RECITATIVE (Ital. Recitativo; Germ. Recitativ; Fr. Rècitatif; from the Latin recitare). A species of declamatory Music, extensively used in those portions of an Opera, an Oratorio, or a Cantata, in which the action of the Drama is too rapid, or the sentiment of the Poetry too changeful, to adapt itself to the studied rhythm of a regularly-constructed Aria.
The invention of Recitative marks a crisis in the History of Music, scarcely less important than that to which we owe the discovery...