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Sinfonia

Sinfonia (IPA: [siɱfoˈniːa]; 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 (sound). In English it most commonly refers to a 17th- or 18th-century orchestral piece used as an introduction, interlude, or postlude to an opera, oratorio, cantata, or suite (Abate 1999, who gives the origin of the word as Italian) (Lotha, and the Editors of the Encyclopædia Britannica n.d.). The word is also found in other Romance languages such as Spanish or Portuguese.

For other uses, see Sinfonia (disambiguation).

In the Middle Ages down to as late as 1588, it was also the Italian name for the hurdy-gurdy (Marcuse 1975, p. 477). Johann Sebastian Bach used the term for his keyboard compositions also known as Three-part Inventions, and after about 1800, the term, when in reference to opera, meant "Overture" (Fisher 1998, p. 386).


In George Frideric Handel's oratorio Messiah (HWV 56), "Overture to the Messiah" (French Overture in E minor) was originally titled "Sinfony".


In the 20th and 21st centuries it is found in the names of some chamber orchestras, such as the Northern Sinfonia (Kennedy 2006).

wrote a Sinfonia brevis de bello Gallico, Latin for: "Short Symphony about the War in Gaul".

Vincent d'Indy

titled the first movement of his 1923 Octet "Sinfonia".

Igor Stravinsky

's 1940 Sinfonia da Requiem

Benjamin Britten

Examples of such "sinfonias" composed after the classical era include:

Sinfonia concertante

Sinfonietta (symphony)

Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia

Overture

. Encyclopædia Britannica.

"Sinfonia"

Abate, Frank R. (ed.). The Oxford American Dictionary and Language Guide. New York: Oxford University Press.  978-0-19-513449-0.

ISBN

Bach, Peter. "". [s.l.]: Bach.de, 2004–2018 (accessed 13 May 2018).

Werk: Vokalwerke: BWV 146: Wir müssen durch viel Trübsal

. Music in the Baroque Era. New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1947. ISBN 0-393-09745-5.

Bukofzer, Manfred

; Jan Larue; John Tyrrell (2001), "Sinfonia (i)" in Stanley Sadie (ed.), The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd edition, London: Macmillan Publishers, 2001.

Cusick, Suzanne G.

Fisher, Stephen C. "Sinfonia" in Stanley Sadie (ed.), , Vol. Four. p. 386. London, Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1998. ISBN 0-333-73432-7 ISBN 1-56159-228-5.

The New Grove Dictionary of Opera

. Cantatas for the Twelfth Sunday after Trinity / Jakobskirche, Köthen. [s.l.]: Monteverdi Choir, 2007 (accessed 1 September 2017

Gardiner, John Eliot

Kennedy, Michael. "Sinfonia". The Oxford Dictionary of Music, 2nd edition, revised, associate editor, Joyce Bourne. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.  978-0-19-861459-3.

ISBN

Lotha, Gloria, and the Editors of the Encyclopædia Britannica. N.d. “”. Encyclopædia Britannica online edition

Sinfonia

Marcuse, Sibyl. Musical Instruments: A Comprehensive Dictionary, corrected edition. The Norton Library. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1975.  0-393-00758-8.

ISBN

Randel, Don (ed.). The New Harvard Dictionary of Music. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1986.  0-674-61525-5.

ISBN

A (from the Mutopia project)

selection of sinfonias