Cantata

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Soloquartet and strings

A cantata (/kænˈtɑːtə/; Italian: [kanˈtaːta]; literally "sung", past participle feminine singular of the Italian verb cantare, "to sing") is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir.

The meaning of the term changed over time, from the simple single-voice

madrigal of the early 17th century, to the multi-voice "cantata da camera" and the "cantata da chiesa" of the later part of that century, from the more substantial dramatic forms of the 18th century to the usually sacred-texted 19th-century cantata, which was effectively a type of short oratorio.[1] Cantatas for use in the liturgy of church services are called church cantata or sacred cantata; other cantatas can be indicated as secular cantatas. Several cantatas were, and still are, written for special occasions, such as Christmas cantatas. Christoph Graupner, Georg Philipp Telemann and Johann Sebastian Bach composed cycles of church cantatas
for the occasions of the liturgical year.

Historical context

The term originated in the early 17th century, simultaneously with opera and oratorio.[citation needed][2] Prior to that, all "cultured" music was vocal. With the rise of instrumental music the term appeared, while the instrumental art became sufficiently developed to be embodied in sonatas. From the beginning of the 17th century until late in the 18th, the cantata for one or two solo voices with accompaniment of basso continuo (and perhaps a few solo instruments) was a principal form of Italian vocal chamber music.[3]

A cantata consisted first of a declamatory narrative or scene in recitative, held together by a primitive aria repeated at intervals. Fine examples may be found in the church music of Giacomo Carissimi; and the English vocal solos of Henry Purcell (such as Mad Tom and Mad Bess) show the utmost that can be made of this archaic form. With the rise of the da capo aria, the cantata became a group of two or three arias joined by recitative. George Frideric Handel's numerous Italian duets and trios are examples on a rather large scale. His Latin motet Silete Venti, for soprano solo, shows the use of this form in church music.[4]

Differences from other musical forms

The Italian solo cantata tended, when on a large scale, to become indistinguishable from a scene in an opera, in the same way the church cantata, solo or choral, is indistinguishable from a small oratorio or portion of an oratorio. This is equally evident whether one examines the church cantatas of Bach, of which nearly 200 are extant (see List of Bach cantatas), or the Chandos Anthems of Handel. In Johann Sebastian Bach's case some of the larger cantatas are actually called oratorios; and the Christmas Oratorio is a collection of six church cantatas actually intended for performance on six different days, though together forming as complete an artistic whole as any classical oratorio.

Baroque

During the baroque era, the term "cantata" generally retained its original Italian usage to describe a secular vocal piece of extended length, often in different sections, and usually Italianate in style. At the same time, vocal pieces of similar scope, often with several singers, and various instruments, were in great demand for the services of the Lutheran church. Such pieces were usually called geistliche Konzerte (singular: geistliches Konzert, meaning sacred concerto). Many of these pieces were simply called by their opening text. Such pieces for the liturgy or other occasions were not only composed by Bach but also by Dieterich Buxtehude, Christoph Graupner, Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel and Georg Philipp Telemann, to name a few. The editors of the Bach Gesellschaft adopted "sacred cantata" as a convenient catchall for most of Bach's liturgical pieces. The term was then retroactively applied by Philipp Spitta to refer to comparable works by composers from Heinrich Schütz onwards.[5] Many secular cantatas were composed for events in the nobility. They were so similar in form to the sacred ones that many of them were parodied (in parts or completely) to sacred cantatas, for example in Bach's Christmas Oratorio.

Bach cantatas

Johann Sebastian Bach, almost 200 of whose cantatas survive, is a notable contributor to the genre.[6]

His cantatas are usually written for a baroque orchestra consisting of a string section, an oboe section, and a

BWV 51
).

Graupner's cantatas

Hesse-Darmstadt and provided over 1,400 cantatas during his nearly 50 years of employment there, making him the most significant contributor to the genre. While only a handful of Bach's cantatas contain accompanied chorales (the vocal parts are usually doubled by the instrumental parts), nearly all of Graupner's chorales feature elaborate ritornello sections.[7] This is possibly due to the fact that Bach's Leipzig congregation was expected to sing along with them, but the Darmstadt court was not. Also, many of Graupner's cantatas exploit elaborate orchestral effects and use exotic instrumentation, such as chalumeau, flûte d'amour, oboe d'amore, viola d'amore, trumpets, horns and timpani. See: List of cantatas by Christoph Graupner
.

Classical and romantic period

The term "cantata" came to be applied almost exclusively to choral works, as distinguished from solo vocal music. In early 19th-century cantatas the chorus is the vehicle for music more lyric and songlike than in oratorio, not excluding the possibility of a brilliant climax in a

Sardanapale. While almost all of the Prix de Rome cantatas have long since been forgotten (along with their composers, for the most part), Debussy's prize-winning L'enfant prodigue (1884, following his unsuccessful Le gladiateur of 1883) is still performed occasionally today. Late in the century, Gustav Mahler wrote his early Das klagende Lied on his own words, between 1878 and 1880, and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor created a successful trilogy of cantatas The Song of Hiawatha
between 1898 and 1900.

Twentieth century and beyond

Cantatas, both of the chamber variety and on a grand scale, were composed after 1900 as well.[8] Indeed, it would not be an exaggeration to claim that one of the most popular pieces of classical music of the 20th century to the layman's ears, is a cantata, namely Carmina Burana (1935–1936) by the German composer Carl Orff.

In the early part of the century, secular cantatas once again became prominent, while the 19th-century tradition of sacred cantatas also continued.

Cantata for the Twentieth Anniversary of the October Revolution
, Op. 74, and Flourish, Mighty Homeland, Op. 114, for the thirtieth anniversary of the same event

Patriotic cantatas celebrating anniversaries of events in the Revolution or extolling state leaders were frequently commissioned in the Soviet Union between 1930 and the middle of the century, though these occasional works were seldom among their composers' best. Examples include Dmitri Shostakovich's Poem of the Motherland, Op. 47 (1947) and The Sun Shines over Our Motherland, Op. 90 (1952), and three works by Prokofiev, Zdravitsa! [Hail to Stalin] (1939). Dmitry Kabalevsky also composed four such cantatas, The Great Homeland, Op. 35 (1941–42), The Song of Morning, Spring and Peace, Op. 57 (1957–58), Leninists, Op. 63 (1959), and About Our Native Land, Op. 82 (1965).

In 1940, the Brazilian composer

).

References

  1. .
  2. ^ "Cantata Definition: What Is a Cantata in Music?". MasterClass. February 8, 2022.
  3. John Tyrrell
    . London: Macmillan Publishers.
  4. ^ Tovey, Donald. Francis. In Musical Forms,[full citation needed]: Meridian Books, 1956; reprinted by arrangement by Oxford University Press.[page needed]
  5. ^ Krummacher, Friedhelm. "Cantata, § II: The German cantata to 1800". Grove Music Online. Retrieved 6 July 2017.
  6. ^ Dellal, Pamela. "What is a Cantata?". www.emmanuelmusic.org. Retrieved 22 April 2018.
  7. ^ Richard Kram, The Cantata Chorales of Christoph Graupner, 2013
  8. ^ Hunter, Sophie. "Cantata in a Castle". The Guardian.

External links