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What is recitative in music? Sergei Khodnev's project Recitative: examples in contemporary music.

RECITATIVE ( recitative) - vocal musical form, a kind of melodious conversation.

There are phrases which, due to an excess of feeling, require precisely recitative; a more developed musical form would be unnatural here, recitative is speech carried to the highest degree expressiveness, thanks to a precise, definite musical rhythm, as well as the exact designation of the rise and fall of the voice.

As the text of the recitative becomes more lyrical and its form expands, gaining more musical content, the recitative is of three kinds. :

1) Dry (Secco); 2) Measured (a Tempo); 3) Melodious (A riotous singing).

In all three genders, a correct, meaningful recitation has great importance.

Dry is four quarters in size. The accompaniment consists of abrupt chords without figures and does not express mood, but only serves to indicate the singer's tone and to emphasize punctuation marks.Such a recitative has very little melodic content. Only one sound is required for each syllable of the text. The form of such a recitative is indefinite and is completely dependent on the text. The singer sings it freely, not in tempo. The change of tone corresponds to the change of thought in the text.

Recitative measured (a tempo) happens in different counts - 4/4, 3/4, etc. During the singing of a recitative, which is not particularly rich in melody, the accompaniment goes all the way, in the form of chords sustained or played by tremolo. There is no conducted motive, i.e., a drawing, in such an accompaniment. The form is indefinite, the alternation of keys is arbitrary. There is one note per syllable. Such a recitative is performed in tempo.

Singing recitative (ariose singing) is the most developed form of recitative. The vocal part differs here in melodic content. One syllable of a word can sometimes have two or more sounds. Like the previous one, this recitative is not constrained by the modulation plan. The form is free. The recitative may end in a different key and is not subject to the requirements of a rounded form. Music content accompaniment, in comparison with previous recitatives, is richer both in harmonic and rhythmic terms; a figure (motive) is carried in it. The purpose of accompaniment is to express mood.

In vocal music, a mixture of three intermediate types of recitative is often used, moving from one to another. For all recitatives, prose or blank verse can serve as a text.

rap, hip hop, rhythm and blues

(Hip-hop, Rap, R&b)

Hip-hop(English) hip hop) - youth subculture that appeared in the United States in the late 1970s among African Americans. It is characterized by its own music (also called "hip-hop"), its own jargon, its own fashion , dance styles ( brakedance and etc.), graphic art ( graffiti) and its own cinema . By the beginning of the 1990s. hip-hop has become a part of youth culture in many countries of the world. This article discusses hip hop music and the general elements of the hip hop subculture.

hip hop music

Characteristic

Despite the development of various types of artistic expression in hip-hop culture, music remains the main generator of its ideology. Actually, hip-hop music consists of two main elements: rap (rhythmic recitative with clearly marked rhymes) and the rhythm set by DJ ; at the same time, compositions without vocals are not uncommon. In this combination, rap performers call themselves "MC" ( English MC - Microphone Controller or Master of Ceremony ). Art is considered the priority and most valued rhymes , which "MC" in the pursuit of innovation often compose to the detriment of the meaning of the text, which, in turn, turns it into intricate riddles(ex. Guestface Killa says that he deliberately strives to compose such rhymes so that no one but him understands what is at stake). The task of one or more DJs is to program the rhythm on drum machine, sampling (using fragments of other people's compositions, especially bass and synthesizer parts), manipulation with vinyl records and sometimes "beatboxing" (imitation of the rhythm of a drum machine with the mouth). On stage, musicians are often also accompanied by a dance ensemble.

Currently, hip-hop is one of the most commercially successful types of modern entertainment music and is stylistically represented by many directions within the genre.

Origins and development of hip hop music

Hip-hop originated in a black environment Bronx, New York area , in the second half of the 1970s. At the time, it was party music created by disc jockeys (called"DJs" ), who worked in the then extremely primitive technique sampling : it often came down to repeating the musical loss of someone else's dance composition. First"em-si" were literally typical entertainer (“Master of Ceremony” - that is, abbreviated to MC; this abbreviation then absorbed many other meanings), they introduced the DJs, and also maintained the audience's attention with energetic exclamations and whole tirades. (It should be noted that on Jamaica a similar manner of performance was developed at the turn of the 1960s and 70s. thanks to emerging technology duba .)

The popularity of the music at these parties led local DJs to sell their hands on cassettes of live "sets" (performance programs) that skillfully mixed rhythms and bass lines taken from songs in styles disco and funk over which the MCs rapped. It was a purely amateur occupation, and during that period (1977-78) there were no studios and official releases of rap records.

