cantabile

[ kahn-tah-bi-ley, -bee-, kuh n-; Italian kahn-tah-bee-le ]

/ kɑnˈtɑ bɪˌleɪ, -bi-, kən-; Italian kɑnˈtɑ biˌlɛ /

Music.

songlike and flowing in style.

in a cantabile manner.

Origin of cantabile

1720–30; < Italian < Late Latin cantābilis worth singing, equivalent to Latin cantā(re) to sing (see cant¹) + -bilis -ble

In this key there follows a long-breathed, cantabile melody—at first for strings alone, but scored with increasing richness.

Music: An Art and a Language |Walter Raymond Spalding
The portamento being an embellishment that pertains to the cantabile, it is very little used in declamatory singing.

Style in Singing |W. E. Haslam
Fioritura means embroidery, while cantabile means "song-like."

Chopin and Other Musical Essays |Henry T. Finck
The brilliancy of the theme and the uncommon beauty of the cantabile took the audience by surprise.

Ole Bull |Sara C. Bull

For postlude two measures from the cantabile of Chopin's "Funeral March" are used with droll effect.

Contemporary American Composers |Rupert Hughes

cantabile

/ (kænˈtɑːbɪlɪ) music /

(to be performed) in a singing style, i.e. flowingly and melodiously

a piece or passage performed in this way

Italian, from Late Latin cantābilis, from Latin cantāre to sing