THE HARVARDDICTIONARY

OF MUSICFourth Edition

Alleluia 33

boundaries) and in the determination of a startingpoint and the "direction" (i.e., whether backward orforward) in which the piece will be played.

The degree of leeway left to a performer may varywidely in aleatory music and is closely tied to the no-tational system used. Certain scores by Brown, RobertMoran, and Anestis Logothetis, for example, arepurely graphic, containing no traditional notation atall. The performer is thus allowed to interpret the"score" more or less freely, with little if any specificinstruction. Other works, such as LaMonte Young's"instructive" scores and Stockhausen's.4«5 den siebenTagen, are completely verbal. More commonly, how-ever, one finds a mixture of traditional and graphic no-tation, with some elements specified while others areleft to the performer's choice (e.g., Brown's AvailableForms). The incorporation of indeterminate processesin computer music applications, dating back to the"stochastic" works of lannis Xenakis, has contributedto its continued importance in more recent music. Seealso Notation.

Bibl: Pierre Boulez, "Alea," Nouvelle revuefranfaise, no.59 (1957); trans, in PNM 3 (1964/65): 42-53. John Cage,"Indeterminacy," in his Silence (Middletown, Conn.: Wes-leyan U Pr, 1961), pp. 35-40. Roger Reynolds, "Indetermi-nacy: Some Considerations," PNM 4 (1965/66): 136-40.Leonard G. Ratner, "Ars combinatoria: Chance and Choicein 18th-Century Music," Geiringer, 1970, pp. 343-63. Mi-chael Nyman, Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond (Lon-don: Cassell and Collier Macmillan, 1974). Terence J.O'Grady, "Aesthetic Value in Indeterminate Music," MQ 67(1981): 366-81. James Pritchett, The Music of John Cage(New York: Cambridge U Pr, 1993). R.P.M.

Alexander Nevsky. Music by Prokofiev for a filmdirected in 1938 by Sergei Eisenstein. In 1939, Pro-kofiev reworked it as a cantata for mezzo soprano,chorus, and orchestra with text by himself and Vladi-mir Lugorsky.

Al fine [It.]. See Fine.

Algorithmic composition. The use of a predefinedprocedure or set of rules (an algorithm), often auto-mated by computer, to produce a musical work. Suchworks need not be intended for reproduction by elec-tro-acoustic means. Although examples can be foundthroughout the history of Western music, widespreaduse of the technique and of the term emerged in thesecond half of the 20th century. Early examples fromthis period occur in the works of Lejaren Killer andlannis Xenakis. The technique has followed closelyadvances in computing and artificial intelligence.

Bibl.: Curtis Roads, ed., The Music Machine: SelectedReadings from the Computer Music Journal (Cambridge,Mass.: MIT Pr, 1989). Bruce L. Jacob, "Algorithmic Compo-sition as a Model of Creativity." Organised Sound 1, no. 3(1996).

Aliquotstimmen [Ger.]. Organ stops sounding inter-vals above the unison other than the octave (i.e.,twelfth, 2%'; seventeenth. P/s'; etc.).

Aliquot string. A *sympathetic string. The termsaliquot stringing and aliquot scaling are applied to pi-anos (such as those by the firm of Bliithner) that em-ploy such strings or that arrange the strings of the up-per register in such a way that the portion of eachstring between the bridge and the hitch pin will act asa sympathetic string.

All', alia [It.]. To the. at the; in the manner of. See,e.g., Ongarese, Ottava, Unisono, Turca, Zingarese.

Alia breve [It., at the breve]. The *meter indicatedwith the sign <p, in which each measure is conceivedas consisting of two half notes, each given one beat,rather than the four quarter notes indicated with thesign c. It is thus the equivalent of 2/2 as compared with4/4. It is sometimes referred to as cut time. In modempractice this implies relatively rapid tempo, as in mili-tary marches, which often employ this meter. But itsuse with respect to tempo varied considerably fromthe 17th through the 19th century, so it cannot alwaysbe regarded as indicating rapid tempo. Historicallyalia breve derives from the system of *proportions, inuse in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, in which itindicated that the tactus or metrical pulse was to be "atthe breve" rather than "at the semibreve" [see Mensu-ral notation]. Thus it represented in theory, as it stilldoes, a diminution of the duration of any note value byone-half, given a fixed tempo or rate of beats, and wasknown as tempus imperfectum diminution orproportiodupla. It could also be represented in that system bythe fraction 2/1. When occurring in all voices simulta-neously, however, it could represent a faster tactus, butnot necessarily in the ratio 2:1.

Allant [Fr.]. (1) Going, stirring; continuing. (2) *An-dante.

Allargando [It.]. Broadening, becoming slower,sometimes with an accompanying ^crescendo.

Alle [Ger.]. All, *tutti.

Allegramente [It.]. * Allegro.X • —v.^Allegretto Jit.]. (1) Slightly less fast than *allegro, of-ten implying lighter texture or character as well. SeePerformance marks. (2) A short piece with the tempomark allegro or allegretto. —-~-

AllegroJj., merry, lively]. (1) Fast. Although the termlias oeen used since the 17th century to indicate a fastor moderately fastjempo and is the single most widelyused term for such a tempo since the 18th century, itcontinued to be used into the 18th century as an indi-cation of character or mood without respect to tempo.See Performance marks. (2) A movement in a fast ormoderately fast tempo, especially the first movement,in *sonata form (whence sonata-allegro), of a sonata,symphony, or similar work.

