bly
did an important service for dramatic music by perfecting recitative and
introducing stringed accompaniments; but in a subsequent chapter the
historian states that Barbara Strozzi, a Venetian lady contemporary with
Carissimi, was the inventor, and assigns the year 1653 as the date when
she published certain vocal compositions with the title "Cantate, Ariette
e Duetti," prefixed by an advertisement setting forth that having
invented this form of music, she had published them as an experiment.
Burney takes notice of the claim made for Romano and Da Spoleto, but does
not think it valid, and says: "The first time that I have found the term
'cantata' used for a short narrative lyric poem was in the _Musiche varie
a voce sola del Signor Benedetto Ferrari da Reggio_, printed at Venice,
1638." This, as will be observed, disposes of the Venetian lady's claim,
as it is antedated twenty years, and Burney states his facts from
personal investigation. He mentions several cantatas written about this
period, among them a burlesque one describing the leap of Marcus Curtius
into the gulf. He concedes to Carissimi, however, the transfer of the
cantata from the chamber to the church, and on this point nearly all the
early writers are agreed.

The cantata in its earliest form was a recitative, which speedily
developed into a mixture of recitative and melody for a single voice, and
was suggested by the lyric opera. Burney says:--

"The chief events were related in recitative. In like manner they
received several progressive changes during the last century previous
to their perfection. First, they consisted, like opera scenes, of
little more than recitative, with frequent formal closes, at which the
singer, either accompanied by himself or another performer on a single
instrument, was left at liberty to show his taste and talents."

The form then changed to a single air in triple time, independent of the
recitative, and repeated to the different verses as in a ballad, the
melody being written every time, as the _Da Capo_ was not then in use.[1]
Choron defines the cantata as follows:--

"It is a little poem, which, considered in a literary sense, has no
very determinate character, though it is usually the recital of a
simple and interesting fact interspersed with reflections or the
expression of some particular sentiment. It may be in all styles and
all characters, sacred, profane, heroic, comic, and even ludicrou