As in Peri’s melodrama, the recitative was based on the intonations, rhythm and natural progression of speech; it was the means through which rhetoric found expression, and was couched in language intended to move its audience. Cavalieri expertly avoided uniformity of declamation through his use of homophonic choirs to create various musical colours, and through the welcome contrasts provided by the interventions of the allegorical characters (the Soul, the Body, Time, Intellect, etc.). In so doing Cavalieri circumscribed a sacred space and composed ‘Music of the Word’ par exellence. His groundbreaking work, which acknowledged the power and weight of speech, would not be forgotten by his fellow Roman composers of oratorio, who would soon produce their own compositions. Cavalieri, well in tune with his intuitions, at once revealed and created a musical domain that was receptive to the world of the passions and affetti, combining a vision of heaven with the passion of more earthly emotions...

After Cavalieri

As the new genre evolved, it gradually found its way in terms of style. At the beginning, it vacillated between a sort of religious ‘entertainment’—the Rappresentatione could be described in this way—and a solely musical and narrative structure, the form the genre would definitively adopt several decades later. (The actual term oratorio was used for the first time in 1640, by the Sicilian Balducci.) One specific characteristic stood out: a narrator (known as Storico, Testo or Storia), whose presence tied the work together. The narrator recounted the action in Italian; his text was frequently taken from the Old Testament. (In Latin oratorios, the Storico was known as the Historicus). The through-going narrative of Italian oratorios, which would eventually lead to the Evangelist in Bach’s Passions, was of course written as recitative. Recitative was also used for the dialogues between characters; this did not adversely affect the choir’s interventions or the conclusion of the work, which always presented a moral.