E
E is a note of the scale (= Italian, French: mi).
Elegy
An elegy (= French: élégie) is a lament,
either vocal or instrumental.
English horn
The English horn is more generally known in England
as the cor anglais. It is the tenor oboe.
Enharmonicism
Different spellings of notes (e.g., Ab = G#) can
be used for various purposes. A dominant seventh chord can be respelled
as a Ger6 chord, allowing for
different resolutions of the same sound type. Much music, since at
least the 18th century, exploits enharmonic equivalence for the purposes
of modulation.
Ensemble
The word ensemble is used in three senses. It may
refer to the togetherness of a group of performers: if ensemble is poor,
the players are not together. It may indicate part of an opera that involves
a group of singers. It can also mean a group of performers.
Entr'acte
As the word suggests, an entr'acte
(= German: Zwischenspiel) is music between the
acts of a play or opera.
Escape tone
(échappée) A metrically weak
dissonance approached by step and left by leap in the opposite direction.
Such formations can also be understood as incomplete neighboring tones.
(See Nonharmonic Tones)
Equal temperament
A system of tuning currently accepted as the standard.
In this system, the octave is divided into twelve half-steps of equal size.
Thus, no one key is favored at the expense of others, and accidentals and
modulations may be employed freely. It should be noted that, except
for the octave, none of the intervals in equal temperament is identical
with its counterpart in Just or Pythagorean
tuning. However, our ears have become adjusted to these compromises.
Equal temperament was not universally adopted throughout Europe until the
mid-19th century. Other musical cultures employ different tunings.
Etude
An étude is a study, intended originally for
the technical practice of the player. Chopin,
Liszt
and later composers elevated the étude into a significant piece
of music, no mere exercise.
The exposition in sonata-allegro form is the first
section of the movement, in which the principal thematic material is announced.
In the exposition of a fugue (a fugal exposition) the voices (= parts)
enter one by one with the same subject: the exposition ends when all the
voices have entered.
Expressionism
Term taken over from the visual arts and used, more
or less metaphorically, for music written in a deeply subjective and introspective
style. The composition of such music is roughly lined in inspiration
with the German school of expressionist painters. These painters
sought to go beyond the purely visual appearance and to depict the artist's
subjective interpretation of reality, using distortion, exaggeration, symbolism,
etc.
The composers most often identified as 'expressionists"
are Schoenberg and Berg, and to some extent Webern. Schoenberg's
"Verklärte Nacht", "Pierrot Lunaire", and "Erwartung", along with
Berg's operas "Wozzeck" and Lulu", are the masterpieces of expressionist
music.