Bagatelle (from French by way of the Italian bagattella, a trifle) is a game, the object of which is to get a number of balls past pins (which act as obstacles) into holes.

The game is the precursor of the slot machine "pinball". Pinball is a type of coin-operated arcade game where a player attempts to score points by manipulating one or more metal balls on a playfield inside a glass case. ...

In music

The word has also been used as the title for short pieces of music, typically for the piano, and usually of a light character. The earliest bagetelle with that name was by François Couperin, in his tenth harpsichord ordre, in which a rondeau was entitled Les bagatelles. This article is about the modern musical instrument. ... François Couperin (born Paris November 10, 1668 – September 12, 1733 in Paris) was an esteemed French composer in the Baroque style. ... A harpsichord is the general term for a family of European keyboard instruments, including the large instrument nowadays called a harpsichord, but also the smaller virginals, the muselar virginals and the spinet. ...

The best known bagatelles are probably those by Ludwig van Beethoven, who wrote three sets, opus 33, opus 119, opus 126 and the "Bagatelle in A minor", better known as Für Elise. Other notable examples are Franz Liszt's Bagatelle sans tonalité (an early exploration into atonality), the set by Antonín Dvořák for two violins, cello and harmonium (opus 47), and sets by Bedřich Smetana, Saint-Saëns, and Jean Sibelius. In the 20th century, several composers have written sets, including Béla Bartók, who wrote a set of fourteen (opus 6). Anton Webern wrote a set of six for string quartet (opus 9). Ludwig van Beethoven Ludwig van Beethoven (baptized December 17, 1770; died March 26, 1827) was a German composer of classical music, who predominantly lived in Vienna, Austria. ... Beethovens last work for his own instrument, the piano, is a set of six bagatelles. ... Für Elise (German: For Elise) is the popular name of the Bagatelle in A minor, WoO 59, a famous piece of music for solo piano by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, written in 1781. ... Franz Liszt (Hungarian; Liszt Ferenc) (October 22, 1811 – July 31, 1886) was a Hungarian virtuoso pianist and composer. ... Bagatelle sans tonalité (Bagatelle without tonality) is an 1885 piece for solo piano written by Franz Liszt. ... Atonality describes music which departs from the system of tonal hierarchies that characterizes the sound of classical European music between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. ... Antonín Dvořák Antonín Leopold Dvořák   listen? (September 8, 1841 – May 1, 1904) was a Czech composer of classical music. ... The violin is a stringed musical instrument that has four strings tuned a perfect fifth apart. ... A cropped image to show the relative size of a cello to a human (Uncropped Version) The violoncello, or as it is more commonly to refered to as the cello or cello (pronounced Cheh-loh), is a stringed instrument and a member of the violin family. ... This article is on the musical instrument; for information on other kinds of harmonia, see harmonium (disambiguation). ... Bedrich Smetanas statue in Plzen BedÅ™ich Smetana  listen? (March 2, 1824 LitomyÅ¡l - May 12, 1884 Prague) was a Czech composer, remembered especially for his set of six symphonic poems Má vlast (My Country). ... Charles Camille Saint-Saëns (IPA: [ʃaʁl. ... A bust of Jean Sibelius at the Sibelius-monumentti in Helsinki. ... Béla Viktor János Bartók (March 25, 1881 – September 26, 1945) was a composer, pianist and collector of East European folk music. ... Anton Webern (December 3, 1883 – September 15, 1945) was a composer of classical music and a member of the so called Second Viennese School. ... The resident string quartet of the Library of Congress in 1963 A string quartet is a musical ensemble of four string instruments—usually two violins, a viola and cello—or a piece written to be performed by such a group. ...

An Irish-American band popular in the 1980s was named Bagatelle.

In Literature

A game-like literary tool used in fiction. The author empowers a character or object beyond natural or expected abilities (i.e. of comprehension, awareness, memory, etc.) so it may carry a point across to the reader more transparently. A bagatelle creates a more direct communication between author and reader than common in fiction. The equivalent of a wink. Jostein Gaarder, the Norwegian author of the popular summary of Western philosophical history Sophie's World (English: Berkley, New York, 1996), uses the tool openly and humorously in that work.