music and Musicians. London: Macmillan Publishers. ISBN 978-1-56-159239-5.
MacDonald, Margaret Read; Jaeger, Winifred (2006). The Round Book: Rounds Kids Love to
Sing. Little Rock: August House. ISBN 978-0-87-483786-5.
Mead, Sarah (2007). Kite-Powell, Jeffery 343–73 (ed.). Renaissance Theory. A Performer's
Guide to Renaissance Music (2nd ed.). Bloomington: Early Music Institute Indiana University
Press. ISBN 978-0-253-34866-1.
Neighbour, Oliver W. (1964). "Schoenberg's Canon's". The Musical Times. 105 (1459
(September)): 680–81.
Norden, Hugo (1970). The Technique of Canon. Branden Books. ISBN 978-0-82-831839-6.
Smith (1996). Anatomy of a Canon (http://www2.nau.edu/tas3/canonanatomy.html). The
Canons and Fugues of J. S. Bach.
Walton, Charles W (1974). Basic Forms in Music. New York: Alfred Publishing Co. ISBN 978-0-
88-284010-9.
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A round (also called a perpetual canon [canon perpetuus]

A catch is a round in which a phrase that is not apparent in a single line

Three Blinde Mice,

"Tod und Schlaf", a four voice round

The canon, or rule, of a simple round is that each

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Round_(music)&oldid=989243409"

This page was last edited on 17 November 2020, at 21:31 (UTC).

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