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In a singing style — melodically, with a vocal quality.
Printed beside a melodic line, alone or as part of a heading (Andante cantabile, Adagio cantabile); it applies to the line it marks for the phrase or section. Molto cantabile and largamente e cantabile intensify it, and within a texture it usually tells the reader which voice carries the tune.
Abbreviations: cant., cantab.
Cantabile asks instrumentalists to imitate the human voice — sustained, connected, with natural phrase breathing. When writing cantabile passages, think vocally: keep the melody within a comfortable range, use stepwise motion with occasional expressive leaps, and phrase in breath-length units.
Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 8 ("Pathétique"), second movement (Adagio cantabile) — the famous melody sings as if played on a cello, not a piano.
Cantabile is one of 1760 terms in the Gradus musical dictionary: the words, abbreviations and instrument names that appear in printed scores, plus the vocabulary composers use to talk about them.
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