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| DaCapo | |
|---|---|
| Name | DaCapo |
| Meaning | Italian term meaning "from the head" or "from the beginning" |
| Origin | Italian |
| Related | Dal segno, Fine, Repeat sign |
DaCapo
DaCapo is an Italian musical term indicating repetition from the beginning of a composition. It functions as a navigation instruction in scores used by composers and performers to structure works across periods associated with figures such as Johann Sebastian Bach, George Frideric Handel, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Franz Schubert. Performers encounter the term in contexts linked to institutions like the Vienna Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic, and venues such as Carnegie Hall, Royal Albert Hall, Gewandhaus.
The phrase derives from Italian roots appearing in sources connected to the Italian Renaissance, Baroque era, and texts by theorists like Gioseffo Zarlino, Giovanni Battista Doni, Giovanni Maria Artusi, Girolamo Frescobaldi, and Arcangelo Corelli. It literally means "from the head" and is historically juxtaposed with instructions found in treatises by Jean-Philippe Rameau, Heinrich Schenker, Hector Berlioz, Arnold Schoenberg, and Herman Kretzschmar. Editions published by houses such as Breitkopf & Härtel, Henle Verlag, Bärenreiter, G. Ricordi & Co., Novello & Co. show how engraving practice standardized the term alongside directives linked to figures like Franz Liszt and Felix Mendelssohn.
Usage developed through the Baroque music period with composers like Domenico Scarlatti, Antonio Vivaldi, Henry Purcell, Alessandro Scarlatti, and Georg Philipp Telemann, then evolved in the Classical period with Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Ludwig van Beethoven. In the Romantic era it appears in works by Franz Schubert, Felix Mendelssohn, Robert Schumann, Frédéric Chopin, Richard Wagner, and Giacomo Puccini. 20th-century composers including Igor Stravinsky, Béla Bartók, Arnold Schoenberg, Dmitri Shostakovich, Benjamin Britten, Aaron Copland, and Olivier Messiaen engaged with repeat structures that sometimes employed or subverted the instruction. Critical editions prepared by projects like the Neue Mozart-Ausgabe, Bach Gesellschaft, Henle Urtext, and the RISM database document historical variants encountered in manuscripts from archives such as the British Library, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Bibliothèque nationale de France, and the Library of Congress.
Notation commonly uses abbreviations and symbols seen alongside the dal segno sign, the Fine mark, and repeat barlines in prints from publishers like Oxford University Press and Schirmer. Variants include Italian abbreviations, graphical repeat signs used in editions by S. Fischer Verlag, and editorial markings in scores for ensembles such as the London Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and chamber groups like the Guarneri Quartet and the Juilliard String Quartet. Performance practice debates involve historically informed performance proponents tied to interpreters such as Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Christopher Hogwood, Gustav Leonhardt, John Eliot Gardiner, and modern conductors including Simon Rattle and Gustavo Dudamel. Editions by scholars like Philipp Spitta, Charles Burney, Alfred Einstein, and Robert Schumann influence how repeats are realized in recordings on labels such as Deutsche Grammophon, EMI Classics, Decca Records, Sony Classical, and Naxos Records.
The concept appears in forms adopted by composers and arrangers in jazz settings involving figures like Duke Ellington, Count Basie, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, and Charlie Parker, where head arrangements echo the "from the beginning" idea. In rock music and pop music production it parallels practices in works by The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, David Bowie, and Radiohead, and in song forms produced by labels such as Motown Records, Island Records, Atlantic Records, and RCA Records. Electronic and dance music producers associated with Kraftwerk, Daft Punk, Aphex Twin, The Chemical Brothers, and Calvin Harris exploit looped repeats akin to da capo instructions in studio techniques developed at studios like Abbey Road Studios, Sun Studio, Muscle Shoals Sound Studio, and Electric Lady Studios. Musical theater and film composers such as Stephen Sondheim, Andrew Lloyd Webber, John Williams, Hans Zimmer, and Ennio Morricone use reprise structures functionally similar to da capo in scores performed at venues like Broadway, West End, and festivals like the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and Glastonbury Festival.
The term and its concept crop up in literature and visual culture in works linked to writers like James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Marcel Proust, Italo Calvino, and T. S. Eliot, as well as in cinematic scores by directors and composers such as Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, Quentin Tarantino, Christopher Nolan, and Wes Anderson. Adaptations occur in educational contexts at institutions such as Juilliard School, Conservatoire de Paris, Royal Academy of Music, Curtis Institute of Music, and Moscow Conservatory, and in digital platforms and software developed by companies like Steinberg, Avid Technology, Ableton, Native Instruments, and Apple Inc.. Thematic uses of repeat-as-restart inform choreography in companies like Ballets Russes, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Martha Graham Company, and media projects archived by The British Film Institute, Library of Congress, and Smithsonian Institution.
Category:Musical notation