On May 22, 2010, at 10:24 PM, Kim Patrick Clow wrote:
Some friends were asking me when did keyboard recitative stop in opera? ...
Rossini sounds approximately right to me, but it's not as simple as that. Secco recitative generally fell out of fashion some time around the 1820s but the trend was not uniform. The fashion changed more slowly in the smaller houses than the larger ones. Secco recit persisted longer in opera buffa than in opera seria, and houses with a strong seria tradition (eg, Naples) were quicker to turn against the keyboard accompaniment. Recitative accompagnato was around all along, so there was always some of each.
In addition to the size of the orchestra and the size of the house, I would look at the layout. That is, where is the harpsichord positioned relative to the singers, and where is the conductor posted (ie, is the orchestra led by a harpsichordist, by the concertmaster, or by a separate conductor at the podium). I'm not sure how and when that evolved, but it seems likely it would have an effect on the recitative tradition.
It's probably no coincidence that the secco recitative fell out of fashion right about the same time that most houses were replacing their harpsichords with a pianoforte. I would guess that secco recitatives in the 1830s were played on the piano, since I'm pretty sure many houses by then didn't even have a harpsichord, and that may have contributed to the change in fashion.
Caveat: I have vague familiarity with 19th century opera, but I'm far from expert, so all of the foregoing is speculation and suggestion, and it should not be taken as definitive. What I can tell you definitively is that secco recitative did definitely outlast Rossini at least by a little. There are several Donizetti operas with secco recit, including _l'Elisir d'amore_ (1832). Verdi's score for _Un giorno di regno_, which premiered in 1840 at la Scala, calls for secco recits to be accompanied on piano from figured bass. (This was considered unusual at the time, which is why I happen to know it.)
mdl _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
