Idiophone
An idiophone is any musical instrument that creates sound by the instrument as a whole vibrating—without the use of strings or membranes. It is the first of the four main divisions in the original Hornbostel–Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification; the early classification of Victor-Charles Mahillon called this group of instruments autophones. The most common are struck idiophones, or concussion idiophones, which are made to vibrate by being struck, either directly with a stick or hand or indirectly, by way of a scraping or shaking motion. Various types of bells fall into both categories. A common plucked idiophone is the Jew's harp; the word is from Ancient Greek, a combination of idio- meaning own, personal, or distinct, -phone, meaning voice or sound. Most percussion instruments that are not drums are idiophones. Hornbostel–Sachs divides idiophones into four main sub-categories; the first division is the struck idiophones. This includes most of the non-drum percussion instruments familiar in the West.
They include all idiophones made to vibrate by being struck, either directly with a stick or hand or indirectly, by way of a scraping or shaking motion. Various types of bells fall into both categories; the other three subdivisions are rarer. They are plucked idiophones, such as the Jew's harp, amplified cactus, dan moi, music box and mbira. Other classifications use six main sub-categories: Concussion idiophones are instruments that produce sound by being struck against one another. Percussion idiophones produce sound by being struck with a non-vibrating foreign object. Examples of non-vibrating objects are mallets and sticks. Rattle idiophones are shaken. Scraper idiophones are instruments that are scraped with a stick or other foreign objects to give off a sound. Plucked idiophones produce sound by plucking a flexible tongue from within the instrument itself. Friction idiophones are rubbed to increase vibration and sound intensity. Idiophones are made of materials; the majority of idiophones are made out of glass, metal and wood.
Idiophones are considered part of the percussion section in an orchestra. A number of idiophones that are struck, such as vibraphone bars and cymbals, can be bowed. Pitched percussion instrument https://web.archive.org/web/20130115040826/http://www.music.vt.edu/musicdictionary/texti/Idiophone.html
Staff (music)
In Western musical notation, the staff or stave is a set of five horizontal lines and four spaces that each represent a different musical pitch or in the case of a percussion staff, different percussion instruments. Appropriate music symbols, depending on the intended effect, are placed on the staff according to their corresponding pitch or function. Musical notes are placed by pitch, percussion notes are placed by instrument, rests and other symbols are placed by convention; the absolute pitch of each line of a non-percussive staff is indicated by the placement of a clef symbol at the appropriate vertical position on the left-hand side of the staff. For example, the treble clef known as the G clef, is placed on the second line, fixing that line as the pitch first G above "middle C"; the lines and spaces are numbered from bottom to top. The musical staff is analogous to a mathematical graph of pitch with respect to time. Pitches of notes are given by their vertical position on the staff and notes are played from left to right.
Unlike a graph, the number of semitones represented by a vertical step from a line to an adjacent space depends on the key, the exact timing of the beginning of each note is not directly proportional to its horizontal position. A time signature to the right of the clef indicates the relationship between timing counts and note symbols, while bar lines group notes on the staff into measures. Staff is more common in American English; the plural is staves in either case. The vertical position of the notehead on the staff indicates which note to play: higher-pitched notes are marked higher on the staff; the notehead can be placed with its center intersecting a line or in between the lines touching the lines above and below. Notes outside the range of the staff are placed on or between ledger lines—lines the width of the note they need to hold—added above or below the staff. Which staff positions represent which notes is determined by a clef placed at the beginning of the staff; the clef identifies a particular line as a specific note, all other notes are determined relative to that line.
For example, the treble clef puts the G above middle C on the second line. The interval between adjacent staff positions is one step in the diatonic scale. Once fixed by a clef, the notes represented by the positions on the staff can be modified by the key signature or accidentals on individual notes. A clefless staff may be used to represent a set of percussion sounds. A vertical line drawn to the left of multiple staves creates a system, indicating that the music on all the staves is to be played simultaneously. A bracket is an additional vertical line joining staves to show groupings of instruments that function as a unit, such as the string section of an orchestra. A brace is used to join multiple staves that represent an instrument, such as a piano, harp, or marimba. Sometimes a second bracket is used to show instruments grouped in pairs, such as the first and second oboes or first and second violins in an orchestra. In some cases, a brace is used for this purpose; when more than one system appears on a page two parallel diagonal strokes are placed on the left side of the score to separate them.
