labored in not exploiting the dramatic possibilities which lay even in the limited musical vocabulary of his period. But this restraint was no longer necessary in the new secular fields of composition opened up by the disciples of ‘the new music’ (_nuove musiche_). The first results of the infusion of this consciously new factor into musical speech was an intense activity in all fields of composition that offered opportunity for the employment of the _musica parlante_ or _stilo rappresentativo_, as the new form of musical declamation or recitative was called that formed the distinguishing characteristic of the works of Peri, Cavalieri and other early composers of the new movement. This new form of musical speech was not intended by the Florentine reformers as an invention, but merely as a revival of the ancient manner of declaiming tragedy, using varying degrees of vocal inflection in accordance with the demands of the rhetorical utterance of the text, with no reference whatever to melodic structure or design. While the use of the recitative was at first confined to the opera,[50] it was only natural that experiments should be made in other forms, less pretentious, in which it was desired to clothe a poetic text with the expressive strength and beauty of musical tones. The term ‘cantata’ came to be used by composers in the early part of the seventeenth century (first probably not far from 1650) to designate some of these short secular compositions for the chamber, usually dramatic in character, which were written for a single voice with a simple accompaniment for one instrument, generally a lute. These secular compositions were called _cantate da camera_. They were given without action and at first were sung in unbroken recitative, imitating the style employed with such success in the operas of Caccini, Peri, and Monteverdi. But the monotony of this style soon led to the introduction of the air or sustained melody, which recurred several times during the progress of the recitative, but with a different text each time. I