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Yan'an

(Encyclopedia)Yan'an or Yenan both: yĕn-än [key], city (1991 pop. 115,900), N Shaanxi prov., China, on the Yen River. Now a market and tourist center, it is famed as the terminus of the long march and the de fact...

canon, in music

(Encyclopedia)canon, in music, a type of counterpoint employing the strictest form of imitation. All the voices of a canon have the same melody, beginning at different times. Successive entrances may be at the same...

commedia dell'arte

(Encyclopedia)commedia dell'arte kōm-māˈdēä dĕl-lärˈtā [key], popular form of comedy employing improvised dialogue and masked characters that flourished in Italy from the 16th to the 18th cent. The impac...

Morante, Elsa

(Encyclopedia)Morante, Elsa ĕlˈsə môränˈtā [key], c.1912–85, Italian novelist and poet; wife of Alberto Moravia. Her prose style, which is indebted to surrealism and magic realism, is characterized by the ...

Montale, Eugenio

(Encyclopedia)Montale, Eugenio āo͞ojĕˈnyō mōntäˈlā [key], 1896–1981, Italian poet, critic, and translator. After working as an editor, Montale became chief librarian of the Gabinetto Vieusseux in Florenc...

Medici, Piero de', 1471–1503, Italian merchant prince

(Encyclopedia)Medici, Piero de', 1471–1503, Italian merchant prince. He succeeded his father, Lorenzo de' Medici (Lorenzo il Magnifico), as head of the Medici family and as leader of the Florentine state. In 1494...

Górecki, Henryk Mikolaj

(Encyclopedia)Górecki, Henryk Mikolaj hĕnˈrĭk mēkôˈlī gôrĕtˈskē [key], 1933–2010, Polish composer. He studied (1955–60) at the Katowice State Higher School of Music, joining the faculty in 1968, ris...

Royal Opera

(Encyclopedia)Royal Opera, one of the principal British opera companies, based at the Royal Opera House (which it shares with the Royal Ballet) in Covent Garden, London. Formed in 1946 as the Covent Garden Opera Co...

calypso, in music

(Encyclopedia)calypso, a form of folk song developed on the island of Trinidad and also popular in other Caribbean countries. Thought to have begun with 19th-century black slaves, calypso songs developed and contin...

cantata

(Encyclopedia)cantata kəntäˈtə [key] [Ital.,=sung], composite musical form similar to a short unacted opera or brief oratorio, developed in Italy in the baroque period. The term was first used in 1620 to refer ...