Four-part SATB vocal settings in hymnals, use a divisi notation on a two-staff system with soprano and alto voices sharing the upper staff and tenor and bass voices on the lower staff. Confusingly, the German System may refer to a single staff as well as to the Akkolade or system in the English sense; when music on two staves is joined by a brace, or is intended to be played at once by a single performer, a grand staff or great stave is created. The upper staff uses a treble clef and the lower staff has a bass clef. In this instance, middle C is centered between the two staves, it can be written on the first ledger line below the upper staff or the first ledger line above the lower staff. A centered line with a small alto clef is written, used to indicate that B, C, or D on the line can be played with either hand; when playing the piano or harp, the upper staff is played with the right hand and the lower staff with the left hand. In music intended for organ with pedalboard, a grand staff comprises three staves, one for each hand on the manuals and one for the feet on the pedalboard.
Early Western medieval notation was written with neumes, which did not specify exact pitches but only the shape of the melodies, i.e. indicating when the musical line went up or down. During the 9th through 11th centuries a number of systems were developed to specify pitch more including diastematic neumes whose height on the page corresponded with their absolute pitch level. Digraphic notation, using letter names similar to modern note names in conjunction with the neumes, made a brief appearance in a few manuscripts, but a number of manuscripts used one or more horizontal lines to indicate particular pitches; the treatise Musica
Symphonic poem
A symphonic poem or tone poem is a piece of orchestral music in a single continuous movement, which illustrates or evokes the content of a poem, short story, painting, landscape, or other source. The German term Tondichtung appears to have been first used by the composer Carl Loewe in 1828; the Hungarian composer Franz Liszt first applied the term Symphonische Dichtung to his 13 works in this vein. While many symphonic poems may compare in size and scale to symphonic movements, they are unlike traditional classical symphonic movements, in that their music is intended to inspire listeners to imagine or consider scenes, specific ideas or moods, not to focus on following traditional patterns of musical form such as sonata form; this intention to inspire listeners was a direct consequence of Romanticism, which encouraged literary and dramatic associations in music. According to Hugh Macdonald, the symphonic poem met three 19th-century aesthetic goals: it related music to outside sources; the symphonic poem remained a popular composition form from the 1840s until the 1920s, when composers began to abandon the genre.
Some piano and chamber works, such as Arnold Schoenberg's string sextet Verklärte Nacht, have similarities with symphonic poems in their overall intent and effect. However, the term symphonic poem is accepted to refer to orchestral works. A symphonic poem may stand on its own, or it can be part of a series combined into a symphonic suite or cycle. For example, The Swan of Tuonela is a tone poem from Jean Sibelius's Lemminkäinen Suite, Vltava by Bedřich Smetana is part of the six-work cycle Má vlast. While the terms symphonic poem and tone poem have been used interchangeably, some composers such as Richard Strauss and Jean Sibelius have preferred the latter term for their works; the first use of the German term Tondichtung appears to have been by Carl Loewe, applied not to an orchestral work but to his piece for piano solo, Mazeppa, Op. 27, based on the poem of that name by Lord Byron, written twelve years before Liszt treated the same subject orchestrally. The musicologist Mark Bonds suggests that in the second quarter of the 19th century, the future of the symphonic genre seemed uncertain.
