cavata

[Italian, excavated] A 17th and early 18th centuries setting in aria style (arioso) of the last line or couplet of a recitative text found in most forms of Baroque vocal music, including opera.

Definition of 'cavatina' 1. a short, simple solo song or melody that is usually part of a larger composition, such as an opera or oratorio. 2. Loosely. an instrumental composition of lyric quality.

Cavatina (Italian for "little song") is a musical term, originally meaning a short song of simple character, without a second strain or any repetition of the air.

cavatina. noun. Cavatina, a melody of a more simple form than the aria; a song without a second part. ( f) Velazquez® Spanish and English Dictionary.

"Ecco, ridente in cielo" from Gioachino Rossini's opera The Barber of Seville, "Porgi amor" and "Se vuol ballare" from Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro are also well-known cavatinas. Ralph Vaughan Williams gave the title of "Cavatina" to the 3rd movement of his Symphony no. 8.

cavatina, musical form appearing in operas and occasionally in cantatas and instrumental music. In early 18th-century cantatas, notably those of J.S. Bach, the cavatina was a short, epigrammatic piece sometimes sung between the speech-like recitative and the more lyric arioso.

Therefore, the main difference between aria and cavatina lies in the fact that an aria, more precisely a 'da capo aria', is generally in the form A-B-A, whereas a cavatina presents itself in the form A-B, which means that it does not include the repetition of the opening section (A).

Derivation. In Italian, the word is the diminutive of cavata, the producing of tone from a musical instrument. The Italian plural is cavatine. In French it is the cavatine and in German Kavatine.

Therefore, the main difference between aria and cavatina lies in the fact that an aria, more precisely a 'da capo aria', is generally in the form A-B-A, whereas a cavatina presents itself in the form A-B, which means that it does not include the repetition of the opening section (A).

Stanley Myers' “Cavatina” has become one of the staples of the classical guitar in recent years ever since its appearance in the 1978 film “The Deer Hunter”.

Hardest and most difficult opera arias to sing

• 'Now the Great Bear and Pleiades...' (tenor, from Britten, Peter Grimes)
• 'Largo al Factotum' (baritone, from Rossini, The Barber of Seville)
• 'Il Dolce Suono' (coloratura soprano, from Donizetti, Lucia di Lammermoor)
• 'O Don Fatale' (mezzo, from Verdi, Don Carlos)
• 'Ah!

On the classical guitar, Cavatina is actually quite difficult to play beautifully! It's challenging to play smooth and lyrically like a song, since we're playing both melody and accompaniment. One of the key challenges is dealing with the tension produced by the left-hand barres in the piece.