The situation changes dramatically when, at the beginning of autumn 1979 in the USA the single "Rapper's Delight" is released, performed by Sugarhill Gang and makes a splash in the American popular music market. The single is considered rap's first recording, despite the fact that several more slightly older songs dispute the glory of superiority; however, it was thanks to this 15-minute composition that the American public and the media became aware of such a phenomenon as hip-hop, however, despite the popularity of the song, the majority agreed that this was just a musical joke from which nothing would come of it. The song was written by a Negro group, assembled almost by accident the day before recording (paradoxically, the band's musicians were not from Bronx but generally from another state). Rhythm (classical disco ) and the bass guitar part were taken from the then hit Chic "Good Times", rapped over by three MCs. One of the advantages of the composition is that already in this first rap 1979 year, typical rhymes were given, as well as the fundamental themes of hip-hop: details of everyday life, competitions uh, sex , arrogance and ostentatious vanity.

At the very beginning of the 1980s. among rappers, a strong interest arose in European electronic pop music (primarily Kraftwerk and Gary Newman , widely sampled), whose technological discoveries, coupled with the developed"breakbeat" - broken, completely new rhythm - contributed to the separation of hip-hop from rhythmic dependence on disco and funk . Breakbeat rhythm combined with more advanced Jamaican technique by that time duba took hip-hop to the next level. The innovators of early hip hop were Curtis Blow, Africa Bambata, Grandmaster Flash and Whodini , - it is their recordings of 1980-84. (now referred to as " old school hip-hop") were decisive for the formation of the genre. Teams picked up the baton of innovation Run DMC, Mantronix, Beastie Boys , each of which brought their discoveries to hip-hop: Run DMC played a minimal drum machine breakbeat, Mantronix have been recognized for their revolutionary mixing technique, and Beastie Boys combined elements punk rock and rap and became the first white rap group to achieve success. At the same time, it is worth mentioning that one of the earliest examples of white hip-hop was the compositions The Clash , especially their single"The Magnificent Seven" 1980 , which received promotion on Negro radio stations New York).

By the mid-1980s, hip-hop music was no longer focused exclusively on the atmosphere of parties, and next generation rappers began to develop various themes e.g. socially aggressive raps Public Enemy brought them cult status among listeners not only in the Negro environment. By the end of the 1980s. rap music has reached a level of popularity comparable to rock, country and the stage, and such large institutions music industry HowAmerican Recording Academy, awards manager Grammy and American Music Awards in 1988 year established categories for rap. The personification of this popularity in America was MC Hammer, Criss Cross and others, who addressed their music to a wider audience, which, in turn, gave impetus to the development of more uncompromising genres in hip-hop. Soon became widely known"gangsta rap" , reflecting the criminal life of the Negro ghettos.

In the 1990s gg. formed the modern sound of hip-hop, among popular artists that decade can be called 2Pac, Dr. Dre, Dogg Pound, Snoop Dogg, Onyx, Wu-Tang Clan, Puff Daddy. In 1998 white rapper became famous Eminem . Since that decade, hip-hop has fueled a stylistically and technologically modified rhythm and blues ("r-n-b").

In modern hip-hop, as in other major styles of popular music, producers play a large role, on which the entire industry depends. Hip-hop artists, despite their initial negrocentrism, can be found in most countries of the world, from Argentina to Japan.

Subculture Aesthetics

Hip-hop became the first music that most fully and distinctively embodied the ideology of modern African American culture. This ideology was built on the antagonism of the American Anglo-Saxon culture, so hip-hop, being an integral part of the original Negro culture, is likely to continue to develop (contrary to predictions that hip-hop music will freeze and die), as evidenced by millions of contracts new rap artists. Over the past decades, its own fashion , radically different from the traditional fashion of the white population, its jargon and its cultivated manner pronunciation , dance styles, their own graphic art -"graffiti" (images and graffiti on the walls made with aerosol cans or special markers with paint) and in Lately also a movie (not necessarily about rappers, but taking themes from the Negro environment, see films"Salon", "Hustle And Flow" ; rappers are also increasingly becoming movie actors). Thus, it becomes difficult to draw a clear line between hip-hop proper and the Negro subculture.

Despite the hip-hop fashion changing every year, in general it has a number of characteristic features. Clothes are usually loose sports style: sneakers and baseball caps of well-known brands (ex. Adidas ), T-shirts and basketball jerseys, jackets with hoods, ski hats pulled down over the eyebrows, baggy pants (the so-called "pipes"), wide shorts dropped down. Hairstyles are short, although short ones are also popular.african braids. Massive gold jewelry (chains, medallions, etc.) are popular among rappers themselves.

