Refrain

In general musical terms, a ritornello is the repetition of a section or fragment of a work. The signs that are used to indicate the part that is repeated is that it means to open ritornello and, close ritornello. It derives from the Italian term meaning "small return", "return". Throughout the history of music, the ritornello has adopted different meanings: During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the ritornello designated the refrain at the end of each verse of a madrigal. In opera and song of the seventeenth century, it was used to designate brief instrumental interludes that alternated with the stanzas of an aria or linked different musical sections. In Baroque instrumental music this term acquired a different nuance applied to concerts for soloist and orchestra. It was used to refer to a recurrent orchestral passage that was interpreted at the beginning and end of the movement and was interspersed between the solos. This theme, always touched by the tutti, was repeated in different shades or sometimes partially or abbreviated. The ritornello differs from the rondo form in that in the latter the recurrent theme is generally in the same tonality. It was very common in the practice of composers like Bach who developed this musical form, attributed to Vivaldi. With the passage of time, upon reaching classicism, this repetitive form was replaced completely by the rondo.

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