PAEAN (PEE-uhn)
A
song of joy or praise Common
clues:
Song of triumph; Song of praise; Song
of joy; Hymn of praise; Hymn of thanksgiving Crossword
puzzle frequency:
once a year Frequency
in English language:
54478 / 86800 News: Why
We Eat Turkey on Thanksgiving Video: A
paean of Beethoven
Paean
is a term used to describe a type of song. It comes from the
ancient Greek use of the term, which was also used as the name of
the healer of the gods.
The
most famous paeans are those of Pindar
Paeans
were sung at the festivals of Apollo (especially the Hyacinthia),
at banquets, and later even at public funerals. In later times
they were addressed not only to the gods, but to human beings. In
this manner the Rhodians celebrated Ptolemy I of Egypt, the
Samians Lysander of Sparta, the Athenians Demetrius, the
Delphians Craterus of Macedon.
Musically,
the paean was a choral ode, and originally had an antiphonal
character, in which a leader sang in a monodic style, with the
chorus responding with a simple, informal phrase; however, later
in its development, the paean was an entirely choral form.
Typically the paean was in the Dorian mode (note that the Ancient
Greek Dorian was different from the modern Dorian mode; see
musical mode), and was accompanied by the kithara, which was
Apollo's instrument. Paeans meant to be sung on the battlefield
were accompanied by aulos and kithara.
Paean
is now used in the sense of any song of joy or triumph. A
particularly cogent Paean is that composed in the later twentieth
century by the British composer, Kenneth Leighton, a work that is
both triumphal and ascerbic and that poses questions to the
listener that are both challenging and re-enforcing in the
spiritual sense. It also describes a poetic foot of four
syllables, one long and three short.
This
article is licensed under the GNU
Free Documentation License.
It uses material from the Wikipedia
article "Paean".
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