Russian hip hop

The first experiments with rap in Russia apparently date back to 1984, when Kuibyshev disc jockey of the discotheque "Kanon" Alexander Astrov together with local group"Rush Hour" recorded a 25-minute program, which was soon distributed throughout the country in the form of a magnetic album "Rap".

In addition to these experiments, hip-hop in Russia gained popularity, rather narrowly, in the second half of 80s when the hobby started breakdancing , although actually English-language rap compositions were little known to music lovers. The first Russian-speaking rap performers appeared in the early 1990s; Bogdan Titomir , on the other hand, more underground forms of Russian hip-hop ( MD&C Pavlov ) were not successful. The market of Russian hip-hop, as an industry, was formed only in the late 1990s, which was confirmed by the emergence of many bands in this genre ("Bad Balance", "Casta", "Legal business"). IN 1999 The global revival of breakdance contributed to its re-revival in Russia as well.

The new interpretation of ariose monologues could not but affect the place and function of recitatives in the opera. From about mid-nineteenth century, neither in Russian nor in foreign opera will we find that noticeable difference between recitative and aria, which was characteristic of the classics throughout the entire 18th century. "Dry" recitative (i.e. colloquial) in its pure form is gradually disappearing from opera usage.

If in Rossini's The Barber of Seville (1816) we still find solo remarks and dialogues uttered in a patter, which, according to the classical tradition, are accompanied by a harpsichord (in contemporary practice piano), then composers of a later time in the comedy genre also abandoned such a delimitation of musical speech: “dry” recitatives, which became more measured and melodious, were accompanied by a lightweight orchestral composition.

The beginning of such a reform in the serious genre was laid by Christoph Gluck; in 1762, when creating his "Orpheus", he abandoned the harpsichord - all "dry" recitatives were sung to the accompaniment of string instruments. In the 19th century, advanced composers, who achieved unity and coherence in the construction of the opera, finally approved this trend.

Thus, the two types of recitative again merged into one. However, this new recitative did not lose anything from the diverse possibilities of the former two types. In any classical work, Western or Russian, it is still possible to distinguish recitatives of a sublime plan, which, in their melodiousness, approach the Arios style, and everyday, ordinary recitatives. Both types retain their former functions: the first is most often used as a dramatic introduction to an aria; the second - in dialogues that are not of paramount importance, but necessary for understanding the situation and the relationship of the characters.

Lisa's monologue at the Kanavka (" Queen of Spades» Tchaikovsky) is a classic example of a tragic recitative, which is not inferior to an aria in significance and scale: full of anxiety and gloomy forebodings, Lisa tries to convince herself that Herman will come, that he loves her. According to the pathetic intonations of her part, opposing the gloomy theme of the orchestra, they speak more of spiritual discord than of true courage - they make the listener assume that Lisa's confidence is imaginary and she is possessed by much more complex and painful feelings. We find confirmation of this in the aria expressing the utmost fatigue, despairAnd a bitter sense of doom (“Ah, I am weary of grief”).

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Accompanied recitative- a type of recitative, where the vocal part is accompanied not by a mean chord accompaniment (as in a "dry" recitative), but by an orchestra. He stood out in the opera of the 18th century, where he marked the turning points of the psychological state of the main characters.

In the opera of the middle - the second half of XIX century, which is still often taken for some reason as a kind of standard from the chamber of measures and weights, as a model of what genre should be if it wants to be "real" and "understandable" - and so, in this very sample there is no there is no other recitative, except for the accompaniment. From this point of view, the observation of differences between "dry" recitative and accompagnato is something scholastic, like a call not to read Soviet newspapers in the absence of any others.

But recitative, if you look specifically at the development of operatic forms, is generally a transient thing. In a global sense, the logic of this development boils down to the fact that at first, isolated recitative and aria gradually crystallized out of the stream of “speech on music”, and then the opera carefully and for a long time outlived this isolation, returning to the feeling of a continuous stream of musical action.

On the other hand, there is not the logic of a musical literature textbook, but the logic of the modern theatrical repertoire. If, for example, Handel is now staged - let's not even mention Western practice - not only in the Bolshoi and Stasik, but also in the Bashkir state theater opera and ballet, the city of Ufa, then the dialectic of two recitatives turns into an urgent issue for both performing and listening experience. Why is accompagnato needed precisely as opposed to ordinary recitative? What was the artistic load here? And what do we care about yet another old theatrical convention?

