For this Reason, the Recitative Musick in every Language, should be as different as the Tone or Accent of each Language; for otherwise, what may properly express a Passion in one Language, will not do it in another.
By Walking you will easily know I mean that regular but easy Motion, which gives our Persons so irresistible a Grace as if we moved to Musick, and is a kind of disengaged Figure, or, if I may so speak, recitative Dancing.
I am therefore humbly of Opinion, that an English Composer should not follow the Italian Recitative too servilely, but make use of many gentle Deviations from it, in Compliance with his own Native Language.
The same Observations which I have made upon the Recitative part of Musick may be applied to all our Songs and Airs in general.
Idamante and Ilia have a short quarrel (near the close of the opera) in a few words of recitative which is interrupted by a subterranean noise, whereupon the oracle speaks also from the depths.
Moreover there will be a thunder-storm which is not likely to cease out of respect for an aria, and the effect of a recitative between two choruses will be incomparably better.
It is the line of sad expressive recitative that heralded the plaint and the love-scene.
But the first sad note of the Scherzo is in the recitative of horn, after the lull.
The dry recitative was supported by chords played by a double-bass and harpsichord or pianoforte.
Of all the factors in an opera, the dry recitative is the most monotonous.
The dry form of recitative is met with now only in a few of the operas which date back to the last century or the early years of the present.
In both forms recitative is the vehicle for promoting the action of the play, preparing its incidents, and paving the way for the situations and emotional states which are exploited, promulgated, and dwelt upon in the set music pieces.
Therefore, the distinctions between recitative and aria were abolished, and an "endless melody" took the place of both.
The growth of the accompanied recitative naturally brought with it emancipation from the tyranny of the classical aria.
I am strongly inclined to the belief that in one form or the other, preferably the accompanied, recitative is a necessary integer in the operatic sum.
Spoken with the vivacity native to it in the drama, dry recitative is an impossibility in English.
In the majority of the operas of the current list the vocal element illustrates an amalgamation of the archaic recitative and aria.
The notion that recitativeand melody are things opposed to one another is itself a misunderstanding.
The German language was unfitted for dry recitativeof this type, and these filling-in parts had therefore to be spoken--a device which proved intolerable, since it destroyed the illusion of the music.
An expressive recitative of the violoncelli and basses then leads to C minor, the key of the first scene.
An example of such character-painting is afforded by the prelude to the High Priest's recitative (23), which is in close connection with the scene which is being enacted on the stage.
When the sentiment becomes rather more elevated, a sort of compromise is effected betweenrecitative and song.
Footnote 37: Grimm condemns the "barbarous fashion" of mixing spoken dialogue and song in the comic opera, and asserts that there can be no great composers in France until real recitative is made use of (Corr.
Footnote 12: The recitative preceding this aria was originally (as the libretto shows) much longer and more fully composed; many pages were cut out for performance and some small alterations were made.
The concluding chorus, which follows an accompanied recitative for Idomeneo, is of an entirely different character, expressive of a flight, winged by fear and horror.
An expressive recitative is followed by a single movement (allegro, F minor) in incessant agitation, the almost uninterrupted triplets of the stringed instruments giving it the character of trembling unrest.
The treatment of this kind of recitative is always free.
The animation of the expression reaches its climax in a recitative leading to a serious and rhythmical song of two verses, the concluding lines of which are repeated by the chorus.
See Page Image] If this carefully and minutely elaborated recitative be compared with Gluck's simple secco recitative there can be no doubt that Mozart's is far superior, both in fertility of invention and marked characterisation.
As an extreme illustration, the first Recitativeof No.
I want the score of the Cantata for a few days, as I wish to write a kind of recitative for it; mine is so torn that I cannot put it together, so I must have it written out from the parts.
In his hands the aria took a new meaning, and the recitative became a flexible and responsive instrument.
But his "Lohengrin" and his "Tannhaeuser" were never given to his satisfaction, for there were absolutely no singers who united the ability to declaim the recitative and to deliver the plentiful cantilena also.
He saw that there was too much difference between the recitative and the aria, and that the latter was an impediment to the progress of the drama.
At first this recitative was employed only in the construction of monologues, but as the explorers in new musical territory gained confidence, they made wider reaches.
Among his songs the dramatic recitative Ballade du Desespere is well known.
Saint Bris shouts the recitativewhich summons the Catholics to vengeance.
The flow of his verse in the recitative is the most pure and harmonious known in any language, and the strophes at the close of each scene are scarcely surpassed by the first masters in lyric poetry.
Out of portions of its melody grows a large part of the instrumental accompaniment to the melodious recitative in which the dialogue is carried on.
Flora had exchanged the measured and monotonous recitative of the bard for a lofty and uncommon Highland air, which had been a battle-song in former ages.
It gave me particular pleasure, with Mitterwurzer's cooperation, to give a most overwhelmingly expressive rendering of the recitative for baritone: Freunde, nicht diese Tone.
He had evidently chosen this tempo in order, in some way, to manage the recitative of the double basses; but it was utterly hopeless.
It is a dramatic recitativewith elaborate orchestral accompaniment to the words, slightly adapted, from Ariel's speech to Prospero in Act i.
Ophelia's themes, and then there is a long recitative and aria for her (Ophelia).
The second act ends with a recitative for the fourth fairy, a dance and a chorus welcoming the little Indian boy.
In a very dignified quasi-recitative passage Prospero tells her that the storm is of his own planning, and he then relates much of the story of his life and wrongs.
He is discovered alone in the church, where he sings a grim and very dramatic quasi-recitative about Hero's fall from grace.
The manner of their delivery was a singsong recitative between the utterance of an Episcopal minister and the drone of a tired sawmill.
There follows a long, confidential talk between them (recitative with soft accompaniment based on Tatiana's theme).
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "recitative" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word. Other words: aria; bravura; cantabile; coloratura; solo
