The repetition of sound after a short time interval. In addition to the applications discussed below the term is used for a signal-processing device (also known as a delay) that produces a slightly delayed playback of sounds either by a tape loop or by digital delay; see Electric guitar, §2.
See also Organ stop.
Natural echoes arise from the reflection of a sound wave by a solid surface, such as a wall or cliff. For the echo to be perceived as distinct from the original sound, the extra path length travelled by the reflected sound wave must have a minimum value of around 17 metres, corresponding to a minimum time interval of 50 milliseconds between direct and reflected sounds.
The reverberant sound field in a concert hall is created by multiple reflections of sound waves. In a well-designed hall, the direct sound reaching a member of the audience is followed by a series of reflections within a time interval of around 35 milliseconds. These ‘early delayed arrivals’ are not heard as separate echoes; because of the ‘precedence effect’ they are perceived as a reinforcement of the direct sound. Subsequent reflections blend smoothly into the reverberation. A concave surface, focussing sound waves into a particular part of the hall, can give rise to an audible echo; a ‘flutter echo’ can arise from successive reflections between parallel walls.
See also Acoustics, §I.
Although the echo has been widely used in popular music throughout history, its application to Western art music is relatively recent and seems to have been inspired by renewed interest in classical Greek and Roman literature following the fall of the Byzantine empire in the mid-15th century. According to Ovid, the nymph Echo lost her ability of full speech while pining for Narcissus (Metamorphoses, book 3) and was able to reproduce only the last few syllables of sentences spoken to her. Ovid's powerful story (based on Euripides) had a lasting influence on vocal and instrumental music from the Renaissance to the 20th century. In the Baroque era the principle of repetition became a basic element in formal construction, dynamics and performing practice.
A survey of echo-related works composed during the 16th century shows stylistic differentiation between vocal and instrumental music. Echo settings of sacred and secular texts display a further dichotomy. Secular polyphony relies on echo poetry (especially that of Poliziano), where the repeated word at the end of each line is cleverly altered to become an answer or question related to the main text. The abundance of echo poetry in Italian frottolas and madrigals and French chansons of this period attests the widespread use of the echo effect (e.g. in music by Tromboncino, Lassus, Marenzio and Le Jeune). Polyphonic sacred works manifest a preference for the repetition of longer phrases or sentences, the repetition underscoring the importance of the text. This method led eventually to antiphonal polyphonic writing for two or more choirs (see Cori spezzati). In Venice the polychoral tradition was already in place by the mid-16th century; the echo idea was further explored in the concerti and other works by Willaert and the two Gabrielis. The popularity of cori spezzati and concerted church music can be judged by the large number of multichoral pieces published outside Italy; German composers from the early Baroque (Praetorius, Schein, Schütz) wrote some of the most significant works in this form.
The instrumental echo followed a different path of development. It evolved both vertically and horizontally, creating such diverse features as melodic sequences in terraced dynamics, echoing phrases between solo instruments in contrasting registers, with the frequent addition of contrasting timbres, and many varieties of the concertato structure with their characteristic tutti–solo exchanges. References to the echo in instrumental titles became common after 1600: such titles are attached to keyboard pieces, trio sonatas, concertos and symphonies by composers including Sweelinck, Marini, William Lawes, Corelli, Vivaldi, Handel, J.S. Bach, J.C. Bach and Carl Stamitz. G.B. Riccio's Canzon La Pichi, in ecco con il tremolo for solo violin and trombone (Otto ordini di letanie della Madonna, Venice, 16196) is an early 17th-century example. The French Baroque harpsichord school introduced the petite reprise, an echo repetition of a short phrase at the end of a binary (often dance) movement; composers who used the technique included Chambonnières, D'Anglebert, François Couperin and Rameau. This mannerism was imitated by many non-French composers in French-style keyboard pieces, especially suites. During the late 18th century composers including Haydn and Mozart used triple or quadruple echoing groups to create a playful, witty mood (e.g. in Mozart's Notturno k286/289a).
It was in music composed for the stage, however, that the echo technique left its most significant mark. Dramatic productions of the late 16th and early 17th centuries (especially the intermedi) favoured pastoral subjects which portrayed characters and scenes of rural life. But according to Sternfeld (1993, p.76)
these shepherds and nymphs were not humble, lowly folk … they broke into song with an ease that assumed music to be one of their customary skills. It is these references to songs and musical instruments that form a link between various forms of pastoral literature … and the Renaissance, and hence establish the pastoral as one of the most important ancestors, if not the ancestor, of opera.
