Dictionary of Music - Birding America

328 pulsethat is outstanding. Arias, duets, and choruses alternatewith scenes of narrative or dialogue, with theorchestra carrying on the musical continuity andmeaning. To some extent Puccini’s operas belong tothe school of VERISMO (attempting to portray liferealistically), but they tend to be wider in subjectthan the verismo operas of Mascagni and Leoncavallo.His detractors, on the other hand, consider Puccini’sworks shallow and oversentimental.pulse The regularly repeated accents or beats thatunderlie music, similar to the ticks of a clock. SeeBEAT; RHYTHM.pulse modulation See under MODULATION, def. 2.puncta (poonk′tä) See under ESTAMPIE.punk rockSee under ROCK.punta (poo — n′tä) Italian: “point,” “tip.” A wordused in the direction a punta d’arco, directing theplayer to use the point of the bow (for playing thecello, violin, etc.).Purcell (pûr′səl), Henry, 1659–1695. An Englishcomposer who is remembered as the greatestEnglish composer of the seventeenth century. Duringhis short life he held several important posts atthe English court and managed to write a large numberof compositions in almost every form—opera,church and other choral music (especially odes),incidental music for plays, chamber music, keyboardworks, and many songs of various kinds. Purcell’smusic is typically baroque in the treatment ofcounterpoint and harmony. However, he used theforms and styles of his time in a highly personalway. His vocal music in particular shows remarkableskill in setting to music the inflections and accents ofthe English language. Purcell wrote only one opera,Dido and Aeneas, which is among the finest of theearly operas. His other works include the theaterworks The Fairy Queen, Dioclesian, The IndianQueen, and King Arthur (they include both speechand music and sometimes are called “semi-operas”);four Odes for St. Cecilia’s Day; two sets of triosonatas, including the famous Golden Sonata in Ffor two violins, viola da gamba (bass viol), and continuo(harpsichord); numerous fantasias for viols;and Orpheus Britannicus, a collection of songs publishedafter his death.pyiba (pē′pä) Chinese. Also spelled pyipar,p’ipa. A short-necked lute of China, dating back asfar as the second century and still played today. Ithas a flat, pear-shaped body of wood and four silkstrings, with frets showing the stopping positions.The player holds the instrument upright and plucksthe strings with the fingers. In the late twentiethcentury the pyiba became better known in Westerncircles. Bright Sheng, Tan Dun, and Chen Yi allhave written works for it, both alone and combinedwith Western instruments, as have American composerssuch as Lou Harrison, Philip Glass, andTerry Riley. The Japanese use a version of pyibacalled BIWA.pyiparSee PYIBA.Pythagorean (pi thag′′ə rē′ən) tuning A systemof tuning named for the Greek mathematicianPythagoras, who is believed to have invented it inthe sixth century B.C. In the Pythagorean system, allthe tones of the scale are derived from a single interval,the perfect fifth (2:3, because when two-thirdsof a string vibrate, it produces the tone one fifthabove that produced by the vibration of the entirestring). According to this system, the interval of onewhole tone is always 8:9 (if eight-ninths of a stringvibrate, it produces the note one whole tone abovethat produced by the whole string’s vibrations), andthe interval of one half tone is always 243:256. ThePythagorean system worked better than the systemof just intonation, but it did not work for enharmonictones (such as D-sharp and E-flat, which sound thesame on a modern keyboard instrument). Thus itwas replaced, about 1500, by mean-tone tuning,which itself was later replaced by the system ofequal temperament used today. See also INTERVAL,def. 2; TEMPERAMENT.