The Short

instructed: ‘In the accompanied recitatives you must observe that the accompaniment should not enter until the singer
has quite finished his text, even though the score shows the contrary.’ 1167 Whether this indicates Haydn's awareness of
conflicting opinion about this notation, or whether it merely shows his lack of confidence in the musical knowledge of
the recipients of the cantata, is unclear.
It seems very probable that the practice outlined by Haydn was the normal one, at least in Italian and Italian-influenced
traditions. Domenico Corri, in the 1780s, was also quite specific about avoiding overlap, illustrating the relationship
between notation and performance in such instances as in Ex. 16.19.
Ex. 16.19. D. Corri, A Select Collection, i. 3
THE FERMATA 607
Once again Meyerbeer provides an illuminating perspective on the practice in the nineteenth century. His later operas,
written for Paris, contain recitativelike passages where, on many occasions, he carefully warns the performers that the
accompaniment should commence after the singer has finished (Ex. 16.20.)
As an appendix to this matter, it is interesting to note that in much of Germany it quickly became customary to
perform Mozart's Italian operas Figaro and Don Giovanni in German versions, in which the recitatives were replaced
with spoken dialogue (as in Singspiel). This prevailed even in major centres until the middle of the century. In 1854, for
instance, the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik reported that the recitatives in Don Giovanni had just been restored in Dresden. 1168
1167 See Landon, Haydn at Eszterháza, 146.
1168 Vol. 41 (1854), 113.