s,
representing the action or feeling of either a single or several
persons. It even sometimes assumes the character of the oratorio."

As applied to recitative, the new form was variously called "recitativo,"
"musica parlante," or "stilo rappresentativo," one of the first works in
which style was "The Complaint of Dido," by the Cavalier Sigismondo
d'India, printed in Venice in 1623. The mixture of recitative and air was
eventually called "ariose cantate;" and with this title several melodies
were printed by Sebastian Enno at Venice, 1655.[2]

The seventeenth century witnessed the rapid perfecting of the cantata in
its early forms by the Italian composers. The best examples are said to
have been those of Carissimi, of whom mention has already been made.
Several of them are preserved in the British Museum and at Oxford; among
them, one written on the death of Mary Queen of Scots. Burney says:--

"Of twenty-two of his cantatas preserved in the Christ Church
collection, Oxon., there is not one which does not offer something that
is still new, curious, and pleasing; but most particularly in the
recitatives, many of which seem the most expressive, affecting, and
perfect that I have seen. In the airs there are frequently sweet and
graceful passages, which more than a hundred years have not impaired."

Of the thirteenth in this collection the same authority says:--

"This single air, without recitative, seems the archetype of almost all
the _arie di cantabile_, the adagios, and pathetic songs, as well as
instrumental, slow movements, that have since been made."

Fra Marc Antonio Cesti, in his later life a monk in the monastery of
Arezzo, and chapel-master of the Emperor Ferdinand III., was a pupil of
Carissimi, and devoted much attention to the cantata, the recitative of
which he greatly improved. One of his most celebrated compositions of
this kind was entitled, "O cara Liberta," and selections from it are
given both by Burney and Hawkins. He must have been one of the jolly
monks of old, for all his cantatas are secular in character, and he was
frequently censured for devoting so much time to theatrical instead of
church music. Luigi Rossi was contemporary with Cesti, and has left
several cantatas which are conspicuous for length and pedantry rather
than for elegance or melodious charm. Giovanni Legrenzi of Bergamo, the
master of Lotti and Gasparini, published twenty-four cantatas in Venice
between