From the beginning, stage pastorals contained vocal and instrumental echo effects (see Pastoral, §§3–5). In Italy pastoral scenes, with their traditional stories of Pan, Syrinx and various nymphs, were grafted on to the developing dramma per musica; thus the echo became an integral part of the rapidly developing opera form. At the same time, the instruments associated with early pastorales (recorders, piffari and drone basses) were transferred to opera, where their use in echo passages became a standard practice. By the mid-17th century the pastorale (with its echo) had reached France, where it became the prototype for the emerging opera, opéra-ballet and related stage works. Flutes, oboes and musettes took the place of the piffari and drone basses after 1670; their connection with echo scenes lasted to the end of the ancien régime. Echo scenes were used in French opera by Lully, Campra, Destouches, Rameau and Gluck. Echo scenes can be found in the semi-operas and plays with incidental music of the English Restoration period. There are two distinct types: the first conforms to the continental pastorale tradition (Locke, Banister, later Handel), the second – non-pastoral in nature – calls attention to dramatic events on or off stage (Purcell).
While German operas and Singspiele include pastoral and echo settings and subjects, the most inventive echo writing occurs in instrumental music and in the newly evolving sacred and secular vocal forms of the 18th century. It ranges from the natural echo registration of multi-keyboard instruments such as the organ through the addition of special woodwind, often identified with rustic surroundings, in cantatas and oratorios (oboe d'amore, oboe da caccia) to Bach's fiauti d'echo of the Fourth Brandenburg Concerto, probably recorders (see Echo flute).
Echo left an indelible impression on late Renaissance and Baroque performance traditions. Solutions to the placement and proper subdivision of polychoral vocal and instrumental ensembles involved – among other things – the building of raised pulpits or balconies at various locations inside a church or the creation of spatial separation for the cori spezzati on several levels. To emphasize dynamic and textural contrasts, Lully established two distinct ensembles within his opera orchestra. The petit choeur (the concertato group employing the best players) accompanied the recitatives and airs and echoed the grand choeur in special scenes. The grand choeur performed the overtures, dances, entrées and orchestral interludes and participated in the choral accompaniment. This sophisticated extension of the echo technique, which embraces dynamics, ensemble size, timbre and register changes, was not indicated in manuscript or published scores. References to the practice (apart from 18th-century dictionaries of music) are found solely in contemporary partbooks. Thus the dynamic signs given in the scores often carried double meanings: f (fort) meant ‘loud’, thus signalling the entrance of the grand choeur, while p (doux), as well as ‘soft’, could also be interpreted as a call for the petit choeur. Subsequent generations of French opera composers maintained Lully's principle of orchestral subdivision into the 18th century, as demonstrated in extant partbooks of works by Marais, Campra, Destouches and Rameau.
Changes in musical style after 1800, and the growing attention paid to dynamic marks and details of orchestration, seem to have diminished the use of echo effects. Nevertheless, there are a few areas where some aspects of the custom are still detectable. In symphonic music echo effects occur in programmatic music in country scenes where the sounds of nature and mysterious ‘night’ noises are suggested (Beethoven, Berlioz, Mahler, Richard Strauss and Orff). Operas use echoes in two ways: in settings recalling the nymph Echo (Ariadne auf Naxos) or in scenes which portray magical or supernatural events (Der Freischütz, Der fliegende Holländer and Hänsel und Gretel).
MGG1 (H. Engel)
MGG2 (W. Braun)
G. Wissowa, ed.: Pauly's Real-Encyclopädie der classischen Altertumwissenschaft (Stuttgart and Munich, 1893)
W.W. Greg: Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama (London, 1906)
T. Kroyer: ‘Dialog und Echo in der alten Chormusik’, JbMP 1909, 13–32
T. Dart: ‘Bach's fiauti d'echo’, ML, xli (1960), 331–41
K. Ziegler, ed.: Der kleine Pauly (Munich, 1963/R)
H.C. Wolff: ‘Ovids Metamorphosen und die frühe Oper’, Quadrivium, xii/2 (1971), 89–107
F. Sternfeld: ‘Aspects of Echo Music in the Renaissance’, Studi musicali, ix (1980), 45–57
F. Sternfeld: ‘Repetition and Echo in Renaissance Poetry and Music’, English Renaissance Studies Presented to Dame Helen Gardner, ed. J. Carey (Oxford, 1980), 33–43
S. Leopold: ‘Echotechniquen bei H. Schütz und seinen italienischen Zeitgenossen’, Alte Musik als ästhetische Gegenwart: Bach, Händel, Schütz: Stuttgart 1985, i, 86–94
M. Térey-Smith: ‘Orchestral Practice in the Paris Opera (1690–1764), and the Spread of French Influence in Europe’, SMH, xxxi (1989), 81–159
D. Lasocki: ‘Paisible's Echo Flute, Bononcini's flauti eco and Bach's fiauti d'echo’, GSJ, xlv (1992), 59–66
F. Sternfeld: The Birth of Opera (Oxford, 1993) [esp. chap.7, ‘Repetition and Echo in Poetry and Music’, 197–225]
MURRAY CAMPBELL (1), MARY TÉREY-SMITH (2)