While many composers continued to write symphonies during the 1820s and 30s, "there was a growing sense that these works were aesthetically far inferior to Beethoven's.... The real question was not so much whether symphonies could still be written, but whether the genre could continue to flourish and grow". Felix Mendelssohn, Robert Schumann and Niels Gade achieved successes with their symphonies, putting at least a temporary stop to the debate as to whether the genre was dead. Composers began to explore the "more compact form" of the concert overture "...as a vehicle within which to blend musical and pictoral ideas." Examples included Mendelssohn's overtures The Hebrides. Between 1845 and 1847, the Belgian composer César Franck wrote an orchestral piece based on Victor Hugo's poem Ce qu'on entend sur la montagne; the work exhibits characteristics of a symphonic poem, some musicologists, such as Norman Demuth and Julien Tiersot, consider it the first of its genre, preceding Liszt's compositions.
However, Franck did not perform his piece. Liszt's determination to explore and promote the symphonic poem gained him recognition as the genre's inventor; the Hungarian composer Franz Liszt desired to expand single-movement works beyond the concert overture form. The music of overtures is to inspire listeners to imagine images, or moods; the opening movement, with its interplay of contrasting themes under sonata form, was considered the most important part of the symphony. To achieve his objectives, Liszt needed a more flexible method of developing musical themes than sonata form would allow, but one that would preserve the overall unity of a musical composition. Liszt found his method through two compositional practices; the first practice was cyclic form, a procedure established by Beethoven in which certain movements are not only linked but reflect one another's content. Liszt took Beethoven's practice one step further, combining separate movements into a single-movement cyclic structure. Many of Liszt's mature works follow this pattern, of which Les Préludes is one of the best-known examples.
The second practice was thematic transformation, a type of variation in which one theme is changed, not into a related or subsidiary theme but into something new and independent. As musicologist Hugh Macdonald wrote of Liszt's works in this genre, the intent was "to display the traditional logic of symphonic thought. Thematic transformation, like cyclic form, was nothing new in itself, it had been used by Mozart and Haydn. In the final movement of his Ninth Symphony, Beethoven had transformed the theme of the "Ode to Joy" into a Turkish march. Weber and Berlioz had transformed themes, Schubert used thematic transformation to bind together the movements of his Wanderer Fantasy
Karol Szymanowski
Karol Maciej Szymanowski was a Polish composer and pianist, the most celebrated Polish composer of the early 20th century. He is considered a member of the late 19th-/early 20th-century modernist movement Young Poland and viewed as one of the greatest Polish composers; the early works show the influence of the late Romantic German school as well as the early works of Alexander Scriabin, as exemplified by his Étude Op. 4 No. 3 and his first two symphonies. He developed an impressionistic and atonal style, represented by such works as the Third Symphony and his Violin Concerto No. 1. His third period was influenced by the folk music of the Polish Górale people, including the ballet Harnasie, the Fourth Symphony, his sets of Mazurkas for piano. King Roger, composed between 1918 and 1924, remains the most popular opera by Szymanowski, his other significant works include Symphony No. 2, The Love Songs of Hafiz, Stabat Mater. He was awarded the highest national honors, including the Officer's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta, the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland and other distinctions, both Polish and foreign.
Szymanowski was born into the Korwin-Szymanowski family, members of the wealthy land-owning Polish gentry class, in the village of Tymoszówka in the Kiev Governorate of the Russian Empire. He studied music with his father before enrolling at the Gustav Neuhaus Elisavetgrad School of Music in 1892. From 1901 he attended the State Conservatory in Warsaw, of which he was director from 1926 until retiring in 1930. Since musical opportunities in Russian-occupied Poland were quite limited, he travelled throughout Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, the United States. In Berlin he founded the Young Polish Composers’ Publishing Company whose primary aim was to publish new works by his countrymen. During his stay in Vienna he wrote the opera Hagith and composed two song cycles called The Love Songs of Hafiz, which represent a transition between the first and second periods of the composer's style. Being lame in one knee made him unsuitable for military service in World War I, between 1914 and 1917, he composed many works and devoted himself to studying Islamic culture, ancient Greek drama as well as philosophy.
