Why “cantabile” is a great word
CANTABILE — [Adjective, Adverb, Noun] A musical direction indicating a passage is to be played in a smooth, lyrical, and songlike manner. From Italian cantabile ("singable"), from Late Latin cantābilis ("worthy to be sung"), from Latin cantāre ("to sing") + -bilis ("-able"). First attested in English circa 1724. Unlike marcato, which carves notes with sharp, detached emphasis, or parlando, which seeks the clipped urgency of speech, cantabile is an injunction for the instrument to breathe as a voice does. It is the cellist's bow gliding without a whisper of separation, the pianist's touch coaxing one note to bleed into the next, and the oboe's line floating as a solitary, unbroken exhalation—a technical command that aspires, always, to the human voice.