Cantata

CANTATA. The idea of reviving the declamation of tragedies after the manner of the ancients led to the invention of recitative, which is attributed to Caccini and Giacomo Peri about 1600. It was at first confined to the opera, but the desire to adapt it to music for the chamber soon led to the invention of the Cantata, which in its earliest form was simply a musical recitation of a short drama or story in verse by one person, without action,...