Cantabile
Make the instrument sing — phrases with a singer's breath
Related
Cantabile asks the player to treat the instrument as a voice: phrases connected, breathed, naturally shaped. It is not a timbre but an attitude to phrasing — the same notes played cantabile stress the melodic line and play down the grain.
It often appears with dolce (dolce cantabile), but the two differ: dolce governs whether the tone is sweet, cantabile whether the phrase sings. Cantabile is especially hard on the piano, a struck instrument that must use touch and pedal to make a line.
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Sources
- cantabile 的表情含义与历史用法，参 The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, "Cantabile"；本文为原创表述
Used for fact-checking only; all prose is original.