In fact, everything is very comprehensible. Here is the actual action: the psychological and political twists and turns revealed in the dialogues of the main characters and the replicas of the next "heralds". There are moments when the accumulated emotion, stopping the action, breaks through in the aria. But there are situations of transition. Events and emotions have already stunned the character, but before giving himself free rein in the aria (which, be it even a long, mournful Sicilian, even a firework of coloratura, in a purely dramatic, non-musical sense, is just a spectacular interjection), he still reflects a little in a monological way. But what is it, what kind of misfortune is it, well, you are heavy, Monomakh's hat (Caesar's crown, the fate of a lover, etc.). And it is this monologue, withdrawn from the general flow of musical speech, raised above it in the most obvious way - thanks to the entering orchestra - and becomes an accompaniment recitative, a musical and dramatic locus of special solemnity, special pathos, special psychological breakdown.

The funny thing is that he didn’t seem to need to be Music with a capital letter: the vocal line still retained a declamatory beginning, a little touched by arioznost, the orchestra, of course, could be arbitrarily expressive in a rhetorical sense, but no one expected enchanting melodies. And for all that, the modern ear, including (perhaps even in the first place) one that is completely unaccustomed to this aesthetic as a whole, reacts exceptionally gratefully to accompagnato in old operas. Imagine this inexorable alternation - a recitative with the same "dry" accompaniment, a more or less beautiful aria, and then again a recitative aria, a recitative aria, and so on for a long time. And suddenly, in the midst of this ordnung, an enlarged, but without any explanation, intelligible affect arises like a lawless comet, an exclamation of clear human suffering, anger, indignation, grief.

Probably, this is best felt by the same Handel: rarely did the pre-Zart opera rise to such a piercing, timeless theatrical clarity as in his accompanied recitatives. You can call this opera a “concert in costumes” as much as you like, but the fact of the matter is that name-calling pales if you single out, say, from the “concert in costumes” great stage the death of Bayazet from Tamerlane: the sultan, tortured by the conqueror, proudly dies after taking poison, and it is the recitative that presents this moral triumph to us. Or the scene of Bertharide, the exiled king from Rodelinda, who, returning incognito to his homeland, discovers a false tombstone erected in his honor - or, on the contrary, the scene of the usurper Grimoald from there, literally torn apart by guilt, fear, anger (and again this Shakespearean picture of torment the tyrant is deployed in the accompaniment, not in the aria). And even in Handel's oratorios it is sometimes even more radical - to recall, say, Belshazzar, where the very first recitative of the queen mother Nitocris turns into a grandiose historiosophical monologue about the fate of empires; or "Saul", where the defeated and humiliated king hears the shadow of Samuel say to him: "You and your sons will be with me tomorrow"; or "Israel in Egypt", where - quite an unprecedented case - the accompanying recitative goes not to the character, but to the chorus, depicting the horror of the "Egyptian darkness".

Having requisitioned the number structure much later, the opera lost this incomparable sense of the dramatic sharpness of the central moments of the action. But today's posters still cannot do without "numbered" operas, and it is the handling of recitative - conductor, director, actor - that becomes an important tool for discovering the psychological and artistic viability of a seemingly dilapidated and distant theatrical language.

monologue about frailty

"Alma del gran Pompeo" ("Julius Caesar" by Georg Friedrich Handel, 1724)

We often think of 18th-century opera as a territory of eccentric optimism and uncomplicated rationality that overcomes everything dark and minor, but that's why we are impressed by the flashy exceptions to these rules. For example, the speech of Handel's Caesar over the urn with the ashes of Pompey the Great. According to the logic of things, it could just be sighs about such a timely death of a political adversary, after which you can finally move on to an affair with Cleopatra. Instead, Handel writes a sublime and mournful recitative, lamenting not so much Pompey as the vanity of earthly greatness and the fragility of human existence itself.

monologue about despair

"Berenice, ove sei?" ("Vologaise" by Niccolo Jommelli, 1766)

Here is a rare example of a dense operatic thriller: the Roman general Lucius Ver, tired of pestering the chaste Parthian queen Berenice with either pleas or threats, tries to break her psyche (and with it marital fidelity) with a terrible “theater in the theater”. The queen is led into a certain mausoleum, where the allegedly severed head of her husband Vologez is shown to the otherworldly mournful music. The head is actually not real, but Berenice has to go through a lot of things, elegantly, but, moreover, quite clearly described in music: confusion, timidity, horror, sobs, despair and, finally, a form of insanity with the imaginary appearance of the bloodied shadow of her husband.

monologue on the gravity of the corona

"Cheorror! Che tradition!" ("The Mercy of Titus" by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, 1791)

