(It.: ‘theatrical style’).
One of several terms applied in the early 17th century to the affective styles of the ‘new music’. According to Pietro de’ Bardi (1634), ‘il canto in istile rappresentativo’ was developed by Vincenzo Galilei in Giovanni de’ Bardi’s Camerata, and the term first appeared in print on the title-page of Giulio Caccini’s Euridice (1600: ‘composta in stile rappresentativo’). Other composers linking the term with the theatre include Girolamo Giacobbi, whose L'Aurora ingannata (1608) includes ‘canti rappresentativi’, and Monteverdi, in his Madrigali guerrieri, et amorosi (1638).
Like the closely related ‘stile recitativo’, the term was not restricted to stage music. ‘Stile rappresentativo’, ‘musica rappresentativa’, ‘genere rappresentativo’ etc. are used for seconda pratica madrigals (Aquilino Coppini describing Monteverdi’s Fifth Book in 1608), solo songs or duets (in the preface to Caccini’s Le nuove musiche, 1602; the ‘lettera amorosa’ and ‘partenza amorosa’ in Monteverdi’s Concerto, 1619; Francesco Rasi’s Dialoghi rappresentativi, 1620; Monteverdi’s Lamento della ninfa, 1638) and even sacred concerti (Bernardino Borlasca in 1609). Thus the term can denote music for the theatre, music in a recitative style, or music that adopts a particularly dramatic or emotional approach to representing its text.
The theorist G.B. Doni attempted to clarify the terminology. In the Trattato della musica scenica (1633–5), he distinguished between the ‘stile recitativo’, ‘stile espressivo’ and ‘stile rappresentativo’ (the last used on the stage). But the differences remain obscure: the ‘stile espressivo’ is more a heightened recitative than a separate style, and the ‘stile rappresentativo’ is ‘almost the same as today’s recitative’, although ‘some things should be added, and others taken away, to bring it to perfection’. More fruitful was Doni’s subsequent notion of three sub-species of the ‘stile detto recitativo’ (or ‘stile monodico’) in his Annotazioni sopra il Compendio de’ generi e de’ modi della musica (1640): ‘narrativo’ (e.g. Daphne’s report of Eurydice’s death in Peri’s Euridice, 1600), ‘recitativo’ or ‘recitativo speciale’ (e.g. the prologue to Euridice, with its more formal strophic organization) and ‘espressivo’ (e.g. Monteverdi’s Lamento d’Arianna, 1608). The confusion reflects the difficulties faced by composers of the ‘new music’ in giving a rational account of their essentially intuitive endeavours. Nevertheless, the term ‘stile rappresentativo’ is as good as any to suggest the vivid, emotional and dramatic qualities sought in music at the time.
A. Solerti: Le origini del melodramma (Turin, 1903/R)
P. Fabbri: ‘Lessico monteverdiano: intorno al “genere rappresentativo”’, La musica nel veneto dal XVI al XVIII secolo, ed. F. Passadore (Adria, 1984), 89–97
TIM CARTER