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Musical numbers and recitative
BACKGROUND
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What IS recitative? (reh-sit-a-TEEV)
When you listen to Italian-style opera from Mozart’s
time (as well as those written before and afterwards into
the early 1800s), you cannot fail to notice the way the
big solos accompanied by the orchestra alternate with
very fast ‘chatty’ sections, when the
characters have a kind of high-speed
musical conversation.
These passages are the recitatives,
usually only accompanied by one of the
earlier types of keyboard instrument
(usually the harpsichord), often with a
solo bass instrument (probably a cello)
to bring out the bass-line more clearly.
This special little group is called the
continuo and players who can do this
very particular kind of accompanying
well are few and far between. In later
operas, the orchestra itself was used
more and more to accompany the
recitatives.
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Solo arias, duets, trios and other ensembles
(accompanied by the full orchestra) make up
the big blocks of the opera’s structure, whilst
the recitatives act like a kind of dramatic glue
that sticks them together. Those big blocks are
called the numbers and, if you look in a score,
you will see a number printed as part of the title
(e.g. No.4 – Aria with chorus); the recitatives
between them are not usually numbered.
The basic idea was that the dramatic action
would stop during the big numbers, and the
characters would sing about their feelings
and reaction to what had just happened in the
story at that point. However – the recitatives
are when the next bit of dramatic action takes
place and the story can just zip along for a few
moments, giving the next solo or duet something
to sing about.
Typically, a recitative section will have:
• an exciting piece of new information being shared between characters;
• something unexpected or surprising happening;
• one or more characters plotting to go off and get up to something;
• two or more people arguing (probably at break-neck speed…).
It was only from the middle of the 19th century that opera composers started to
write music that continually twisted and changed to match the drama happening
on-stage, with the orchestra playing all the time and no separate numbers. German
composer Richard Wagner (1813-83) was the big innovator in this approach, but
many composers continued to write in the old numbers way right through to the
end of the 19th century – and stage musicals today still tend to be chopped into
numbers, with spoken dialogue and/or musical links in between them.
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TASK (Research)
Make a list of famous operas you have heard of and do some research
to see if they were composed with divisions into separate numbers, or
with continuous music wrapped around the drama (this is sometimes
called through-composed). If you find one that is divided into
numbers, find out if there was spoken dialogue (like in a play) or sung
recitative between them. Make sure you note their date, composer and
nationality, as you will find some patterns emerging, as well as names
for other types of opera…
Some to get you going:
• Handel’s Julius Caesar, written in 1724
• Mozart’s The Magic Flute (1791)
• Beethoven’s only opera Fidelio (1805)
• Rossini’s Barber of Seville (1816)
• Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde (1857)
• Bizet’s Carmen (1875) – careful, that’s a tricky one!
• Verdi’s La Traviata (1853) and his final masterpiece Falstaff (1893)
• Puccini’s Turandot (1924) – everyone has heard the tenor aria
Nessun dorma – but is it really a separate number? Try to find it
inside a recording of the complete opera – what happens at the
beginning and end…?
• Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress (1951) – this is a later one by a
mega-original composer. So what was he up to in this one…?
(Clue: find out what neo-classical means)
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