Tarantella
Encyclopedia
The term tarantella groups a number of different southern Italian couple folk dances
characterized by a fast upbeat tempo, usually in 6/8 time
(sometimes 18/8 or 4/4), accompanied by tambourine
s. It is among the most recognized of traditional Italian music. The specific dance name varies with every region, for instance tammuriata in Campania
, pizzica
in the Salento
region. Tarantella is popular in Italy
as well as in parts of Argentina
.
. It was a ritualistic dance in honor of the god of music and sun, Apollo
, and god of wine, Dionysus
. Ancient Greeks settled in Sicily
, Naples
, and Southern Italy, and continued this beautiful dance to this day.
In the Italian
Taranto
, Apulia
, the bite of a locally common type of wolf spider
, named "tarantula" after the region, was popularly believed to be highly poisonous and to lead to a hysterical condition known as tarantism
. The stated belief in the 16th and 17th centuries was that victims needed to engage in frenzied dancing to prevent death from tarantism using a very rhythmic and fast music. The particular type of dance and the music played became known as tarantella. The oldest documents mentioning the relationship between musical exorcism and the tarantula are dated around 1100. John Compton
has proposed that ancient Bacchanalian rite
s that had been suppressed by the Roman Senate
in 186 BC went underground, reappearing under the guise of emergency therapy for bite victims.
The tradition persists in the area, and is known as "Neo-Tarantism." Many young artists, groups and famous musicians are continuing to keep the tradition alive. The music is very different—its tempo is faster, for one thing—but it has similar hypnotic effects, especially when people are exposed to the rhythm for a long period of time. The music is used in the therapy of patients with certain forms of depression and hysteria, and its effects on the endocrine system
recently became an object of research.
.
The first dance originated in the Naples
region and spread next to Apulia
, Basilicata
and Calabria
, all part of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies
. The Neapolitan tarantella is a courtship dance performed by couples whose "rhythms, melodies, gestures, and accompanying songs are quite distinct" featuring faster more cheerful music. Its origins may further lie in "a fifteenth-century fusion between the Spanish Fandango
and the Moresque
'ballo di sfessartia'." The "magico-religious" tarantella is a solo dance performed supposedly to cure through perspiration the delirium and contortions attributed to the bite of a spider at harvest (summer) time. The dance was later applied as a supposed cure for the behavior of neurotic women (" 'Carnevaletto delle donne' ").
The original legend tells that someone who had supposedly been bitten by the tarantula
(or the Mediterranean black widow) spider had to dance to an upbeat tempo to sweat the poison out.
There are several traditional tarantella groups: "Cantori di Carpino", "Officina Zoé", "Uccio Aloisi gruppu", "Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino", "Selva Cupina", "I Tamburellisti di Torrepaduli".
The tarantella is most commonly played with mandolin
and/or accordion
. Guitar
, flute
, fiddle
, and clarinet
are also used.
appears to be similar to that used in the case of tarantism though little is known about either. Justus Hecker
(1795–1850), describes in his work Epidemics of the Middle Ages:
, Liszt
, Rossini, and Heller.
While most serious proponents speculated as to the direct physical benefits of the dancing rather than the power of the music a mid-18th century medical textbook gets the prevailing story backwards describing that tarantulas will be compelled to dance by violin music. It was thought that the Lycosa tarantula
wolf spider
had lent the name "tarantula
" to an unrelated family of spiders having been the species associated with Taranto, but since the lycosa tarantula is not inherently deadly in summer or in winter, the highly poisonous Mediterranean black widow (Latrodectus tredecimguttatus
) may have been the species originally associated with Taranto's manual grain harvest.
The Tarantella is a dance in which the dancer and the drum player constantly try to upstage each other by dancing longer or playing faster than the other, subsequently tiring one person out first.
is set to Grande Tarantelle for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 67 (ca. 1866) by Louis Moreau Gottschalk
, reconstructed and orchestrated by Hershy Kay
. The nimble quickness of Tarantella provides a virtuosic showcase. The profusion of steps and the quick changes of direction this brief but explosive pas de deux requires typify the ways in which Balanchine expanded the traditional vocabulary of classical dance.