During this period, his works such as Mity and Maski, are characterized by great originality and diversity of style. The dynamic extremes in Szymanowski's music became softened, the composer started employing coloristic orchestration and using polytonal and atonal material while preserving the expressive melodic style of his previous works. In 1918, Szymanowski completed the manuscript of a two-volume novel, which took homosexuality as its subject, his travels those to the Mediterranean area, provided him with new experience, both personal and artistic. Arthur Rubinstein found Szymanowski different. After his return he raved about Sicily Taormina.'There,' he said,'I saw a few young men bathing who could be models for Antinous. I couldn't take my eyes off them.' Now he was a confirmed homosexual. He told me all this with burning eyes."Of his works created or first imagined, like King Roger, during the years 1917 to 1921, both musical and literary, one critic has written: "we have a body of work representing a dazzling personal synthesis of cultural references, crossing the boundaries of nation and gender to form an affirmative belief in an international society of the future based on the artistic freedom granted by Eros."Szymanowski settled in Warsaw in 1919.
In 1926 he accepted the position of Director of the Warsaw Conservatory though he had little administrative experience. He became ill in 1928 and temporarily lost his post, he was diagnosed with an acute form of tuberculosis, in 1929 traveled to Davos, for medical treatment. Szymanowski resumed his position at the Conservatory in 1930, but the school was closed two years by a ministerial decision, he moved to Villa Atma in Zakopane. While living in Zakopane, Szymanowski developed a keen interest in the Polish folk idiom and undertook the task of creating a Polish national style, an endeavour unattempted since the times of Chopin, he immersed himself in the culture of the Polish Highlanders and embraced their tonal language, syncopated rhythms, winding melodies into the new style of his music. In 1936 Szymanowski received more treatment at a sanatorium in Grasse, but it no was longer effective, he died at a sanatorium in Lausanne on 29 March 1937. His body was brought back to Poland by his sister Stanisława and laid to rest at Skałka in Kraków, the "national Panthéon" for the most distinguished Poles.
Szymanowski's long correspondence with the pianist Jan Smeterlin, a significant champion of his piano works, was published in 1969. Szymanowski was influenced by the music of Richard Wagner, Richard Strauss, Max Reger, Alexander Scriabin and the impressionism of Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, he drew much influence from his countryman Frédéric Chopin and from Polish folk music. Like Chopin he wrote a number of mazurkas for piano, he was influenced by the folk music of the Polish Highlanders, which he discovered in Zakopane in the southern Tatra highlands. He wrote in an article entitled "About Goral Music": "My discovery of the essential beauty of Goral music and architecture is a personal o
George Gershwin
George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist whose compositions spanned both popular and classical genres. Among his best-known works are the orchestral compositions Rhapsody in Blue and An American in Paris, the songs Swanee and Fascinating Rhythm, the jazz standard I Got Rhythm, the opera Porgy and Bess which spawned the hit Summertime. Gershwin studied piano under Charles Hambitzer and composition with Rubin Goldmark, Henry Cowell, Joseph Brody, he began his career as a song plugger but soon started composing Broadway theater works with his brother Ira Gershwin and Buddy DeSylva. He moved to Paris intending to study with Nadia Boulanger, he returned to New York City and wrote Porgy and Bess with Ira and DuBose Heyward. It was a commercial failure but came to be considered one of the most important American operas of the twentieth century and an American cultural classic. Gershwin moved to Hollywood and composed numerous film scores until his death in 1937 from a malignant brain tumor.
His compositions have been adapted for use in films and television, several became jazz standards recorded and covered in many variations. Gershwin was of Russian Lithuanian Jewish ancestry, his grandfather, Jakov Gershowitz, had served for 25 years as a mechanic for the Imperial Russian Army to earn the right of free travel and residence as a Jew. His teenage son, Moishe Gershowitz, worked as a leather cutter for women's shoes. Moishe Gershowitz met and fell in love with Roza Bruskina, the teenage daughter of a furrier in Vilnius, she and her family moved to New York due to increasing anti-Jewish sentiment in Russia, changing her first name to Rose. Moishe, faced with compulsory military service if he remained in Russia, moved to America as soon as he could afford to. Once in New York, he changed his first name to Morris. Gershowitz lived with a maternal uncle in Brooklyn, he married Rose on July 21, 1895, Gershowitz soon Americanized his name to Gershwine. Their first child, Ira Gershwin, was born on December 6, 1896, after which the family moved into a second-floor apartment on Brooklyn's Snediker Avenue.
