Beautiful Canto

In the Classical music, the beautiful canto - in Italian, “beautiful song” - indicates a style of Chant founded on the beauty of the stamp and of a certain vocal virtuosity seeks it - singing exercise S, ornament S, extension of the Tessiture, etc

the Italian origin of this expression testifies to the durable print that left in this field, the Italian Musicien S, Chanteur S and Compositeur S, as of the 17th century.

In a narrower meaning, beautiful the canto means “the art of the lyric song”, i.e., the song applied to the opera, since the 17th century until the 20th century, by the voice of Soliste S. Development of the vocal capacities of the interprets S - often, with the detriment of the scenic action -, technical skill époustouflante and various prowesses - Trille S, roulades, pricked, long notes impromptu rates , etc -, are the main features of beautiful the canto, at least during the 17th century and the 18th century.

One did not fail to denounce many excesses of the interpreters of beautiful the canto, more worried often by the development of their personal technicality than by the relevance of their interventions on the dramatic level, and much of type-setters - Gluck, Mozart, Rossini, inter alia - will try, with more or less happiness, to dam up the “overflows” of the Castrat S and “preceded gave” - Cantatrice S of foreground. However, the virtuosity developed by these Singer S.A. not only contributed to make evolve/move the technique of the song in kinds very far away from the opera - in the Sacred music for example -, but also stimulated the development of the instrumental technique : for example, in the concerto of soloist, kind born at the beginning of the 18th century, the left entrusted to the Soliste S are at the bottom anything else only “beautiful canto” adapted to the Instrumental music.

Derived from the process of musical writing said of the monodie accompanied - technical at the same time born as the opera, and which are indissociable for him -, beautiful the canto is naturally centered around the melody: he is thus opposed to the polyphonic song end of the Moyen-âge and Renaissance, but also, with the musical current started at the 19th century by some Compositeur S of operas, such as Berlioz, Wagner or Debussy, for which the singers, the voice and the music, were to be “with the service of the drama”, and not the reverse. The 19th century is usually regarded besides as the period marking the beginning of the decline of beautiful the canto: last testimonys at the 20th century, seem to be the lyric productions Italian type-setters such as Leoncavallo, Puccini or Mascagni… One can say that in a strict sense, beautiful the canto indicates the Italian tradition of the soloists of the opera baroque.

By an irony of the history, the opera at its beginnings had been created to counter excesses of the Polyphonie of the Renaissance. The stile rappresentativo of Monteverdi and its followers intended to give again the primacy with the drama, the music having to serve the text. One needed only little time for the opera - under the influence of the Neapolitan Compositeur S particularly - to move away again from this program, although in a very different direction, and to give place to other excesses…

See too

Simple: Beautiful canto

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