Complete Encyclopaedia of Music/A/Aria parlante

by John Weeks Moore

Aria parlante. By aria parlante the Italians mean that species of cantilena, the style of which lies between air and measured recitative; a kind of speaking melody, or recitative a tempo, like that of " Comfort ye my people," in Handel's "Messiah," and the greater part of Purcell's celebrated song of "Mad Bess."