Cantata
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
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
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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
Graupner's cantatas
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
Twentieth century and beyond
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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.
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
- ISBN 0-19-861459-4.
- ^ "Cantata Definition: What Is a Cantata in Music?". MasterClass. February 8, 2022.
- John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan Publishers.
- ^ Tovey, Donald. Francis. In Musical Forms,[full citation needed]: Meridian Books, 1956; reprinted by arrangement by Oxford University Press.[page needed]
- ^ Krummacher, Friedhelm. "Cantata, § II: The German cantata to 1800". Grove Music Online. Retrieved 6 July 2017.
- ^ Dellal, Pamela. "What is a Cantata?". www.emmanuelmusic.org. Retrieved 22 April 2018.
- ^ Richard Kram, The Cantata Chorales of Christoph Graupner, 2013
- ^ Hunter, Sophie. "Cantata in a Castle". The Guardian.
External links
- Dolmetsch music dictionary: C–Car
- Multimedia Dictionary: Cantata Archived 2014-10-27 at the Virginia Tech