On September 26, 1898, George was born as second son to Morris and Rose Bruskin Gershwine in their second-floor apartment on Brooklyn's Snediker Avenue. His birth certificate identifies him as Jacob Gershwine, with the surname pronounced'Gersh-vin' in the Russian and Yiddish immigrant community, he had just one given name, contrary to the American practice of giving children both a first and middle name. He was named after a one time Russian army mechanic, he soon became known as George, changed the spelling of his surname to'Gershwin' about the time he became a professional musician. After Ira and George, another boy Arthur Gershwin, a girl Frances Gershwin were born into the family; the family lived in many different residences, as their father changed dwellings with each new enterprise in which he became involved. They grew up around the Yiddish Theater District. George and Ira frequented the local Yiddish theaters, with George appearing onstage as an extra. George lived a usual childhood existence for children of New York tenements: running around with his boyhood friends, roller skating and misbehaving in the streets.
Until 1908, he cared nothing for music, when as a ten-year-old he was intrigued upon hearing his friend Maxie Rosenzweig's violin recital. The sound, the way his friend played, captured him. At around the same time, George's parents had bought a piano for lessons for his older brother Ira, but to his parents' surprise, Ira's relief, it was George who spent more time playing it. Although his younger sister Frances was the first in the family to make a living through her musical talents, she married young and devoted herself to being a mother and housewife, thus surrendering any serious time to musical endeavors. Having given up her performing career, she settled upon painting as a creative outlet, a hobby George pursued. Arthur Gershwin followed in the paths of George and Ira becoming a composer of songs and short piano works. With a degree of frustration, George tried various piano teachers for some two years before being introduced to Charles Hambitzer by Jack Miller, the pianist in the Beethoven Symphony Orchestra.
Until his death in 1918, Hambitzer remained Gershwin's musical mentor and taught him conventional piano technique, introduced him to music of the European classical tradition, encouraged him to attend orchestral concerts. Following such concerts, young Gershwin would try to play, on the piano at home, the music he had heard from recall, without sheet music; as a matter of course, Gershwin studied with the classical composer Rubin Goldmark and avant-garde composer-theorist Henry Cowell, thus formalizing his classical music training. In 1913, Gershwin left school at the age of 15 and found his first job as a "song plugger", his employer was Jerome H. Remick and Company, a Detroit-based publishing firm with a branch office on New York City's Tin Pan Alley, he earned $15 a week, his first published song was "When You Want'Em, You Can't Get'Em, When You've Got'Em, You Don't Want'Em" in 1916 when Gershwin was only 17 years old. It earned him 50 cents. In 1916, Gershwin started working for Aeolian Company and Standard Music Rolls in New York and arranging.
He produced dozens, if not hundreds, of rolls under his own and assumed names
Paris
Paris is the capital and most populous city of France, with an area of 105 square kilometres and an official estimated population of 2,140,526 residents as of 1 January 2019. Since the 17th century, Paris has been one of Europe's major centres of finance, commerce, fashion and the arts; the City of Paris is the centre and seat of government of the Île-de-France, or Paris Region, which has an estimated official 2019 population of 12,213,364, or about 18 percent of the population of France. The Paris Region had a GDP of €681 billion in 2016, accounting for 31 percent of the GDP of France, was the 5th largest region by GDP in the world. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit Worldwide Cost of Living Survey in 2018, Paris was the second most expensive city in the world, after Singapore, ahead of Zurich, Hong Kong and Geneva. Another source ranked Paris as most expensive, on a par with Singapore and Hong-Kong, in 2018; the city is a major rail and air-transport hub served by two international airports: Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Paris-Orly.
