Abstracts Category : Other

Assai| Historical Contexts of a Contested Musical Term

by Adam Lefever Hughes

This study seeks to establish the feasibility of <i>assai</i> as a moderating term in more cases than is typically assumed. Since evidence of concurrent competing definitions for the term <i>assai</i> exists from the mid- to late-18th century, understanding and putting into practice a composers indications according to his own understanding of the term becomes murky where the word <i>assai</i> is concerned during and beyond the time when the two definitions exist concurrently. Through investigation of musical scores, examining such features as ornamentation, the relative brilliance of the work, tonality, meter, and structure, the characteristics of a piece of music that are crucial to navigating the multivalent qualities of the word <i>assai</i> are identified and tested against the actual musical content of examples from works of J. S. Bach, Domenico Scarlatti, W. F. Bach, J. C. F. Bach, Johann Friedrich Agricola, C. P. E. Bach, W. A. Mozart, F. J. Haydn, Ludwig van Beethoven, Frdric Chopin, and Franz Liszt.