Info Catalog music-glossary: al niente music-glossary: Musical terms A-Z music-glossary: allegro

music-glossary: alla breve

 
 1.10 alla breve
 ===============
 
 ES: alla breve, I: alla breve, F: alla breve, à la brève, D: Allabreve,
 alla breve NL: ?, DK: ?, S: ?, FI: ?.
 
    [Italian: ‘on the breve’] Twice as fast as the notation indicates.
 
    Also called in cut time.  The name derives from mensural notation,
 where the tactus (or beat) is counted on the semibreve (the modern whole
 note).  Counting ‘on the breve’ shifts the tactus to the next longest
 note value, which (in modern usage) effectively halves all note values.
 
    In mensural notation, breves and semibreves can have a ternary
 relationship, in which case alla breve means thrice (not twice) as fast.
 In practice, this complication may not have mattered, since Gaffurius’s
 system of multiplex proportions makes it easy to explicitly state which
 proportion is needed.
 
 
 See also
 ........
 
DONTPRINTYET     breve, hemiola, mensural notation, *notenote
DONTPRINTYET     breve, hemiola, mensural notation, note

 value, proportion, whole note.
 

Info Catalog music-glossary: al niente music-glossary: Musical terms A-Z music-glossary: allegro