In film
In games
Italian folk dance
Italian Folk Dance has been an integral part of Italian culture for centuries. Dance has been a continuous thread in Italian life from Dante through the Renaissance, the advent of the Tarantella, and the modern revivals of folk music and dance.-Middle Ages:...
characterized by a fast upbeat tempo, usually in 6/8 time
Time signature
The time signature is a notational convention used in Western musical notation to specify how many beats are in each measure and which note value constitutes one beat....
(sometimes 18/8 or 4/4), accompanied by tambourine
Tambourine
The tambourine or marine is a musical instrument of the percussion family consisting of a frame, often of wood or plastic, with pairs of small metal jingles, called "zils". Classically the term tambourine denotes an instrument with a drumhead, though some variants may not have a head at all....
s. It is among the most recognized of traditional Italian music. The specific dance name varies with every region, for instance tammuriata in Campania
Campania
Campania is a region in southern Italy. The region has a population of around 5.8 million people, making it the second-most-populous region of Italy; its total area of 13,590 km² makes it the most densely populated region in the country...
, pizzica
Pizzica
Pizzica is a popular Italian folk dance, originally from the Salento peninsula and later spreading throughout all the Puglia region, the Corsica region and eastern Basilicata. It is part of the larger family of tarantella dances.-Dancing the pizzica:The traditional pizzica is danced while...
in the Salento
Salento
Salento is the south-eastern extremity of the Apulia region of Italy. It is a sub-peninsula of the main Italian Peninsula, sometimes described as the "heel" of the Italian "boot"...
region. Tarantella is popular in Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
as well as in parts of Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
.
History, past and today
Tarantella dance has roots in Ancient GreeceAncient Greece
Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...
. It was a ritualistic dance in honor of the god of music and sun, Apollo
Apollo
Apollo is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in Greek and Roman mythology...
, and god of wine, Dionysus
Dionysus
Dionysus was the god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness and ecstasy in Greek mythology. His name in Linear B tablets shows he was worshipped from c. 1500—1100 BC by Mycenean Greeks: other traces of Dionysian-type cult have been found in ancient Minoan Crete...
. Ancient Greeks settled in Sicily
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
, Naples
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
, and Southern Italy, and continued this beautiful dance to this day.
In the Italian
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
Taranto
Province of Taranto
The Province of Taranto is a province in the Apulia region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Taranto.It has an area of 2,437 km², and a total population of 580,588...
, Apulia
Apulia
Apulia is a region in Southern Italy bordering the Adriatic Sea in the east, the Ionian Sea to the southeast, and the Strait of Òtranto and Gulf of Taranto in the south. Its most southern portion, known as Salento peninsula, forms a high heel on the "boot" of Italy. The region comprises , and...
, the bite of a locally common type of wolf spider
Lycosa tarantula
The tarantula wolf spider or just tarantula is a wolf spider found in southern Europe, especially in Italy and near the city of Taranto...
, named "tarantula" after the region, was popularly believed to be highly poisonous and to lead to a hysterical condition known as tarantism
Tarantism
Tarantism is an alleged, possibly deadly envenomation, popularly believed to result from the bite of a kind of wolf spider called a "tarantula"...
