January 6Jan 6 This is a secco recitative in the late Baroque style for alto, part of my cantata WIP. The text is taken from Goethe's Die schöne Nacht. An example translation of the text can be found here. I have also attached a little preview of its paired aria 🙂 Edited January 6Jan 6 by muchen_ recit rubato added
January 6Jan 6 Hi @muchen_! I am not an expert on the Baroque style, recitatives, arias nor cantatas, but I feel like the recitative could have been more humanized through liberal use of hidden tempo changes in order to make it sound more like an accompanied cadenza and in free time which I'm assuming that that's how recitative are supposed to be like. This rendition sounds very metronomic which hurts my impression of it. I like the aria a lot though! Although between bars 8 - 14 the singer doesn't seem to have any opportune place to breathe and it's hard to imagine those 6 measures sung in one breath although I could be wrong. Other than that I really enjoyed it though! Great job and thanks for sharing!
January 6Jan 6 Author 5 minutes ago, PeterthePapercomPoser said: I am not an expert on the Baroque style, recitatives, arias nor cantatas, but I feel like the recitative could have been more humanized through liberal use of hidden tempo changes in order to make it sound more like an accompanied cadenza and in free time which I'm assuming that that's how recitative are supposed to be like. Absolutely! It's a real pain in the arse to do in Musescore though 😄 It's added to my to-do list (along with some dynamics shadings). I'm acutely aware of the problems of creating actually good-sounding music and I'm very grateful for you pointing this out. Quote Although between bars 8 - 14 the singer doesn't seem to have any opportune place to breathe and it's hard to imagine those 6 measures sung in one breath although I could be wrong. Other than that I really enjoyed it though! Great job and thanks for sharing! One of the nice things about the Baroque ritornello theme in a vocal context, is that your theme does not even need to be singable. The tenor aria from BWV 81 provides a particularly striking example. A common and easy solution for this problem is to just have your soloist sing an independent melody in counterpoint with the ritornello theme whenever it is reused. I've attached an example of this technique for my aria.
January 7Jan 7 Author On 1/6/2026 at 1:57 AM, PeterthePapercomPoser said: the singer doesn't seem to have any opportune place to breathe I forgot to add this last time, but I thought of this (infamous) aria when the breathing problem was mentioned. In addition, for historical reasons, this cantata is usually performed transposed up a semitone as opposed to down. Just look at the tessitura of this melisma! Bach must've really hated the poor soprano who had to sing this... Edited January 29Jan 29 by muchen_
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