Allein [Ger.]. Alone.

Alleluia [Lat., fr. Heb. ^hallelujah, praise ye the

THE HARVARDDICTIONARY

OF MUSICString quartet 843

can be made from many materials but are commonlyfashioned of lamb gut, silk, wire, horsehair, and ny-lon or other synthetics. The development of bowedstringed instruments can be linked to the technologyof strings and their musical characteristics.

Before the 18th century, strings for bowed instru-ments were generally made from slit strands of lambgut, tightly twisted and polished for even thickness.The degree of tightness of twisting influenced bright-ness and clarity of sound, while the number of strandsfashioned together allowed strings to achieve appro-priate tension at different pitches. Lower-registerstrings, like the violin g, viola g and c, and cello G andC, were constructed of two or more twisted stringsrefashioned and wound together to form the ropedstring or Catline. The Catline twist allowed consider-ably larger string diameters to "speak" or vibrate eas-ily under the bow but required generally longer vibrat-ing length to function with musical volume. For thisreason, early cellos were larger of body than is com-mon today, with an extended vibrating string length.

In the last decades of the 17th century, Catlinestrings and twisted gut strings were wound with brass,copper, or silver wire to increase mass and tensionwith shorter vibrating length. The new strings allowedthe lower registers to be stronger and focused on in-struments of smaller body, helping to create the pro-portions of the bowed stringed instrument family thatwe know today. Until the 20th century, the lower twostrings of the violin, viola, and cello were usually ofsilver- or copper-wound gut, with plain gut upper reg-isters. Over the course of the first half of the 20thcentury, aluminum-covered middle strings and a plainsteel violin E became the standard to create clarity andbrilliance in sound. More recently strings with braidedsteel or nylon-like synthetic rather than traditional gutcores have become popular with musicians for theirpitch stability and durability. W.L.M.

String band. See Bluegrass music.

String bass. *Double bass.

String drum. A *friction drum in which a string thatpasses through a membrane is rubbed to producesound.

Stringed instrument. An instrument in which one ormore strings constitute the principal vibrating system;also chordophone. The string or strings may be set inmotion by bowing, plucking, or striking. For the vari-ous types, see Instrument II, 1. The term is often usedinformally to refer to instruments of the violin family.

Stringendo [It.]. Pressing, becoming faster.

String quartet^, composition for an ensemble con-sistrng~of fOUr'solo string instruments, normally twoviolins, viola, and cello; the ensemble itself [see alsoQuartet]. Since the second half of the 18th century, thestring quartet has been the most widely cultivated andinfluential chamber-music genre. ——-

erasL Classical. T^e string quartet was a creation of the

'Early in that period the textural ideal offour relatively independent solo performers began to

"supplant the polarized continue texture of the Baroquetrio sonata and related genres. Four-part writing forstring orchestra had long been utilized in such Ba-roque genres as the overture and concerto, and in amore modem idiom in the early Classical symphony a4. The same four-part texture, but now for solo stringswith continue, may be found in the late Baroque pe-riod in the four-part concertino sections of concertigrossi by Geminiani, Locatelli, Giuseppe Sammartini.and others who added a viola to the usual concertinoof two violins and cello/continuo. Complete composi-tions utilizing this scoring include the north Germansonata a 4 or Quadro with continue—too isolated tohave a direct connection with the later string quartet—and occasional Italian sonatas a 4. Finally, certain Ital-ian works called concertini in Parisian sources fromca. 1740 may have been intended for solo perfor-mance (as claimed in Finscher, 1974); if so, they maybe considered progenitors of such early quartets asLuigi Boccherini's op. 2 of 1761 (printed in Paris asop. 1), the first of 90 works he contributed to thisgenre.

The most important precursors of the string quartetwere, however, Austro-Bohemian—namely the vari-ous informal chamber genres of the early Classical pe-riod such as the string *trio and quintet and the sextetfor string quartet and two homs. Austrian chambermusic of this type was not only soloistic, but it seemsgenerally to have been performed without a keyboardcontinuo (see Webster, 1974), the latter circumstanceowing in part to the custom of playing these worksoutdoors [see Serenade].

It is within this context that Joseph Haydn createdhis first string quartets, whichTeventually numbered68. Haydn's early biographer Georg August (Jnes-mger tells us that the composer was invited from timeto time to Weinzierl, the country estate of his patronCarl Joseph von Furnberg, to play in a quartet consist-ing of Fiirnberg's pastor, his steward, Haydn, and"Albrechtsberger" (either Johann Georg Albrechts-berger or his brother, Anton Johann) on cello. Accord-ing to Griesinger, Haydn's earliest quartets were writ-ten for these occasions. These works may be datedfrom the second half of the 1750s, with 1757-59 themost plausible period (see Webster, 1975); they arethus the most likely candidates for the title of the first"true" string quartets.

Haydn's early quartets were subsequently publishedas part of opp. 1-2 (c;op. 3" is spurious). Like most ofhis other early chamber works, they are in five move-ments with a minuet and trio in both second and fourthplace, an indication of their generally light, informalcharacter. Haydn's next sets, opp. 9, 17, and 20 (ca.1769-72), brought a change to four longer move-ments with the minuet in second place. This is also theform of four of the six quartets of op. 33 (1781) and