Opened in 1900, the city's subway system, the Paris Métro, serves 5.23 million passengers daily, is the second busiest metro system in Europe after Moscow Metro. Gare du Nord is the 24th busiest railway station in the world, the first located outside Japan, with 262 million passengers in 2015. Paris is known for its museums and architectural landmarks: the Louvre was the most visited art museum in the world in 2018, with 10.2 million visitors. The Musée d'Orsay and Musée de l'Orangerie are noted for their collections of French Impressionist art, the Pompidou Centre Musée National d'Art Moderne has the largest collection of modern and contemporary art in Europe; the historical district along the Seine in the city centre is classified as a UNESCO Heritage Site. Popular landmarks in the centre of the city include the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris and the Gothic royal chapel of Sainte-Chapelle, both on the Île de la Cité. Paris received 23 million visitors in 2017, measured by hotel stays, with the largest numbers of foreign visitors coming from the United States, the UK, Germany and China.
It was ranked as the third most visited travel destination in the world in 2017, after Bangkok and London. The football club Paris Saint-Germain and the rugby union club Stade Français are based in Paris; the 80,000-seat Stade de France, built for the 1998 FIFA World Cup, is located just north of Paris in the neighbouring commune of Saint-Denis. Paris hosts the annual French Open Grand Slam tennis tournament on the red clay of Roland Garros. Paris will host the 2024 Summer Olympics; the 1938 and 1998 FIFA World Cups, the 2007 Rugby World Cup, the 1960, 1984, 2016 UEFA European Championships were held in the city and, every July, the Tour de France bicycle race finishes there. The name "Paris" is derived from the Celtic Parisii tribe; the city's name is not related to the Paris of Greek mythology. Paris is referred to as the City of Light, both because of its leading role during the Age of Enlightenment and more because Paris was one of the first large European cities to use gas street lighting on a grand scale on its boulevards and monuments.
Gas lights were installed on the Place du Carousel, Rue de Rivoli and Place Vendome in 1829. By 1857, the Grand boulevards were lit. By the 1860s, the boulevards and streets of Paris were illuminated by 56,000 gas lamps. Since the late 19th century, Paris has been known as Panam in French slang. Inhabitants are known in French as Parisiens, they are pejoratively called Parigots. The Parisii, a sub-tribe of the Celtic Senones, inhabited the Paris area from around the middle of the 3rd century BC. One of the area's major north–south trade routes crossed the Seine on the île de la Cité; the Parisii minted their own coins for that purpose. The Romans began their settlement on Paris' Left Bank; the Roman town was called Lutetia. It became a prosperous city with a forum, temples, an amphitheatre. By the end of the Western Roman Empire, the town was known as Parisius, a Latin name that would become Paris in French. Christianity was introduced in the middle of the 3rd century AD by Saint Denis, the first Bishop of Paris: according to legend, when he refused to renounce his faith before the Roman occupiers, he was beheaded on the hill which became known as Mons Martyrum "Montmartre", from where he walked headless to the north of the city.
Clovis the Frank, the first king of the Merovingian dynasty, made the city his capital from 508. As the Frankish domination of Gaul began, there was a gradual immigration by the Franks to Paris and the Parisian Francien dialects were born. Fortification of the Île-de-la-Citie failed to avert sacking by Vikings in 845, but Paris' strategic importance—with its bridges prevent
The Tempest
The Tempest is a play by William Shakespeare written in 1610–1611, thought to be one of the last plays that Shakespeare wrote alone. After the first scene, which takes place on a ship at sea during a tempest, the rest of the story is set on a remote island, where the sorcerer Prospero, a complex and contradictory character, lives with his daughter Miranda, his two servants — Caliban, a savage monster figure, Ariel, an airy spirit; the play contains music and songs. It explores many themes including magic, betrayal and family. In act four, a wedding masque serves as a play-within-the play, contributes spectacle and elevated language. Though The Tempest is listed in the First Folio as the first of Shakespeare’s comedies, it deals with both tragic and comic themes, modern criticism has created a category of romance for this and others of Shakespeare’s late plays; the Tempest has been subjected to varied interpretations—from those that see it as a fable of art and creation, with Prospero representing Shakespeare, Prospero’s renunciation of magic signaling Shakespeare's farewell to the stage, to interpretations that consider it an allegory of European man colonizing foreign lands.
