interlude

Medieval Latin interludium combines inter (between) and ludus (play, game). The interlude was literally the 'between-play' — a short dramatic performance inserted between the acts of a longer serious work, typically a morality play or mystery play. English interludes of the 15th and early 16th centuries were short, often comic plays performed between courses at feasts or between acts of longer works.

The interlude was the form in which English secular drama developed. John Heywood (1497-1580) wrote interludes — the Four PP, The Play of the Weather — that introduced comic, secular, realistic characters into a theatrical tradition dominated by allegorical and religious drama. The gap between serious scenes was where secular humanity first appeared on the English stage.

In music, the interlude has a similar structural function: a passage of music that occurs between the main sections of a piece — between verses of a hymn, between movements of a larger work. Baroque composers wrote organ interludes between choral verses to give singers breathing time and to sustain the musical atmosphere while the congregation prepared for the next section.

The concept of the interlude has moved into ordinary speech: the interval between events, the interruption in a sustained activity. A holiday from work is an interlude; the first quiet moment after a crisis is an interlude. The between-play has become the between-anything. The medieval theatrical term now names any pause in the continuity of life.