A question about 'alle breve'

[pherl]

i'm not a native English speaker.
So, is 'alle breve' English? What does it mean?
what i know is only that it equals to 2/2.
But form the dictionary(Longman Dictionary Of Contemprorary English), Breve takes time twice as a full note. And from google, i know that alle means all.
So alle breve should have the meaning that each measure contains 2 whole note, that is 4/2 or 8/4.

so i was confused.

[pherl]

and another question.
alle breve shows like a C and a vertical line in the middle of it.
And if there is only a C, i know that is 4/4, what does the C stand for? Is is English(Common Meter)? or Italian, Latin or somthing else?

[Clare]

I think in English, it is termed as 'common metre' but I believe this is a term applied to it after the C symbol began to be used. Originally, European music for the church would be in triple metre, represented as a circle in the time signature. This was believed to be the holiest of time signatures because is was reminiscent of the holy trinity. When 4/4 time started to be notated, it was represented with a C symbol in the time signature, meaning the time signature was imperfect (i.e. not representing the holy trinity).

I don't know where I learnt this from (I probably learnt it from this forum somewhere because I've learnt so much here) or even if what I said is actually true, but there you go.

[bernhard]

Alla breve (not Alle breve) comes from the Italian. It means 2/2 but not exactly as you will see. Bear with me, I will get to the point eventually.

In medieval musical notation, the breve was the shortest note (breve = brief). The longer ones have since then disappeared from common usage, and shorter ones have been invented. In fact, nowadays, our longest note is the semibreve (=half a breve), which ironically means that our longest time value is actually half of the value of the shortest note in medieval times. Breves may still be found here and there (Schumann uses them to notate the Sphinxes in Carnaval, for instance), but they have also pretty much disappeared form modern scores.

The expression “Alla Breve” actually means “make your speed twice as fast as you would have done” and applies for instance to a piece in 4/4 that is so fast that it sounds as if it is in duple meter, rather than quadruple meter. So if you have a piece in 4/4 and you rewrite it as 4/2 or as 2/2 you would have the “alla breve” effect. Hence the association of alla breve with 2/2.

So, what alla breve really means is that you should always take the minim (half note) as the unit, not the crochet (quarter note) or the quaver (eighth note), as you might have done if the alla breve direction was not there.

Does that make sense?

And Clare is absolutely right about common time: the C does not stand for “common”, but instead represents an “imperfect” circle – the circle being reserved for ¾ - on account of the trinity. Using the circle for ¾ has of course fallen into disuse as well.

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[pherl]

Thank you both very much.