The ripieno concerto is a late

Baroque The Baroque ( , , ) is a Western Style (visual arts), style of Baroque architecture, architecture, Baroque music, music, Baroque dance, dance, Baroque painting, painting, Baroque sculpture, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished from ...

music genre. The word ''

ripieno The ripieno (, Italian for "stuffing" or "padding") is the bulk of instrumental parts of a musical ensemble who do not play as soloists, especially in Baroque music. These are the players who would play in sections marked ''tutti'', as opposed to s ...

'' is from the Italian for "padding," referring to the string orchestra and any wind or chord-playing instrumentalists who played no solo parts but would accompany the soloists in ''concerti'' and ''concerti grossi'' . The ' was sometimes referred to as a "" (or "" if the orchestra included two

viola The viola ( , () ) is a string instrument of the violin family, and is usually bowed when played. Violas are slightly larger than violins, and have a lower and deeper sound. Since the 18th century, it has been the middle or alto voice of the ...

parts, a standard scoring in the 17th century) and was a composition for the ripieno alone (i.e. for

string orchestra A string orchestra is an orchestra consisting solely of a string section made up of the bowed strings used in Western Classical music. The instruments of such an orchestra are most often the following: the violin, which is divided into first a ...

and continuo), with either no solo parts or clearly subsidiary ones. Beginning with the six ripieno concertos, Op. 5 (1692), of

Giuseppe Torelli Giuseppe Torelli (22 April 1658 Verona – 8 February 1709) was an Italian violinist, teacher and composer of the middle Baroque era. Brother of the painter Felice Torelli, he is most remembered for contributing to the development of the concer ...

, this

genre Genre () is any style or form of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other fo ...

enjoyed an efflorescence that extended until about 1740.

Types

Most ripieno concertos fall into one of two distinct classes: a

sonata In music a sonata (; pl. ''sonate'') literally means a piece ''played'' as opposed to a cantata (Latin and Italian ''cantare'', "to sing"), a piece ''sung''. The term evolved through the history of music, designating a variety of forms until th ...

type and a

sinfonia Sinfonia (; plural ''sinfonie'') is the Italian word for symphony, from the Latin ''symphonia'', in turn derived from Ancient Greek συμφωνία ''symphōnia'' (agreement or concord of sound), from the prefix σύν (together) and Φωνή (s ...

type. The sonata type generally mirrors the form and style of the ' in its use of four- movement slow–fast–slow–fast cycles and predominantly

fugal In classical music, a fugue (, from Latin ''fuga'', meaning "flight" or "escape""Fugue, ''n''." ''The Concise Oxford English Dictionary'', eleventh edition, revised, ed. Catherine Soanes and Angus Stevenson (Oxford and New York: Oxford Universit ...

texture. The more modern sinfonia type was firmly established in Torelli's second publication to include concertos, Op. 6 (1698), and in Giulio Taglietti's , Op. 4 (1699), which turn to the three-movement (fast-slow-fast) pattern and more

homophonic Homophony and Homophonic are from the Greek language, Greek ὁμόφωνος (''homóphōnos''), literally 'same sounding,' from ὁμός (''homós''), "same" and φωνή (''phōnē''), "sound". It may refer to: *Homophones − words with the s ...

texture familiar to us from the

solo concerto A solo concerto is a musical form which features a single solo instrument with the melody line, accompanied by an orchestra. Traditionally, there are three movements in a solo concerto, consisting of a fast section, a slow and lyrical section, and ...

and

opera Opera is a form of History of theatre#European theatre, Western theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by Singing, singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically ...

sinfonia. The opening movements also parallel the solo concerto in utilizing

ritornello A ritornello (Italian; "little return") is a recurring passage in Renaissance music and Baroque music for orchestra or chorus. Early history The earliest use of the term "ritornello" in music referred to the final lines of a fourteenth-century ...

form (without solo sections), in which the opening material recurs from one to several times in various

keys Key, Keys, The Key or The Keys may refer to: Common uses * Key (cryptography), a piece of information needed to encode or decode a message * Key (instrument), a component of a musical instrument * Key (lock), a device used to operate a lock * ...

, the last statement normally in the tonic. Finales are most often binary in form and dancelike in style. The sinfonia type gradually merged with the early concert

symphony A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, most often for orchestra. Although the term has had many meanings from its origins in the ancient Greek era, by the late 18th century the word had taken on the meaning c ...

beginning in the 1720s, doubtless in part because the term concerto was by that time acquiring an indelible association with the notion of

tutti ''Tutti'' is an Italian word literally meaning ''all'' or ''together'' and is used as a musical term, for the whole orchestra as opposed to the soloist. It is applied similarly to choral music, where the whole section or choir is called to sin ...

-solo contrast.

Concerto for Orchestra Although a concerto is usually a piece of music for one or more solo instruments accompanied by a full orchestra, several composers have written works with the apparently contradictory title Concerto for Orchestra. This title is usually chosen to ...

of the 20th century is not a ripieno concerto in the

sense but rather a display piece in which the orchestra itself is the

virtuoso A virtuoso (from Italian ''virtuoso'', or ; Late Latin ''virtuosus''; Latin ''virtus''; 'virtue', 'excellence' or 'skill') is an individual who possesses outstanding talent and technical ability in a particular art or field such as fine arts, ...

, with soloists, to sections of the orchestra, to choirs, to tutti taking on and relinquishing the solo part or parts. Best known through Bartók's popular work of 1943, other examples include those by

Hindemith Paul Hindemith ( ; ; 16 November 189528 December 1963) was a German and American composer, music theorist, teacher, violist and conductor. He founded the Amar Quartet in 1921, touring extensively in Europe. As a composer, he became a major ad ...

(1925),

Walter Piston Walter Hamor Piston, Jr. (January 20, 1894 – November 12, 1976), was an American composer of classical music, music theorist, and professor of music at Harvard University. Life Piston was born in Rockland, Maine at 15 Ocean Street to Walter ...

(1933),

Zoltán Kodály Zoltán Kodály (, ; , ; 16 December 1882 – 6 March 1967) was a Hungarian composer, ethnomusicologist, music pedagogue, linguist, and philosopher. He is well known internationally as the creator of the Kodály method of music education. ...

(1939–40),

Michael Tippett Sir Michael Kemp Tippett (2 January 1905 – 8 January 1998) was an English composer who rose to prominence during and immediately after the Second World War. In his lifetime he was sometimes ranked with his contemporary Benjamin Britten as o ...

(1962–63), and

Elliott Carter Elliott Cook Carter Jr. (December 11, 1908 – November 5, 2012) was an American modernist composer who was one of the most respected composers of the second half of the 20th century. He combined elements of European modernism and American " ...

(1969). In the last piece, Carter dramatically personifies or characterizes the various concertino groupings, a technique he had previously explored in his Double Concerto for harpsichord and piano (1961) and his Piano Concerto (1964–65).

References

*''The New

Harvard Dictionary of Music ''The Harvard Dictionary of Music'' is a standard music reference book published by the Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. The first edition, titled ''Harvard Dictionary of Music'', was published in 1944, and was edited by Willi Apel. ...

'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Ripieno Concerto Concertos Musical terminology Italian words and phrases