Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun An Italian rustic partsong without accompaniment, the precursor of the more refined and artistic canzonetta and madrigal. It was not supposed to be amenable to the strict rules of composition. Also villotte.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Mus.) An old rustic dance, accompanied with singing.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun An old rustic dance, accompanied by singing.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Italian, a pretty country girl.

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Examples

  • Italian influence is especially evident in the first book, but all of the songs display the essential features of the villanella – dancelike rhythms, moments of homophony, simple harmony and melodies the latter often confined to the top voice in the texture, as well as parallel 5ths.

    Archive 2009-06-01 Lu 2009

  • The results were good, certainly; but his position in the history of the lied has been described by Osthoff, 1938 as that of an innovator who discarded German tradition, that of the Tenorlied, in favour of a style mixing elements of the madrigal, the villanella and the chanson.

    Archive 2009-06-01 Lu 2009

  • Relationships to the villanella and lighter madrigal may of course be seen Lassus knew the celebrated German villanella collections of Regnart, and the presence of chanson-like rhythms is frequent.

    Archive 2009-06-01 Lu 2009

  • His achievement in these songs lay in bringing the genre, which with other composers still adhered to the imitative style of classical vocal polyphony, closer to the popular style of the villanella.

    Archive 2009-06-01 Lu 2009

  • This ‘villanella’ style see Boetticher, perhaps better termed ‘canzonetta style’, may indicate a desire for a more up-to-date vocabulary on Lassus’s part.

    Archive 2009-06-01 Lu 2009

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