L'italiano in musica: an NSM-based semantic analysis of the musical terms vivace and rubato

Abstract

This paper presents a semantic analysis of two musical terms with which most teachers and students struggle: vivace and rubato. The scope of the paper is twofold: firstly, to elucidate the meaning of these two terms in a clear way; secondly, to analyse the meaning of these terms from the point of view of cultural semantics, which adopts the methodology of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage for analysing the meaning of words, and highlight in this way the connection with the meaning of the Italian adjectives from which they derive. Ultimately, the analysis is aimed at highlighting the advantages that NSM-based semantic explications of vivace and rubato can have for pedagogical purposes. Show more