A ship is caught in a powerful storm, there is terror and confusion onboard, the ship is shipwrecked. But the storm is a magical creation carried out by the sprit and caused by the magic of Prospero, the Duke of Milan, before his dukedom was usurped and taken from him by his brother Antonio; that was twelve years ago, when he and his young daughter, were set adrift on the sea, stranded on an island. Among those onboard the shipwreck are Alonso. On the ship are Alonso's brother, "trusted counsellor", Gonzalo. Prospero plots to reverse what was done to him twelve years ago, regain his office. Using magic he separates the shipwreck survivors into groups on the island: Ferdinand, found by Prospero and Miranda, it is part of Prospero's plan to encourage a romantic relationship between Miranda. Trinculo, the king’s jester, Stephano, the king’s drunken butler; these three will raise a coup against Prospero. Alonso, Antonio and two attendant lords. Antonio and Sebastian conspire to kill Gonzalo so Sebastian can become King.
At Prospero's command Ariel thwarts this conspiracy, the three guilty nobles run off. The ship's captain and boatswain are asleep until the final act. Prospero betroths Miranda to marry Ferdinand, instructs Ariel to bring some other spirits and produce a masque; the masque will feature classical goddesses, Juno and Iris, will bless and celebrate the betrothal. The masque will instruct the young couple on marriage, on the value of chastity until then; the masque is interrupted when Prospero realizes he had forgotten the plot against his life. He orders Ariel to deal with this. Caliban and Stephano are chased off into the swamps by goblins in the shape of hounds. Prospero vows that once he achieves his goals, he will set Ariel free, abandon his magic, saying: I’ll break my staff, Bury it certain fathoms in the earth, And deeper than did plummet sound I’ll drown my book. Ariel brings on Alonso and Sebastian. Prospero forgives all three, raises the threat to Antonio and Sebastian that he could blackmail them, though he won’t.
Prospero’s former title, Duke of Milan, is restored. Ariel fetches the sailors from the ship. Caliban, filled with regret, promises to be good. Ariel is told to provide good weather to guide the king's ship back to the royal fleet and to Naples, where Ferdinand and Miranda will be married. After this, Ariel is set free. In the epilogue, Prospero requests -- with their applause; the Tempest begins with the spectacle of a storm-tossed ship at sea, there is a second spectacle—the masque. A masque in Renaissance England was a festive courtly entertainment that offered music, elaborate sets and drama. A masque would begin with an "anti-masque", that showed a disordered scene of satyrs, for example and dancing wildly; the anti-masque would be dispersed by the spectacular arrival of the masque proper in a demonstration of chaos and vice being swept away by glorious civilization. In Shakespeare’s play, the storm in scene one functions as the anti-masque for the masque proper in act four; the masque in The Tempest is not an actual masque, it is an analogous scene intended to mimic and evoke a masque, while serving the narrative of the drama that contains it.
The masque is a culmination of the primary action in The Tempest: Prospero’s intention to not only seek revenge on his usurpers, but to regain his rightful position as Duke of Milan. Most important to his plot to regain his power and position is to marry Miranda to Ferdinand, heir to the King of Naples; this marriage will secure Prospero’s position by securing his legacy. The chastity of the bride is considered essential and valued in royal lineages; this is true not only in Prospero’s plot, but notably in the court of the virgin queen, Elizabeth. Sir Walter Raleigh had in fact named one of the new world colonies "Virginia" after his monarch’s chastity, it was understood by James, king when The Tempest was first produced, as he arranged political marriages for his grandchildren. What could possible go wrong with Pro
