This _cantabile_ is often of
exquisite beauty, and gives Italian and Italianized singers a chance
to show off the mellow qualities of their voices to the best
advantage. The very word _cantabile_ emphasizes, by antithesis, the
unvocal character of the old florid style. _Fioritura_ means
embroidery, while _cantabile_ means "song-like." But now, note how the
sins of one period are visited on the next. The evils of the florid
style did not terminate with its supremacy. They cast a shadow before,
which prevented the real nature of human song from being discovered
even after the vocal style had become more simple and rational. During
the period in which the vocalists were in the habit of singing from a
dozen to a hundred or more notes to a single syllable of the text,
they, as well as the public, had become so indifferent to the words
and their poetic meaning, that this habit could not at once be altered
when the _cantabile_ style came more into vogue. The singers continued
to be careless in regard to pronunciation of the words, and the opera
libretti were so very silly that the public really did not care
whether the singers spoke their words correctly and distinctly or not.
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