. The stated belief in the 16th and 17th centuries was that victims needed to engage in frenzied dancing to prevent death from tarantism using a very rhythmic and fast music. The particular type of dance and the music played became known as tarantella. The oldest documents mentioning the relationship between musical exorcism and the tarantula are dated around 1100. John Compton
John Compton
Sir John George Melvin Compton, KBE, PC was the first, fifth and eighth Prime Minister of Saint Lucia in 1979, from 1982 to 1996, and from 2006 until his death. Compton, who previously led Saint Lucia under British rule from 1964 to 1979, was the country's first leader when it became independent...
has proposed that ancient Bacchanalian rite
Rite
A rite is an established, ceremonious, usually religious act. Rites in this sense fall into three major categories:* rites of passage, generally changing an individual's social status, such as marriage, baptism, or graduation....
s that had been suppressed by the Roman Senate
Roman Senate
The Senate of the Roman Republic was a political institution in the ancient Roman Republic, however, it was not an elected body, but one whose members were appointed by the consuls, and later by the censors. After a magistrate served his term in office, it usually was followed with automatic...
in 186 BC went underground, reappearing under the guise of emergency therapy for bite victims.
The tradition persists in the area, and is known as "Neo-Tarantism." Many young artists, groups and famous musicians are continuing to keep the tradition alive. The music is very different—its tempo is faster, for one thing—but it has similar hypnotic effects, especially when people are exposed to the rhythm for a long period of time. The music is used in the therapy of patients with certain forms of depression and hysteria, and its effects on the endocrine system
Endocrine system
In physiology, the endocrine system is a system of glands, each of which secretes a type of hormone directly into the bloodstream to regulate the body. The endocrine system is in contrast to the exocrine system, which secretes its chemicals using ducts. It derives from the Greek words "endo"...
recently became an object of research.
Courtship vs tarantism dances
The stately courtship tarantella danced by a couple or couples, short in duration, is graceful and elegant and features characteristic music. On the other hand, the supposedly curative or symptomatic tarantella was danced solo by a supposed victim of a "tarantula" bite; it was agitated in character, lasted for hours or even up to days, and featured characteristic music. However, other forms of the dance were and still are couple dances (not necessarily a couple of different sexes) usually either mimicking courtship or a sword fight. The confusion appears to arrive from the fact that the spiders, the condition, its sufferers ("tarantolati"), and the dances all have similar names to the city of TarantoTaranto
Taranto is a coastal city in Apulia, Southern Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Taranto and is an important commercial port as well as the main Italian naval base....
.
The first dance originated in the Naples
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
region and spread next to Apulia
Apulia
Apulia is a region in Southern Italy bordering the Adriatic Sea in the east, the Ionian Sea to the southeast, and the Strait of Òtranto and Gulf of Taranto in the south. Its most southern portion, known as Salento peninsula, forms a high heel on the "boot" of Italy. The region comprises , and...
, Basilicata
Basilicata
Basilicata , also known as Lucania, is a region in the south of Italy, bordering on Campania to the west, Apulia to the north and east, and Calabria to the south, having one short southwestern coastline on the Tyrrhenian Sea between Campania in the northwest and Calabria in the southwest, and a...
and Calabria
Calabria
Calabria , in antiquity known as Bruttium, is a region in southern Italy, south of Naples, located at the "toe" of the Italian Peninsula. The capital city of Calabria is Catanzaro....
, all part of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies
Kingdom of the Two Sicilies
The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, commonly known as the Two Sicilies even before formally coming into being, was the largest and wealthiest of the Italian states before Italian unification...
. The Neapolitan tarantella is a courtship dance performed by couples whose "rhythms, melodies, gestures, and accompanying songs are quite distinct" featuring faster more cheerful music. Its origins may further lie in "a fifteenth-century fusion between the Spanish Fandango
Fandango
Fandango is a lively couple's dance, usually in triple metre, traditionally accompanied by guitars and castanets or hand-clapping . Fandango can both be sung and danced. Sung fandango is usually bipartite: it has an instrumental introduction followed by "variaciones"...
and the Moresque
Moors
The description Moors has referred to several historic and modern populations of the Maghreb region who are predominately of Berber and Arab descent. They came to conquer and rule the Iberian Peninsula for nearly 800 years. At that time they were Muslim, although earlier the people had followed...
