The German "obligate" is indeed spelled with a single 'b'. It should translate as obligatory, though, not as obbligato. The two b's are an Italian anomaly and we borrow it when it means a specific thing, namely an instrumental accompaniment to an aria which otherwise might only include a continuo line.

In my interpretation the movement is not obligatory to be performed, but obligatory to be composed, just as a good operetta needs a rousing finale. Schoenbergian sarcasm?

But obbligato means obligatory too. 

At the risk of going round in circles, Tony is surely right, isn't he?  'Obbligato' is the Italian word which, in Italian, means the same as the English word 'obligatory' does in English.

Oh. Obbligato is one of the most confusing terms in all of musical jargon, mostly because it can mean both "required" and "optional," but that's not all; "obbligato recitative" is a particular phrase with its own proprietary meaning of "obbligato," which is that I gave above.  For example, this sentence was the first result in Google when I typed in the phrase:

"Jommelli's compositions tended to use more obbligato recitative, which involved the orchestra as a dramatic partner with the singer."

My Oxford companion says obbligato should mean the playing is essential to the piece of music, but in recent times careless musicians have misunderstood it as ad libitum which means optional and so scores with an obbligato part should be examined to determine if it really is obbligato  or ad libitum .

John W

A,

Yes. I've often thought of the instrument obbligato as the nearest to an improvisation, an elaboration (like a 'jazz part') and I suppose that's what the 'careless musicians' came to regard it as and it becomes ad lib ?


John W

This thread has - following my joke about the misspelling "obligato" - turned into an interesting exchange not merely about the spelling, but also about the meaning of the term obbligato. The confusion thrown up by this term is succinctly stated as follows in the Harvard Dictionary of Music:

"Obbligato [It.]. Obligatory, usually with reference to an instrument (violino obbligato) or part that must not be omitted; the opposite is ad libitum. Unfortunately, through misunderstanding or carelessness, the term has come to mean a mere accompanying part that may be omitted if necessary. As a result, one must decide in each individual case whether obbligato means "obbligato" or "ad libitum"; usually it means the former in early music and the latter in more recent pieces..."

Hence when Vivaldi (for example) marks the first concerto of his L'Estro Armonico as being written con 4 violini obbligati he is stipulating that the use of 4 violins is mandatory. Similarly, when (say) Bach writes an aria with an obbligato part for Oboe da Caccia, the inclusion of the part provided - as well as the named instrument - becomes obligatory.

In the 19th c. however, it is clear that composers had begun to use the term obbligato in the sense of "an additional part which is optional". This is, I suggest, because they had lost sight of the original meaning that attached to "needed part", and had begun to assume the term meant simply "an added part" (in the sense of being optional only).

I don't think the dropping of the second b would have been in any way important in this misunderstanding.

Baziron