Complete Encyclopaedia of Music/A/A ballata

by John Weeks Moore

A ballata. (I. A, prep., according to, and allata, the ballad.) To be performed in the ballad style. A song, duet, he., is said to be composed a ballata when its general construction resembles that of a ballad. The term also applies to a chorus that is repeated at the end of each verse of a song : thus the chorus " Rule, Britannia, rule the waves," which concludes each verse of an English national song, " When Britain first at Ileaven's command," is a chorus a ballata. The ballad has less musical pretension than the air, and the words of a ballad claim our attention quite as much as the tune. With ordinary listeners, this species of song is more generally felt and understood than any other. Songs have at all times afforded amusement and consolation to mankind. Every passion of the human. breast has been vented in song. Before music is cultivated as an art, every country has its nation-al songs, which enter largely into all their amusements, and are sung with feeling by exiles and wanderers from their native land. Every profession and trade has its song ; the shepherd, the reaper, the miller, the weaver, the smith ; also the nurse and lover. For simplicity and expression, perhaps there are no ballads more genuine than those of the Scotch.