'ballo di sfessartia'." The "magico-religious" tarantella is a solo dance performed supposedly to cure through perspiration the delirium and contortions attributed to the bite of a spider at harvest (summer) time. The dance was later applied as a supposed cure for the behavior of neurotic women (" 'Carnevaletto delle donne' ").
The original legend tells that someone who had supposedly been bitten by the tarantula
Tarantula
Tarantulas comprise a group of often hairy and often very large arachnids belonging to the family Theraphosidae, of which approximately 900 species have been identified. Some members of the same Suborder may also be called "tarantulas" in the common parlance. This article will restrict itself to...
(or the Mediterranean black widow) spider had to dance to an upbeat tempo to sweat the poison out.
There are several traditional tarantella groups: "Cantori di Carpino", "Officina Zoé", "Uccio Aloisi gruppu", "Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino", "Selva Cupina", "I Tamburellisti di Torrepaduli".
The tarantella is most commonly played with mandolin
Mandolin
A mandolin is a musical instrument in the lute family . It descends from the mandore, a soprano member of the lute family. The mandolin soundboard comes in many shapes—but generally round or teardrop-shaped, sometimes with scrolls or other projections. A mandolin may have f-holes, or a single...
and/or accordion
Accordion
The accordion is a box-shaped musical instrument of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone family, sometimes referred to as a squeezebox. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist....
. Guitar
Guitar
The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
, flute
Flute
The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...
, fiddle
Fiddle
The term fiddle may refer to any bowed string musical instrument, most often the violin. It is also a colloquial term for the instrument used by players in all genres, including classical music...
, and clarinet
Clarinet
The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...
are also used.
Tarantism
Reportedly, victims who had collapsed or were convulsing would begin to dance with appropriate music and be revived as if a tarantula had bitten them. The music used to treat dancing maniaDancing mania
Dancing mania was a social phenomenon that occurred primarily in mainland Europe between the 14th and 17th centuries. It involved groups of people, sometimes thousands at a time, who danced uncontrollably and bizarrely...
appears to be similar to that used in the case of tarantism though little is known about either. Justus Hecker
Justus Hecker
Justus Friedrich Karl Hecker was a German physician and medical writer, whose works appear in medical encyclopaedias and journals of the time...
(1795–1850), describes in his work Epidemics of the Middle Ages:
A convulsion infuriated the human frame [...]. Entire communities of people would join hands, dance, leap, scream, and shake for hours [...]. Music appeared to be the only means of combating the strange epidemic [...] lively, shrill tunes, played on trumpets and fifes, excited the dancers; soft, calm harmonies, graduated from fast to slow, high to low, prove efficacious for the cure.The music used against spider bites featured drums and clarinets, was matched to the pace of the victim, and is only weakly connected to its later depiction in the tarantellas of Chopin
Frédéric Chopin
Frédéric François Chopin was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist. He is considered one of the great masters of Romantic music and has been called "the poet of the piano"....
, Liszt
Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...
, Rossini, and Heller.
While most serious proponents speculated as to the direct physical benefits of the dancing rather than the power of the music a mid-18th century medical textbook gets the prevailing story backwards describing that tarantulas will be compelled to dance by violin music. It was thought that the Lycosa tarantula
Lycosa tarantula
The tarantula wolf spider or just tarantula is a wolf spider found in southern Europe, especially in Italy and near the city of Taranto...
wolf spider
Wolf spider
Wolf spiders are members of the family Lycosidae, from the Ancient Greek word "" meaning "wolf". They are robust and agile hunters with good eyesight. They live mostly solitary lives and hunt alone. Some are opportunistic hunters pouncing upon prey as they find it or even chasing it over short...
had lent the name "tarantula
Tarantula
Tarantulas comprise a group of often hairy and often very large arachnids belonging to the family Theraphosidae, of which approximately 900 species have been identified. Some members of the same Suborder may also be called "tarantulas" in the common parlance. This article will restrict itself to...
