DIALOGO SPIRITUALE. - A compositional technique of vocal music, in use from the Middle Ages to the sixteenth century and beyond.
Toward the sixteenth century, dialogic procedure is sometimes found in the lauda, the frottola, and the madrigal (Willaert, etc.). The dialogic style, which lends greater dramatic force to vocal music, lies at the origins of sacred drama (v. TEATRO), the oratorio, and even seventeenth-century opera (Monteverdi, etc.).
The original forms of this genre are chiefly the dialogued tropes of the twelfth century and the dramatic and dialogued laude from the thirteenth to the fourteenth century. Such compositions were ordinarily written for two voices singing alternately (“call and response”: the style of the frottola). This technique subsequently spread especially in cantatas, bringing with it the liveliness of madrigals and cacce. Collections of spiritual dialogues are found particularly in the thirteenth and seventeenth centuries, with D. Schütz (Dialoghi per la Pasqua, Dresden 1631), O. Vecchi (Dialoghi..., Venice 1608), G. F. Capello (Mottetti e dialoghi, ibid. 1615), A. Hammerschmidt (Dialoghi oder Gespräche zwischen Gott u. einer gläubigen Seele, Dresden 1645), R. Ahle (Geistliche Dialoge, Erfurt 1648).
Famous examples of the genre are also found in the Passione secondo s. Matteo by G. S. Bach (the aria for contralto Schön Jesus hat die Hand, and the agitated questions of the chorus).