That it is unpleasant for an idealistic ruler when his subjects turn out to be not at all angels is a simple idea in itself, but rarely is it presented in such a full armor of spontaneous emotional outbursts as in this recitative of Mozart's Titus. It all starts with seething indignation: what a monster, it turns out, the one I trusted, what an abyss of ingratitude, to execute him immediately; then confused phrases betray doubts about the justice of this anger. And finally, there follows an idyllicly outlined longing for serenity " natural man”, not knowing all these civilized worries.

monologue on the destructiveness of desire

"O beauty, o handsomeness, goodness!" ("Billy Budd" by Benjamin Britten, 1951)

One of the central numbers of Britten's opera, the speech of Captain Claggart, swearing to destroy the beautiful, pure and, to his misfortune, desired Billy Budd, is an aria in the formal sense. But the very structure of this tirade, the agitated sequence of its phrases, gravitates more towards declamatory than towards chanting. In principle, for the post-Wagnerian opera, which erases the hateful separation of aria and recitative, this is categorically nothing new, but Britten's incident is important in that he consciously nurtured the recitative principle in his works in the order of a dialogue with the origins national music- with Purcell's operas.

As the text of the recitative becomes more lyrical and its form expands, gaining more musical content, the recitative becomes:

dry (secco)
measured (a tempo)
melodious (ariose singing).

In all three genders, correct, meaningful recitation is of great importance.

In vocal music, a mixture of three intermediate types of recitative is often used, moving from one to another. For all recitatives, prose can serve as a text.

Also, recitative can be used in the meaning of slang vocabulary, i.e. the number of jargon words in the lexicon.

Dry recitative

Dry recitative has a size of four quarters. The accompaniment consists of abrupt chords without figures and does not express mood, but only serves to indicate the singer's tone and to emphasize punctuation marks. Chords are taken mainly where there is a break in the recitative. Sometimes, in the interval between two phrases that have a break, a short ritornello is inserted with a figure expressing the mood. Such a recitative has very little melodic content. Only one sound is required for each syllable of the text. The form of such a recitative is indefinite and is completely dependent on the text. The singer sings it freely, not in tempo. The alternation of keys is arbitrary, but still one should not make too frequent and sharp modulations into distant keys. The change of tone corresponds to the change of thought in the text. If there are no chords in the measure of the recitative, then the bandmaster does not strike out four quarters, but gives only one stroke. The vocal part of such a recitative is written centrally for the voice, that is, in the middle register, leaving it (up or down) only at moments of strong dramatic mood.

measured recitative

Measured recitative (a tempo) happens in different counts - 4/4, 3/4, etc. While singing recitative, which is not particularly rich in melody, the accompaniment goes all the way, in the form of chords sustained or played by tremolo. There is no conducted motive, that is, a drawing, in such an accompaniment. The form is indefinite, the alternation of keys is arbitrary. There is one note per syllable. Such a recitative is performed in tempo and conducted entirely.

Singing recitative

Singing recitative (ariose singing) is the most developed form of recitative. The vocal part is distinguished by melodic content. One syllable of a word can sometimes have two or more sounds. Like the measured one, this recitative is not constrained by the modulation plan. The form is mostly free. The musical content of the accompaniment, in comparison with the previous recitatives, is richer both in harmonic and rhythmic terms; a figure (motive) is carried in it.

Singing, which has roundness and great completeness, but lacks a knee warehouse, is called arioso.

Dry recitative

The singer sings to the accompaniment of basso continuo, which is usually realized as a sequence of chords (without ornamentation and melodic figures) and does not express mood, but only serves to indicate the singer's tonality and to emphasize punctuation marks. Chords are taken mainly where there is a break in the recitative. Sometimes, in the interval between two phrases that have a break, a short ritornello is inserted with a figure expressing the mood. Such a recitative has very little melodic content. Only one sound is required for each syllable of the text. The form of such a recitative is indefinite and is completely dependent on the text. The singer sings it freely, not in tempo.

recitative accompagnato

Unlike dry recitative, where the singer is accompanied only by the basso continuo part (on the organ, harpsichord, etc.), in the accompagnato recitative (Italian accompagnato, literally “with accompaniment”), instruments with written parts are used (up to the whole orchestra). This type of recitative was developed in the high baroque (passions of J.S. Bach) and in the music of the classicism era (operas by K.F. Gluck, A. Salieri, etc.).

measured recitative

Measured recitative (a tempo) happens in different sizes - 4/4, 3/4, etc. While singing recitative, which is not particularly rich in melody, the accompaniment goes all the way, in the form of chords sustained or played by tremolo. There is no conducted motive, that is, a drawing, in such an accompaniment. The form is indefinite, the alternation of keys is arbitrary. There is one note per syllable. Such a recitative is performed in tempo and conducted entirely.