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Dismounting Stellae
[edit]
A dismounting stele (Chinese: 下馬碑), in East Asian architecture, was a stele erected outside an important building or group of buildings giving notice for mounted travellers to dismount and for passengers of vehicles to exit the vehicle.[1][2]
Locations
[edit]Dismounting steles were placed in front of gates to important buildings or institutions such as imperial tombs, palaces, the Imperial City and major temples and shrines, especially shrines to Confucius. They were placed singularly or in pairs. Whether such steles are placed in front of a particular building was dictated by rules of protocol. In imperial times, this was generally controlled by the Board of Rites. The Emperor might also grant the placement of a dismounting stele as a sign of favour towards an institution, group or person.
Music
[edit]A finale is the last movement of a sonata, symphony, or concerto; the ending of a piece of non-vocal classical music which has several movements; or, a prolonged final sequence at the end of an act of an opera or work of musical theatre.[3]
Michael Talbot wrote of the finales typical in sonatas: "The rondo is the form par excellence used for final movements, and ... its typical character and structural properties accord perfectly with those thought desirable in a sonata finale of the early nineteenth century."[4] Carl Czerny (1791–1857) observed "that first movements and finales ought to—and in practice actually do—proclaim their contrasted characters already in their opening themes."[5]
In theatrical music, Christoph Willibald Gluck was an early proponent of extended finales, with multiple characters, to support the "increasingly natural and realistic" stories in his operas that "improved continuity and theatrical validity" beyond the earlier works.[6]
See also
[edit]Sources
[edit]- ^ "沈阳故宫下马碑的前世今生(图)" (in Chinese (China)). 中国网. 2008-10-27. Retrieved 2013-01-18.
- ^ "专家详解沈阳故宫新"下马碑"" (in Chinese (China)). 新华网. 2008-11-05. Retrieved 2013-01-18.
- ^ John Alexander Fuller-Maitland, ed. (1890). A Dictionary of Music and Musicians: (A.D. 1450-1889), p. 523, Macmillan and Co.
- ^ Talbot, Michael (2001). The Finale in Western Instrumental Music, p. 2. ISBN 978-0-19-816695-5.
- ^ Talbot (2001), p.2&1n1. Cites: Czerny, Carl (c.1848). School of Practical Composition, Vol.I, p.67-69.
- ^ Koopman, John. "Expressivity 1760–1850", A Brief History of Singing, 1999, Lawrence University Conservatory of Music, accessed June 28, 2012