" to an unrelated family of spiders having been the species associated with Taranto, but since the lycosa tarantula is not inherently deadly in summer or in winter, the highly poisonous Mediterranean black widow (Latrodectus tredecimguttatus
Latrodectus tredecimguttatus
Latrodectus tredecimguttatus, commonly known as the Mediterranean black widow or steppe spider, is a species of widow spiders in the genus Latrodectus. It is commonly found throughout the Mediterranean region, ranging from Spain to southwest and central Asia, hence the name...
) may have been the species originally associated with Taranto's manual grain harvest.
The Tarantella is a dance in which the dancer and the drum player constantly try to upstage each other by dancing longer or playing faster than the other, subsequently tiring one person out first.
Grand Tarantelle ballet
The Balanchine ballet TarantellaTarantella (ballet)
Tarantella is a ballet made by New York City Ballet co-founder and balletmaster George Balanchine to Louis Moreau Gottschalk's Grand Tarantelle for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 67 , reconstructed and orchestrated by Hershy Kay...
is set to Grande Tarantelle for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 67 (ca. 1866) by Louis Moreau Gottschalk
Louis Moreau Gottschalk
Louis Moreau Gottschalk was an American composer and pianist, best known as a virtuoso performer of his own romantic piano works...
, reconstructed and orchestrated by Hershy Kay
Hershy Kay
Hershy Kay was an American composer, arranger, and orchestrator. He is most noteworthy for the orchestrations of several Broadway shows, and for the ballets he arranged for George Balanchine's New York City Ballet....
. The nimble quickness of Tarantella provides a virtuosic showcase. The profusion of steps and the quick changes of direction this brief but explosive pas de deux requires typify the ways in which Balanchine expanded the traditional vocabulary of classical dance.
Classical music
- Benjamin BrittenBenjamin BrittenEdward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten, OM CH was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He showed talent from an early age, and first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work A Boy Was Born in 1934. With the premiere of his opera Peter Grimes in 1945, he leapt to...
wrote a Tarantella as the third movement of his Sinfonietta for Chamber Orchestra, Op. 1. - Mario Castelnuovo-TedescoMario Castelnuovo-TedescoMario Castelnuovo-Tedesco was an Italian composer. He was known as one of the foremost guitar composers in the twentieth century with almost one hundred compositions for that instrument. In 1939 he migrated to the United States and became a film composer for some 200 Hollywood movies for the next...
wrote a Tarantella for solo guitar, Op. 87b - Frédéric ChopinFrédéric ChopinFrédéric François Chopin was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist. He is considered one of the great masters of Romantic music and has been called "the poet of the piano"....
wrote a Tarantelle in A-flat, Op. 43Tarantelle (Chopin)The Tarantelle in A-flat major, Op. 43 is a short piano piece in tarantella form, written by Frédéric Chopin in June 1841 and published in October 1841. It takes about 3 minutes to play....
with the characteristic 6/8 time signature. It was inspired specifically by Rossini's's song "La DanzaLa Danza"La danza" is a patter song by Gioachino Rossini, in Tarantella napoletana time, the eighth song of the collection Les soirées musicales . The lyrics are by Count Carlo Pepoli, librettist of Vincenzo Bellini's opera I puritani. "La danza" is a stand-alone chamber vocal piece, rather than part of a...
" - John CoriglianoJohn CoriglianoJohn Corigliano is an American composer of classical music and a teacher of music. He is a distinguished professor of music at Lehman College in the City University of New York.-Biography:...
wrote a Tarantella as the fourth movement of his Gazebo Dances. - Claude DebussyClaude DebussyClaude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...
wrote a piece called "Danse (Tarantelle styrienne)." - Leopold GodowskyLeopold GodowskyLeopold Godowsky was a famed Polish American pianist, composer, and teacher. One of the most highly regarded performers of his time, he became known for his theories concerning the application of relaxed weight and economy of motion in piano playing, principles later propagated by Godowsky's...
transcribed ChopinFrédéric ChopinFrédéric François Chopin was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist. He is considered one of the great masters of Romantic music and has been called "the poet of the piano"....
