Editing Coloratura (section)

== History ==

The term ''coloratura'' was first defined in several early non-Italian music dictionaries: [[Michael Praetorius]]'s ''Syntagma musicum'' (1618); [[Sébastien de Brossard]]'s ''Dictionaire de musique'' (1703); and [[Johann Gottfried Walther]]'s ''Musicalisches Lexicon'' (1732).  In these early texts "the term is dealt with briefly and always with reference to Italian usage".<ref name="NewGroveOnline">Jander, Owen; Harris, Ellen T. "Coloratura" in ''[[Grove Music Online]]'', [http://www.grovemusic.com www.grovemusic.com] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080516041031/http://www.grovemusic.com/ |date=2008-05-16 }}. Retrieved 27 November 2006.</ref>

[[Christoph Bernhard]] (1628–1692) defined ''coloratura'' in two ways:<ref name="NewGroveOnline"/>

* [[cadenza]]: "runs which are not so exactly bound to the bar, but which often extend two, three or more bars further [and] should be made only at chief closes" (''Von der Singe-Kunst, oder Maniera'', c. 1649)
* [[diminution]]: "when an interval is altered through several shorter notes, so that, instead of one long note, a number of shorter ones rush to the next note through all kinds of progressions by step or leap" (''Tractatus compositionis'', c. 1657)

The term was never used in the most famous Italian texts on singing: [[Giulio Caccini]]'s ''Le Nuove musiche'' (1601/2); [[Pier Francesco Tosi]]'s, ''Opinioni de' cantori antichi e moderni'' (1723); [[Giovanni Battista Mancini]]'s ''Pensieri, e riflessioni pratiche sopra il canto figurato'' (1774); [[Manuel García (baritone)|Manuel García]]'s ''Mémoire sur la voix humaine'' (1841), and ''Traité complet de l’art du chant'' (1840–47); nor was it used by the English authors [[Charles Burney]] (1726–1814) and [[Henry Fothergill Chorley]] (1808–1872), both of whom wrote at length about Italian singing of a period when ornamentation was essential.<ref name="NewGroveOnline"/>