Potpourri (music)
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Potpourri or Pot-Pourri [pō-poo’rē] (French, literally "rotten pot") was originally a term applied to a jar with a mixture of dried flower petals and spices used to scent the air. In music this is a kind of musical form structured as ABCDEF..., the same as medley or, sometimes, fantasia. It is often used in light, easy-going and popular types of music.
This is a form of arrangement where the individual sections are simply juxtaposed with no strong connection or relationship. This type of form is organized by the principle of non-repetition. This is usually to be applied to a composition that consists of a string of favourite tunes, like a potpourri based on either some popular opera, operetta, or a collection of songs, dances, etc.
The term has been in use since the beginning of the 18th century, or to be more specific, since it was used by the French music publisher K. Ballard for the edition of a collection of pieces in 1711. Potpourris became especially popular in the 19th century. The opera overtures of French composers, such as François-Adrien Boïeldieu (1775 - 1834), Daniel Auber (1782 - 1871) and Ferdinand Hérold (1791 - 1833), or the Englishman Arthur Sullivan (1842 - 1900) belong to this type. Richard Strauss called the overture to his Die schweigsame Frau a "pot-pourri".
More examples
The Italian guitar virtuoso Mauro Giuliani, (1781 - 1829) entitled a number of his works "potpourris": Potpourri, Opp. 18, 26, 28, 31, 42, and Potpourri Romano, Op. 108
There are many more pieces called "potpourris":
- Louis Spohr: Potpourri on themes by Mozart for violin, string quartet & double bass in B flat major, Op. 22;
- Johann Strauss: Potpourri Quadrille;
- Ernst Krenek: Potpourri, Op. 54 for symphony orchestra.
- Georges Bizet/ John Philip Sousa, Carmen (Grand Potpourri)
- Giacomo Meyerbeer's “L'Africaine Potpourri”, arranged by Henry Cramer.
- Henry Cramer: Beauties of the Opera: Being a Collection of Favorite Potpourris... (La fille du régiment, Donizetti) Philadelphia: Lee & Walker.
- Henry Cramer: Semiramide de Gioachino Rossini. Potpourris dur des motifs d'Opéras pour le Piano. Mayence: B. Schott.
- Henry Cramer: Norma, de Vincenzo Bellini. Potpourri. Paris: Schott.
- José Comellas: Potpourri sobre motivos de la opera Fausto, arreglado facilmente para piano. Habana: Edelmann y Ca.
- Eugene Magnus: L'Africaine, (Giacomo Meyerbeer) Potpourri. New York: Beer & Schirmer.
Quotations
"If music is frozen architecture, then the potpourri is frozen coffee-table gossip... Potpourri is the art of adding apples to pears…” (Arnold Schoenberg: "Glosses on the Theories of Others" (1929), See "Style and Idea", Faber and Faber 1985, p.313-314)
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