's Etude Op. 10, No. 5 "Black Key" into a tarentella for the piano. - Helmut LachenmannHelmut LachenmannHelmut Lachenmann is a German composer associated with musique concrète instrumentale.-Life and works:...
's 12th movement of Tanzsuite mit Deutschlandlied (1979–80) is Tarantelle. - Franz LisztFranz LisztFranz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...
composed a piece called "Tarantella, Venezia e Napoli" (No. 3 from Années de pèlerinageAnnées de PèlerinageAnnées de pèlerinage is a set of three suites by Franz Liszt for solo piano. Liszt's complete musical style is evident in this masterwork, which ranges from virtuosic fireworks to sincerely moving emotional statements. His musical maturity can be seen evolving through his experience and travel...
, 2nd Year: Italy), which is in a rapid tempo also in 6/8 time. - Felix MendelssohnFelix MendelssohnJakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Barthóldy , use the form 'Mendelssohn' and not 'Mendelssohn Bartholdy'. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians gives ' Felix Mendelssohn' as the entry, with 'Mendelssohn' used in the body text...
wrote a piece called "Tarantella" in 1845 (Op. 102, No. 3). - The final movement of his Italian SymphonySymphony No. 4 (Mendelssohn)The Symphony No. 4 in A major, Op. 90, commonly known as the Italian, is an orchestral symphony written by German composer Felix Mendelssohn ....
is in the form of a tarantella. - David PopperDavid PopperDavid Popper was a Bohemian cellist and composer.-Life:He was born in Prague, and studied music at the Prague Conservatory. He studied the cello under Julius Goltermann , and soon attracted attention...
wrote a piece called "Tarantella" (Op. 33), written in 6/8 time. - The 4th of Sergei ProkofievSergei ProkofievSergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor who mastered numerous musical genres and is regarded as one of the major composers of the 20th century...
's 12 easy pieces for piano Musique d'Enfants, Op. 65, is a Tarantella. - Sergei RachmaninoffSergei RachmaninoffSergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one of the last great representatives of Romanticism in Russian classical music...
's Suite No. 2 for Two Pianos, Op. 17, features a tarantella for its finale. - Gioachino Rossini's song "La DanzaLa Danza"La danza" is a patter song by Gioachino Rossini, in Tarantella napoletana time, the eighth song of the collection Les soirées musicales . The lyrics are by Count Carlo Pepoli, librettist of Vincenzo Bellini's opera I puritani. "La danza" is a stand-alone chamber vocal piece, rather than part of a...
" is a Neapolitan tarantella. - Camille Saint-SaënsCamille Saint-SaënsCharles-Camille Saint-Saëns was a French Late-Romantic composer, organist, conductor, and pianist. He is known especially for The Carnival of the Animals, Danse macabre, Samson and Delilah, Piano Concerto No. 2, Cello Concerto No. 1, Havanaise, Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, and his Symphony...
composed "Tarantella" Op. 6 in A minor for flute, clarinet and orchestra, or for flute, clarinet and piano. He also transcribed this piece for two pianos. - The last movement of the Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minorPiano Concerto No. 2 (Saint-Saëns)The Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor, Op. 22 by Camille Saint-Saëns, was composed in 1868 and is probably Saint-Saëns' most popular piano concerto. It was dedicated to Madame A. de Villers née de Haber. At the première, the composer was the soloist and Anton Rubinstein conducted the orchestra...
by Camille Saint-SaënsCamille Saint-SaënsCharles-Camille Saint-Saëns was a French Late-Romantic composer, organist, conductor, and pianist. He is known especially for The Carnival of the Animals, Danse macabre, Samson and Delilah, Piano Concerto No. 2, Cello Concerto No. 1, Havanaise, Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, and his Symphony...
