An arioso is a musical composition for a solo singer that is most commonly associated with opera singing. It uses recitative’s speech-like patterns and declamatory style, but it’s slightly more metrical. It’s also more melodically akin to an aria.
Composers used recitative, or singing that mimics the timing and natural flow of speech, to demonstrate how characters felt about their situations as opera developed in the 17th century, particularly in Italy around Naples. Recitatives used to be as close to speech as possible. This style of singing is known as dry recitative, recitative semplice, or simple recitative. Composers later used the orchestra to dramatize recitative moments. Finally, composers began to make recitatives more free and melodic, resulting in the arioso’s development.
By the first half of the 1600s, Roman musicians had clearly defined solo singing into two categories: speech-like recitative and melodic aria. The issue was that there was no real middle ground between the two forms. Mezz’arie, or “half arias,” were brief melodic interludes within the larger recitative, as composer Domenico Mazzocchi attempted to balance recitative and aria. Nonetheless, this approach was more akin to a free melody interjection. When arioso emerged, it finally provided a true bridge between recitative and aria singing.
In comparison to aria, arioso is usually shorter and has a more free form. It’s an excellent transition between recitative and aria passages because of this. However, composers can use arioso on its own to replace a recitative or aria. This is dependent on the composer’s preferences as well as the context of the scene the composer is attempting to depict.
Arioso can be found in a variety of musical works. It is, for example, a traditional component of opera, but composers have also used it successfully in oratorios and cantatas. As a result, it’s better to think of arioso as a style of singing rather than a genre.
The instrumental adoption of this type of musical performance exemplifies the fact that arioso is a style, not a genre. Instrumentalists routinely arranged ariosos so they could enjoy the vocal works once arioso was well-developed. Composers began to compose ariosos directly for instruments in the same way they had for singers, even including the word “arioso” in the titles of the instrumental compositions, once they realized that instrumentalists could adopt the characteristics of ariosos as they played. The composer’s expectation that the musician would perform the work with a lot of emotion allowed instrumentalists to have some rhythmic freedom while still staying within the boundaries of the musical meters.