Ombra is the musical language employed when a composer wishes to inspire awe and terror in an audience. Clive McClelland's Ombra: Supernatural Music in the Eighteenth Century explores the large repertoire of such music, focusing on the eighteenth century and Mozart in particular. He discusses a wide range of examples drawn from theatrical and sacred music, eventually drawing parallels between these features and Edmund Burke's 'sublime of terror, ' thus placing ombra music in an important position in the context of eighteenth-century aesthetic theory.

Ombra is the term which applies to an operatic scene involving the appearance of an oracle or demon, witches, or ghosts. Such scenes can be traced back to the early days of opera and were commonplace in the seventeenth century in Italy and France. Operas based on the legends of Orpheus, Iphigenia, and Alcestis provide numerous examples of ombra and extend well into the eighteenth century. Clive McClelland's Ombra: Supernatural Music in the Eighteenth Century is an in-depth examination of ombra and is many influences on classical music performance. McClelland reveals that ombra scenes proved...

Tempesta is a term coined in this book applying to music that exhibits agitated or violent characteristics in order to evoke terror and chaos, involving ideas like rapid scale passages, driving rhythmic figurations, strong accents, full textures, and robust instrumentation including prominent brass and timpani. Music of this type was used for storm scenes, which in operas of the 17th and 18th centuries are almost invariably of supernatural origin, and other frightening experiences such as pursuit, madness, and rage. This 'stormy' music formed the ingredients of a particular style in the later...