is a tarantella. - Pablo de SarasatePablo de SarasatePablo Martín Melitón de Sarasate y Navascués was a Navarrese Spanish violinist and composer of the Romantic period.-Career:Pablo Sarasate was born in Pamplona, Navarre, the son of an artillery bandmaster...
composed an "Introduction and Tarantella" for violin. - Franz SchubertFranz SchubertFranz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer.Although he died at an early age, Schubert was tremendously prolific. He wrote some 600 Lieder, nine symphonies , liturgical music, operas, some incidental music, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music...
's Piano Sonata in C minor, last movement, is a tarantella/rondo. - The 4th movement of Schubert's Symphony No. 3Symphony No. 3 (Schubert)Franz Schubert's Symphony No. 3 in D major, D. 200, was written between 24 May and 19 July 1815, a few months after his eighteenth birthday. The length of this symphony is approximately 21–23 minutes. It is in four movements:...
is also a tarantella, but following the Sonata formSonata formSonata form is a large-scale musical structure used widely since the middle of the 18th century . While it is typically used in the first movement of multi-movement pieces, it is sometimes used in subsequent movements as well—particularly the final movement...
. - William Henry SquireWilliam Henry SquireWilliam Henry Squire was a composer and cellist. Pieces he wrote include Danse Rustique, Bouree, Tarantella, and Humoresque.Born in Ross-on-Wye, Squire was as well known as a cellist as he was a composer...
wrote a tarantella for cello in D minor. - The 3rd movement of Igor StravinskyIgor StravinskyIgor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
's Suite italienne is a tarantella. - Pyotr Ilyich TchaikovskyPyotr Ilyich TchaikovskyPyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Russian: Пётр Ильи́ч Чайко́вский ; often "Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky" in English. His names are also transliterated "Piotr" or "Petr"; "Ilitsch", "Il'ich" or "Illyich"; and "Tschaikowski", "Tschaikowsky", "Chajkovskij"...
's Capriccio ItalienCapriccio ItalienThe Capriccio Italien, Op. 45, is a fantasy for orchestra composed between January and May of 1880 by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.The Capriccio was inspired by a trip Tchaikovsky took to Rome, during which he saw the Carnival in full swing, and is reminiscent of Italian folk music and street songs...
ends in a frenzied variation of a tarantella. Also, one of his Pas de Deux in The NutcrackerThe NutcrackerThe Nutcracker is a two-act ballet, originally choreographed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov with a score by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The libretto is adapted from E.T.A. Hoffmann's story "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King". It was given its première at the Mariinsky Theatre in St...
features a tarantella. - Mark-Anthony TurnageMark-Anthony TurnageMark-Anthony Turnage is a prolific English composer of classical music. His initial musical studies were with Oliver Knussen, John Lambert, and later with Gunther Schuller...
composed a violin concerto entitled Mambo, Blues and Tarantella in 2007, with the tarantella being the finale. - Henryk WieniawskiHenryk WieniawskiHenryk Wieniawski was a Polish violinist and composer.-Biography:Henryk Wieniawski was born in Lublin, Congress Poland, Russian Empire. His father, Tobiasz Pietruszka, had converted to Catholicism. His talent for playing the violin was recognized early, and in 1843 he entered the Paris...
composed a well-known violin masterpiece, called Scherzo-Tarantella, Op. 16 - Tarantella for Piano and Orchestra was composed by American composer Michael Glenn WilliamsMichael Glenn WilliamsMichael Glenn Williams is an American composer, pianist and technologist.-Biography:Williams' earliest years were spent in New York, beginning trumpet studies and composing at 8 years old. At 12 he was programming DEC PDP 8 minicomputers...
for pianist Sean ChenSean ChenSean Chen is an Asian American comic book artist.-Career:Chen is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University where he received a bachelor's degree in industrial design. He started his career after being discovered by Barry Windsor-Smith... - The last movement of Malcolm WilliamsonMalcolm WilliamsonMalcolm Benjamin Graham Christopher Williamson AO , CBE was an Australian composer. He was the Master of the Queen's Music from 1975 until his death.-Biography:...
