Definitions

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

  • noun A style of popular Italian secular vocal composition which originated around 1560, or a piece composed in this style

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Italian canzonetta

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Examples

  • "canzonetta" to cover the noise that was made by the prisoner.

    Vendetta Honor�� de Balzac 1824

  • How well he could write in a newer style is demonstrated by the amusing La non vol esser più mia published 1584, a work in fully-fledged canzonetta idiom.

    Archive 2009-06-01 Lu 2009

  • 'A new Neapolitan canzonetta, signore; all about a young man who grieves for his sweetheart, because he thinks she is not true to him, and what he says to her in a serenade. '

    The Continental Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, April, 1862 Devoted To Literature And National Policy Various

  • If taxgatherers were not at once the most vindictive and the most stupid of men (it is said Sir ROBERT has ordered them to be very carnivorous this Christmas), the fellow would never have called in a broker to alarm our excellent coadjutor, but would at once have seen that the genius of the _Athenæum_ was taking his turn in Buckingham Palace, singing a nursery _canzonetta_ to the Duke of CORNWALL!

    Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, December 11, 1841 Various

  • He wrote a great deal of secular music in the forms particularly cultivated in his time, such as the madrigal and the canzonetta, but his chief productions are those destined for the Church.

    The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 4: Clandestinity-Diocesan Chancery 1840-1916 1913

  • He filled his case with cigarettes, slipped on a very smart fawn-colored coat, cocked a small-brimmed black bowler hat over his left ear, picked up a pair of white gloves and a cane surmounted by a bunch of golden grapes, and hurried down-stairs, humming "Lili Kangy," the "canzonetta birichina" that was then the rage in Naples.

    A Spirit in Prison Robert Smythe Hichens 1907

  • Amongst other songs, I had learnt a Neapolitan _canzonetta_ which was always greatly applauded.

    Nobody's Boy Sans Famille Hector Malot 1868

  • She was singing a Venetian canzonetta in a low, soft, warbling tone, as one lost in a revery; as though the music was a mere accompaniment to some pleasant thought.

    Charles O'Malley — Volume 1 Charles James Lever 1839

  • A deeply expressive canzonetta spirituale by Merula concerned not sexual feelings but the love of the characters left.

    Evening Standard - Home 2011

  • The following lines are humbly suggested for a motto, being taken from an ancient Scottish canzonetta, -- unless the

    Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) 1824

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