The Accompaniment of Recitative
1872; Volume: 15; Issue: 358 Linguagem: Inglês
10.2307/3353286
ISSN2397-5326
Autores ResumoA. MACFARREN.THE broad distinction between ancient and modern in music dates from the invention of recitative in the last decade of the sisteenth century.Then, an association of Florentine nobles and gentlemen undertook the interesting experiment of restoring to the art of song the characteristics that had marked it in the Grecian age, as opposed to the qualities to which the music of the period was limited.These qualities were rhythmical tune, exemplified in the isongs and dances of the people, alld the imitations of these by schooled artists; and contrapuntal elaboration, exemplified in the motets or moving parts, and anthems or counter themes, constructed upon ecclesiastical or secular melodies for church use, and in the madrigals of the musicians.In neither of these was there scope for free declamation, nor for an-but the most general expression of mords, which, in classic time9, had been the main if not the sole object of vocal music.The idea was then conceived of recitative.Rinuccini wa9 the poet who first wrote verses to be set upon t,his novel system; and Caccini, Peri, Cavalieri and Monteverde were the first musicians who illustrated its principles.The experiment ras so entirely successful that tile new strle of declamatory UlUSiC not only took a place beside the rigidly ruled art of the period, but has, to a great enctent, 'superseded it, and importantlv modified the materials and the structure of subsequent composition.To secure the perfect freedom of the singer in his declamation, to hasten or retard the rords as he might be im pelled by the passion they embodied, it was essfential that the accompaniment should be of such a nature as might in no respect restrict his performance in the matter of measure while it might fully guide and support him in the matter of intonation.Accordingly, it was confined usually to a single instrument, in most cases the theorbo or large lute-and this, in the earliest instances, was played by the singer himself, whose fingers wele moved by the same irnpulse that directed his vocal utterance.It appears that Lully, when he established dramatic music in France, used very freely the recitative form; but it is not so sure that he imported to Paris llis countrv's use of accompanying the colloqllial singing with a single instrument, since, in sortle of his operas, the harmollv is sustained by the band during the vocal declamation.The same was probably the case in the earlier court masques written by Laniere and some English musicians in the time of (::harles I. On the other hand, it is evident that at the clubs and like places, where, for the first time in English histoly, the public paid for admission to musical, not dramatic, perfomances, it was common to accompany the recitative on some equivalent to the pianoforte-the harpsichord, or virgiIcals, or what not-with also a bowed instrumerlt,-the violoncello or double bass, or both,-to support the bass notes, because of the little resonance of the keyed string instruments of the time.Thus were the Cantatas of Purcell and other composers accompanied, and this was the standard method of playing to recitatlve for a long time to come.Near the end of the seventeenth century, Vinci was the first to write what in England is called " Accompanied Recitative."This he reserved for the more dramatic passages in his operas, while he retained for ordinary colloquy alld narration what the Italians name "Recitativo parlante."The distinction is, that in the latter the instruments just named were used, and in the former the full orchestra.Let it not be supposed that the practice ever was, in colloquial recitative, to sustain the chords on any instrument from semibreve to semibreve, as they were habitually written in Italy and elsewhere; these extensive notes imply the prevalence lDut not the sustenance of the same harmony which harl-rlony was and is to be repeated according to the punctuation of the words, whene-er their sense indicates a breathing place f)r the singer.Hence Mendelssohn was at
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