Dictionary of Music - Birding America

superius 409Couperin and Rameau. The order of movements inthese is less fixed than in the German suite, and themovements themselves bear the name of either adance (allemande, courante, gavotte) or a descriptiveidea (see COUPERIN, FRANÇOIS). The most importantEnglish composer of suites, besides Handel, wasPurcell. In Italy in the seventeenth century a similartype developed, called the sonata da camera, which,however, was a form of chamber music (each instrumentplayed its own part; see under SONATA).The end of the baroque period (1750) alsomarks the end of the instrumental suite. Elements ofit survived during the classic period in the serenade,divertimento, and cassation, all instrumental compositionsoriginally designed for light eveningentertainment, as well as in the minuet movementof the classic sonata, symphony, and quartet. Nevertheless,these forms replaced the suite as such. Inthe first half of the twentieth century there weresome attempts to revive the baroque form. Suchcompositions, usually consisting of a series of connectedmovements with a dancelike character,include Stravinsky’s Suite for chamber orchestra(1921), Bartók’s Suites for orchestra (op. 3, 1905;op. 4, 1907), Kodály’s orchestral suite entitledDances of Galanta, Schoenberg’s Suite for stringorchestra (1934), Debussy’s Suite bergamasque forpiano solo (1905), and Milhaud’s Suite provençalefor orchestra (1937) and Suite française for band(1945). In some of these works (by Bartók, Kodály,Debussy, and Milhaud) there is a conscious attemptto use the forms and idioms of folk dances, whereasothers (by Stravinsky and Schoenberg) representprincipally an interest in the form of the suite assuch. 2 A type of instrumental composition thatbecame very popular in the late nineteenth century.It consists of a series of movements, either of originalmusic, or, quite often, of arrangements of musicfrom folk dances, ballets, operas, or incidentalmusic for plays or motion pictures. The arrangementsmay be made by the original composer or bysomeone else. Often such suites have a program(see PROGRAM MUSIC). Examples include the suitebased on Bizet’s incidental music to the play L’Arlésienne,Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade andCapriccio espagnol (original music), Ferde Grofé’sGrand Canyon Suite, Prokofiev’s suite from the filmscore Lieutenant Kije, Ravel’s suite Ma mère l’oye(“Mother Goose Suite”), Tchaikovsky’s suite basedon the ballet The Nutcracker, Stravinsky’s suitefrom the ballet Petrushka, Grieg’s two suites basedon the music for the play Peer Gynt, de Falla’s Suitefor piano and orchestra, Noches en los jardinesd’espana (“Nights in the Gardens of Spain”; original),and Copland’s suite from the balletAppalachian Spring.suivez (swē vā′) French: “follow.” 1 The Frenchterm for colla parte (see under PARTE). 2 A directionto continue to the next section without pause, theFrench equivalent of SEGUE (def. 1).sul (soo l) Italian: “on” or “at.” For musical termsbeginning with sul, such as sul ponticello, see underthe second word (PONTICELLO). Used with a letter orRoman numeral, sul tells the performer which stringto play (sul G or sul IV, play on the G string; sul A,play on the A string, etc.).Sullivan (sul′ə vən), Arthur Seymour,1842–1900. An English composer who is rememberedchiefly for writing the music for a series ofvery popular comic operettas (see GILBERT AND SUL-LIVAN). Despite their enormous success, Sullivanconsidered them unimportant compared to his seriouscompositions, most of which have been virtuallyforgotten. Sullivan at the age of twenty-four wasappointed professor at the Royal Academy of Music,a great honor for so young a man. His serious worksinclude a symphony, the opera Ivanhoe, incidentalmusic to Shakespeare’s play The Tempest, ballets,and many choral works and hymns. However,besides the operas he wrote with Gilbert, the onlyworks of his that achieved lasting fame are the hymn“Onward, Christian Soldiers” and the song “TheLost Chord.”Sumer is icumen insuperdominantSee under CANON.Another word for SUBMEDIANT.superius (sə pēr′ē əs) Latin. Also, cantus(kan′təs). In sixteenth-century vocal or instrumentalmusic, the highest part. Abbreviated s.