Lamento

in 17th- and 18th-century music, a mournful, plaintive aria, particularly in Italian opera.

The lamento conventionally appeared before a tragic culmination of the plot. It was characterized by descending melodic movement, dissonances, and fixed rhythmic formulas. One of the earliest examples occurs in Monteverdi’s opera Arianna (1608); another famous lamento is from Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas (1691). The lamento was also used in madrigals and cantatas.

In the 18th and 19th centuries lamenti were written as instrumental preludes and interludes—for example, the prelude to Berlioz’s Les Troyens (1859) functions as a lamento.