Name for music that imitates speech

Solution 1:

The term cantabile is used (usually in classical music) to refer to pieces or passages which are "song-like":

Cantabile is a musical term meaning literally "singable" or "songlike" (Italian). It has several meanings in different contexts. In instrumental music, it indicates a particular style of playing designed to imitate the human voice. For 18th century composers, the term is often used synonymously with "cantando" (singing), and indicates a measured tempo and flexible, legato playing. For later composers, particularly in piano music, cantabile indicates the drawing out of one particular musical line against the accompaniment (compare counterpoint).

Solution 2:

The word "mimesis" is used in numerous articles (found via Google) describing music composed and performed to imitate the sounds of nature, including bird songs and hunting calls. It is synonomous with mimicry, which makes sense.

Definition of "mimesis" from the FreeDictionary.com:

1. The imitation or representation of aspects of the sensible world, especially human actions, in literature and art.

Solution 3:

Composer Steve Reich calls the technique "speech melody" and used it in works including Different Trains (1988) and The Cave (1994; extract on YouTube).

From Writings on Music, 1965–2000, page 194:

Since the 1960s I have been interested in speech melody. That is, the melody that all of us unconsciously create while speaking. Sometimes this speech melody is quite pronounced (as in children) and sometimes it is almost nonexistent (as in those speaking in a monotone).

From Writings on Music, 1965–2000, page 152, re Different Trains:

In order to combine the taped speech with the string instruments, I selected small speech samples that are more or less clearly pitched, then transcribed them as accurately as possible into musical notation. The strings then literally imitate that speech melody.

From "A Conversation with Steve Reich", Contemporary Music and Religion ed. Ivan Moody., re The Cave:

As they speak, so I write. And that is the bedrock on which it's built. So what key I'm in is largely determined by the speech melody they have, the tempo is determined by them, indeed the timbre and nuance.

Solution 4:

Did the musicians not offer the term recitative? M-W defines it as follows:

"a rhythmically free vocal style that imitates the natural inflections of speech and that is used for dialogue and narrative in operas and oratorios; also : a passage to be delivered in this style"