These were Cavalli of Venice, pupil and successor of Monteverdi, Carissirni of Rome, who devoted himself to sacred music, and Cesti of Florence, Rome and Vienna, a pupil of Carissimi, but as an opera-writer chiefly associated with Venice. These three, though strict contemporaries, became important in succession. Cavalli's special service lay in the full recognition of the aria as distinct from the recitative. The latter had been the type from which more flowing or declamatory passages had been developed without evident differentiation, thus retaining the literary standpoint that marked the first experiments. Cavalli realized that in every strong dramatic situation room should also 'be made for absolutely lyric expression through solo song, having great musical interest and value in itself.
This was the true aria, not an elaborate variety of recitative, but a song embedded in the action. Cavalli thus brought to the front an element that before long came to dominate the opera completely. His own arias were not carried much beyond folk-song patterns, though occasionally they suggest the da capo form that later became the rule. At first he also clung to the chorus, but gradually omitted it altogether. Instead, he did much to develop the duet or dual aria, often with interesting imitations between the voices.
Carissimi, while pursuing similar lines 'of advance in the oratorio, added a valuable appreciation of the essential powers of the voice as an instrument, and led the \vay more positively toward the freedom and brilliance of effect that later made dazzling vocalization the crowning feature of the opera. He was specially able in what came to be known as the' cantata' - usually a short solo work in which variety was secured by skill-. ful alternations of style, but also sometimes one in which several voices were handled characteristically as if they were personages. He was important, too, for attention to the chorus and to the harmonic enrichment of accompaniments.
Cesti went beyond these in the technical variety and vigor with which he developed what they had begun. His power of genuine invention was more conspicuous, both in breadth and in abundance, with more of charming and vivacious brilliance, including much of the comic element. He transferred to the opera all that Carissimi had wrought out in the cantata, with a better binding of the movements into a balanced whole, and advanced the plan of scenes and acts toward its later completeness. The chorus he used sparingly, but with ability. His accompaniments and instrumental numbers were carefully and freshly conceived, though without special increase in orchestral resources, In mere number of works he falls much behind Cavalli, but he did more to set forth the opera as a permanent type of musical art, thus rounding out the first stage of progress that had been begun by the Florentines almost a century before.
The Elizabethan Composers
