"a la barcarolle"

New weekly segment here on tVftBR: the musical annotation of the week! Each Sunday we'll present something that may be written into a musical piece that might confuse or astound the average musician. In some cases, it'll be something that we think we know, but we really don't.

The first one will be the one that inspired me to this endeavor:

a la barcarolle

a la means "as in" or "like", but what the hell is barcarolle? As it turns out, it's an alternate spelling of "barcarola".

barcarola: a style of music sung by the gondoliers in Venice, Italy, typically in 6/8 or 12/8 meter to simulate the motion of the boat moving through the waves of the water with the rhythmic rowing of the gondolier.

And here's an example of a famous piece a la barcarolle, "Belle Nuit" from Offenbach's The Tales of Hoffman.