Singing and playing: the Italian Cantata and the rage for wit

Bernardo Pasquini's Cantatas

“…33 From a socioanthropological point of view (as Roger Freitas has observed), the texts sometimes show us how the consumption of cantatas was part of civil conversazione, with their customary appreciation of cleverness and wit. 34 Indeed, in these cases the cantata texts are modelled on forms that recall subjects and formats of academic discussions. Pasquini provides an example in his cantata La bellezza d'un sembiante, whose lines recall an academic discussion of moral character, though in miniature.…”