A

David

Darling

ostinato

An ostinato (from the Italian for 'obstinate') is a melody or melodic fragment, often but not necessarily in the bass (see bass ostinato), that repeats over and over through an entire piece or part of a piece of music. Ravel’s Bolero, with its insistent bolero rhythm and melodic shape, is perhaps the most familiar example of ostinato writing in twentieth-century music. Stravinsky used ostinatos to create a primitive, ritualistic atmosphere in The Rite of Spring, as for example in "Ritual Action of the Ancestors".