SPIRITUAL DIALOGUE. – Compositional technique of vocal music, in use from the Middle Ages to the 16th century and beyond.
Toward the 1500s, the dialogic procedure sometimes appears in laude, frottole, and madrigals (e.g., Willaert). The dialogic style, which lends greater dramatic force to vocal music, lies at the origins of sacred drama (v. THEATRE), the oratorio, and even the 17th-century melodrama (Monteverdi, etc.).
The original forms of this genre are especially the dialogic tropes of the 12th century and the dramatic, dialogic laude from the 13th to the 14th centuries. Such compositions were ordinarily written for two voices that sang alternately (in call-and-response): the style of the frottola. This technique later spread particularly in cantatas, bringing with it the liveliness of madrigals and caccia. Collections of spiritual dialogues are found especially in the 17th century with H. Schütz (Dialogues for Easter, Dresden 1631), O. Vecchi (Dialogues..., Venice 1608), G. F. Capello (Motets and Dialogues, 1615), A. Hammerschmidt (Dialogues or Conversations between God and a Soul Aflame, Dresden 1645), and R. Ahle (Sacred Dialogues, Erfurt 1648).
Famous examples of the genre are also found in J. S. Bach’s St. Matthew Passion (the alto aria “Schön Jesus hat die Hand,” and the agitated questions of the chorus).