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lament, lamento

A mournful piece, either meant to be played at a funeral or to commemorate a death.

Landini cadence

The melodic cadence that moves in the sequence 7-6-8, used primarily by Francesco Landini, and later by other composers.

Ländler

The Ländler is an Austrian country dance in a slow triple metre, a precursor of the waltz.

Larghetto

Larghetto is a diminutive form of Largo (Italian: broad, wide, large) usually a direction of tempo, meaning slow. Larghetto is slowish, not as slow as Largo.

Largo

At a very slow tempo.

leading note/tone

The seventh degree of the diatonic scale; called “leading” because it gives the feeling of wanting to move to the tonic.

leap

The movement of a single musical line by more than a second at a time.

ledger lines

Short lines written above or below the staff for notes pitched outside the staff.

legato

Legato (Italian: smooth) is used as an instruction to performers. It is the opposite of staccato, which indicates a shortening and consequent detaching of notes.

leggero

Leggero means light (= French: léger) and is used as a direction to performers.

legno

Legno, wood, appears in the phrase 'col legno', with the wood, an instruction to string players to hit the strings with the back of the bow. Examples of col legno are found in the Danse macabre of Saint-Säens and at the opening of Holst's The Planets.

leitmotif

“Leading Motive.” Recurring theme written for a specific character or event in opera or television and film music.

Lent

The season of the church year from Ash Wednesday to Easter (40 days, not counting Sundays).

lento

Lento (Italian: slow; = French: lent, lentement) is used in instructions to performers. Negatively some French composers, notably Couperin, use the direction sans lenteur, without slowness.

libretto

The text (lyrics and any spoken parts) of an opera, oratorio or musical.

Lied/Lieder

A German art song, usually those of the Romantic or Classical eras.

l'istesso tempo

L'istesso tempo, the same speed, is found as an instruction to the player to return to the previous speed of the music.

litany

A set of prayers recited by a leader alternating with responses by the congregation, often set in plainsong form.

liturgy

A prescribed order of worship in a church, usually applied to the Mass.

Locrian

A medieval mode starting on the seventh degree of the diatonic scale, with half steps between the first and second degrees and fourth

and fifth degrees.

loure

The loure is a French dance of the 17th and 18th centuries, the name derived from a bagpipe used in Normandy. The dance is usually in 6/4 time and has been described as a slow gigue. Examples are found in Bach's E major Partita for unaccompanied violin and in the fifth of his French Suites.

lullaby

A cradle song.

Lute

The lute, a plucked string instrument popular from the Middle Ages until the 18th century and now revived, came originally from the East, its name derived from the Arabic 'ud. It existed in many different forms and in its Western form is usually pear-shaped, with a flat belly and central soundhole or rose. Its neck has frets, pieces of gut tied to mark the notes on the fingerboard, and its peg-box is generally bent back to form a right angle with the neck. The number of strings has varied, although the six-string lute was common. The lute was one of the most popular instruments in the time of Shakespeare, when the leading performer was John Dowland, who wrote songs with lute accompaniment. In the first half of the 18th century Johann Sebastian Bach wrote for the instrument, of which one of the leading exponents and composers was Sylvius Leopold Weiss. A player of the lute is a lutenist, or, less commonly, lutanist. The meaning of luthier, originally a maker of lutes, has been extended to cover makers of all string instruments.

Lydian

A medieval mode starting on the fourth degree of the diatonic scale, with half steps between the fourth and fifth and seventh and

eighth degrees.

lyre

The lyre, the symbol of a musician in Western cultural tradition, is an ancient instrument, found in characteristic form in ancient Greece, where it was the instrument of Apollo. Similar instruments, with strings stretched from a cross-bar to a lower sound-box, to be held in the left arm and plucked with the right hand, are found in other cultures.

lyric

The words to a song. In a singing and melodious manner.

lyric soprano

A female singer with a slightly higher range than a dramatic soprano.

lyric tenor

A male singer with a slightly higher range than a dramatic tenor.