Recitative

The recitative (from recitare it. " Recite ") is a speaking approximated singing in opera, cantata, oratorio or fair. It exists in various forms since about 1600th Its development is closely linked with that of Basso Continuo.

During the Rezitatives the singer has the freedom to declaim the text rhythmically free. There are two forms of Rezitatives: The secco recitative accompanied only by continuo, and allows for great rhythmic freedom. When accompanied recitative the singer is accompanied by an orchestra, which has stricter rhythmic binding result.

In opera seria the recitative is the carrier of the action on stage. Even if the recitative temporarily fell through the development of through-composed opera and the disappearance of the Basso Continuo from 1840 out of fashion, it is still part of opera and oratorio.

The new music of the 20th and 21st century then linked again by the traditional models and subjecting them to a variety compositional reinterpretations.

Term

The recitative was with the opera of the 16th century in Florence and grew out of monody, the separation of solo voice and accompaniment. Another predecessor forms the psalmody and the madrigal are mentioned. Throughout the Baroque music was the recitative the place for narrative and dialogical elements of a multi-movement work. Moods and reflections were against contents of the aria and other closed forms that developed later.

The recitative is more of a word ( diegesis ); an aria, a chorus or a dance number rather from a show ( mimesis ). This juxtaposition suggests a Platonic and Aristotelian theory in processing time of its construction in 1600 (see Jacopo Peri and the Florentine Camerata ). It was believed that the recitation of the ancient drama 'll revived in this way.

In Claudio Monteverdi's Tancredi e Clorinda Combattimento di ( 1624) a narrator ( testo, "witness" ) reported recitative, the plot, and in dance slots, which also run parallel to the story, the struggle of the main characters is " shown ". The subsequent significant interface between recitative and aria and the absence of intermediate forms (such as Arioso ), however, are a consequence of the quasi "industrial" production of operas that there were about since the first third of the 17th century.

One known type of the recitative, for example, the account of the Evangelist in a passion. In between, the actors come as Christ or the people in arias and choruses to speak for themselves ( which meant a clear departure from the medieval condemnation of mimesis, for the salvation should once only told are not shown, see medieval theater).

In opera seria and opera buffa is the recitative of the place of action, so the narrative and the dialogues, while the arias are static observations with few exceptions. In the final mixed ensembles at the end of the file that will be the end of the 18th century, more extensive, this separation dissolves.

In the opera, the recitative of the number opera was supplanted by through-composed forms since the mid-19th century, in which the difference between recitatives and closed forms is blurred (eg Richard Wagner).

Features

Characteristic features of the musical recitative are:

• Syllabic declamation, that is, on each syllable of text drops a note.
• It is " without any repetition " (Johann Mattheson, 1725). The melodic line corresponds to the ups and downs of natural spoken language. Some characters in it return again and again and could also be improvised by the Italian singers of the 18th century.
• The clock in the Italian recitative is basically straight; but the melody course not subordinate to the clock under, but structured according to the text through cuts and breaks. The French recitative is governed by the Deklamationsregeln the French language and remains in tact, which adapts to the text by frequent change (see French opera).
• No tonartliche unity. In addition to the dramatic recitative also has the musical function, perform the key change between two single sentences.

Accompaniment

The recitative is accompanied by the continuo group. This consisted of several keys and plucked string instruments to play the harmonies and instruments of bass to play the bass part. The proper style casts are still controversial and depended strongly on the financial resources from. The exclusive accompaniment of recitatives by harpsichord and cello dates back only to the performance practice of the 19th century.

Secco and accompagnato

A secco recitative ( recitative secco Italian, of secco "dry", also recitative semplice, " simply " by semplice ) is accompanied only by the basso continuo. Emphasis is placed on particular language area. The opera was still considered 1753 as a sounding literature, therefore, the understanding of the text and the original style declamation in the foreground were. The secco recitative can accompany individual as the accompanied recitative, especially on memory lapses of singers who. , Under the pressure of opera production in the 18th/19th Century, were not rare. The secco recitative increasingly disappearing in the opera of the 19th century, would appear to be about in Giuseppe Verdi's Un giorno di regno (1840 ).

An accompanied recitative (Italian accompanied recitative of accompagnare " escort" ) is also accompanied by melodic instruments or even by the whole orchestra. This reflects the sung text, as the case felt emotion, in the orchestral language. This kind of recitative gets since the second half of the 18th century, increasing weight, for example in the operas of Gluck. The word was superimposed on a show, which was called tone-painting. The common interpretation and affirmation of what is said by the musical gestures of an instrument choir got before the French Revolution of increasing importance ( see also melodrama ).

In Johann Sebastian Bach's St. Matthew Passion, Jesus is presented with accompagnato recitative, while the Gospels report will otherwise run secco.

It is controversial whether a accompagnato was often improvised and the traditional examples represent only the rare, particularly important cases in which the improvisation was fixed in writing. The frequent contemporary warnings against excessive ornamentation show that such improvisations were widespread.

Instrumental recitative

Sometimes the term " Instrumental Recitative " for more declamatory is used as melodic passages in instrumental music. A well-known example is Bach's Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue.

20th and 21st centuries

In the 20th and 21st century emerge in new music new varieties of recitative, which often explicitly to the Baroque period ( and there especially on Monteverdi ) build - which sometimes but also address the then claim a revival of classical models. Various intermediate forms of singing and speaking attack the declamatory element of the traditional recitative. The stylistic range extends from Carl Orff ( Prometheus and other works ) to Arnold Schoenberg ( Pierrot Lunaire, for example ).

Through the influence of aleatoric and improvisatory compositional techniques, the importance of a metric unbound " accompagnato ": Instead of following a predefined meter, is accompanying instruments nestle in a metric flexible or " cadential " solo instrument. Examples can be found for example in Witold Lutoslawski or Karlheinz Stockhausen.

An important role is played by the instrumental recitative accompanied with a whole range of subtle nuances between speaking and singing in the late work of Mauricio Kagel ( A letter ... to 24.xii.1931, from the mattress grave and many others). Here is also a deliberate, often ironically twisted reflection of historical models rather than (as in Rezitativarie for a singing harpsichord ). An additional, social and fellow human beings reading of " accompaniment " of Kagel student Bernhard König leads in the tradition of this genus a ( accompagnato - The art of accompanying ).

The more difficult in the 20th and 21st century non-European musical cultures in the view, the more into perspective, of course, the reference to the European- Baroque style of the recitative as only one of many possible sources. The metric -free instrumental accompaniment to a rezitatorischen vocal line or a "talking" melody is also enshrined in the Japanese or Arabic music as in manifold varieties of jazz.