's Sinfonietta (1965) is a tarantella. - Albert Pieczonka wrote a great classical piece titled Tarantella.
Other uses
In literature- A performance of the tarantella was central to the plot of Henrik IbsenHenrik IbsenHenrik Ibsen was a major 19th-century Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet. He is often referred to as "the father of prose drama" and is one of the founders of Modernism in the theatre...
's play A Doll's HouseA Doll's HouseA Doll's House is a three-act play in prose by the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. It premièred at the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen, Denmark, on 21 December 1879, having been published earlier that month....
.
In film
- The Fairy Godmother's song Bibbidi-Bobbidi-BooBibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo"Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo" is a novelty song, written in 1948 by Al Hoffman, Mack David, and Jerry Livingston. It was introduced in the 1950 film Cinderella, performed by actress Verna Felton....
from Disney's Cinderella is a tarantella. - It has appeared in feature filmFeature filmIn the film industry, a feature film is a film production made for initial distribution in theaters and being the main attraction of the screening, rather than a short film screened before it; a full length movie...
s such as The GodfatherThe GodfatherThe Godfather is a 1972 American epic crime film directed by Francis Ford Coppola, based on the 1969 novel by Mario Puzo. With a screenplay by Puzo, Coppola and an uncredited Robert Towne, the film stars Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duvall, Sterling Hayden, John Marley, Richard...
. - In The Godfather II, Frankie Pentangeli tries to get the wedding band (who are not Italian) to play a tarantella. They end up playing "Pop Goes the WeaselPop Goes the Weasel"Pop! Goes the Weasel" is an English language nursery rhyme and singing game. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 5249.-Lyrics:There are many different versions of the lyrics to the song...
" instead. - The dance is referenced in Harry Potter and the Chamber of SecretsHarry Potter and the Chamber of SecretsHarry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is the second novel in the Harry Potter series written by J. K. Rowling. The plot follows Harry's second year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, during which a series of messages on the walls on the school's corridors warn that the "Chamber of...
, where it is the result of a magical curse. - It is also in the soundtrack to Inglorious Basterds by Quentin TarantinoQuentin TarantinoQuentin Jerome Tarantino is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and actor. In the early 1990s, he began his career as an independent filmmaker with films employing nonlinear storylines and the aestheticization of violence...
. - It has appeared in the musical version of Peter Pan with Mary MartinMary MartinMary Virginia Martin was an American actress and singer. She originated many roles over her career including Nellie Forbush in South Pacific and Maria in The Sound of Music. She was named a Kennedy Center Honoree in 1989...
and is danced by Captain Hook and his band of pirates, illustrating the above mentioned occasional association with swordfights vis à vis the metaphor of pirates. In this performance, which is available on film and DVD, the context is silly fun.
In games
- A tarantella was part of the soundtrack for 2009 game Assassin's Creed IIAssassin's Creed IIAssassin's Creed II is a historical third-person action-adventure video game developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. It is the second video game installment of the Assassin's Creed series, and is a sequel to the 2007 video...
External links
- Word of the Day: Tarantula and Tarantella, etymology and folklore
- RHYTHM IS THE CURE
- Sicilian Culture: Tarantella Dance
- The tarantella dance!
- Dance the 'Viddaneddha'
- Tarantella, Tarantella
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9JpnXCUpsQYouTube Video: Draga MatkovicDraga MatkovicDraga Matkovic is a contemporary German classical pianist of Croatian origin.- Life :...
, oldest practicing classical pianist of the world, plays her own Tarantella composition from 1927 on her 102nd birthday, November 4, 2009.] - Tarantella's history
- http://taranta.tumblr.com/