Introduction A cantata (literally 'sung', derived from the Italian word 'cantare') is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, involving a solo voice or (often in church cantatas) involving a choir. In Italy the word 'cantata', first used for strophic variations in the "Cantade et arie" of Alessandro Grandi, soon came to be applied to pieces alternating recitative, arioso and aria-like sections. The cantata has then the same ingredients as in the oratorio (= the religious counterpart of the opera): alternation of arias and recitatives and possibly choral parts. The cantata is thus a smaller version of the oratorio. Thus, 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 (including the church and secular cantatas of Johann Sebastian Bach) to the usually sacred-texted 19th-century cantata, which was effectively a type of short oratorio. Audio www.naxosmusiclibrary.com, youtube.com Many audio examples can be found with Spotify (spotify.com) Cantata History The term originated in the early 17th century simultaneously with opera and oratorio. 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. A cantata consisted first of a declamatory narrative or scene in recitative, held together by a primitive aria repeated at intervals (examples of this archaic form: church music of Giacomo Carissimi and the English vocal solos of Henry Purcell). From circa 1650 the term cantata referred to a standard structure with alternating recitative, arioso and aria-like sections. However, the main cantata writers of the early 17th century, Luigi Rossi and Marazzoli, preferred the "arietta corte", a single aria with changes of meter. Carissimi's pupil, Alessandro Scarlatti, and other members of the Neapolitan school (as Stradella, Steffani and later Pergolesi) standardized the cantata: the cantata consisted of contrasting sections of recitative and aria (separated by instrumental passages), often in the current operatic style. Types Scarlatti's cantatas In Scarlatti's cantatas after circa 1700, the standardized cantata consists of two or three da capo arias separated by recitative. Most are for soprano and continuo. in the later cantatas full string accompaniment becomes the norm. German cantatas In Germany, the 'Kantate' was primarily a sacred genre, which could be described as a chorale cantata, in which the organizing principle is the words and music to a chorale. The chorale cantata developed out of the chorale concerto, an earlier form much used by Samuel Scheidt in the early 17th century, which incorporated elements of the Venetian School, such as the concertato style, into the liturgical music of the Protestant Reformation. Later the chorale cantata developed into three general forms: a form in which each verse (strophe) of the chorale was developed as an independent movement a form in which the chorale appeared in some of the movements, perhaps only two, and the other parts of the cantata used other texts and the version pioneered by J.S. Bach, in which the first and last movements use the first and last strophes of the chorale, but the inner movements—perhaps aria and recitative—use paraphrases of the actual chorale text. Typically the beginning and ending movements use all the instrumental and vocal forces, while the interior movements are for smaller groups. Most of Bach's cantatas are based on recitative and da capo aria. Note that the Christmas Oratorio is a collection of six church cantatas. Secular cantatas in German and Italian were composed by Keiser, Telemann, Bach and others, but this type was never cultivated to the extent it was in Italy. Cantatas in France and England In France (Clérambault, Rameau) and England (Pepusch) the cantata was more or less an imitation of the Italian model. Remark Since the late 18th century the term has been applied to a wide variety of works, sacred and secular, mostly for chorus and orchestra (Beethoven's Glorreiche Augenblick and Meeresstille, Carl Maria von Weber's Jubel-Kantate, Felix Mendelssohn's Die erste Walpurgisnacht, Johannes Brahms' Rinaldo.) Cantatas, both of the chamber variety and on a grand scale, were composed after 1900 as well. In the early part of the century, secular cantatas once again became prominent, while the 19th-century tradition of sacred cantatas also continued (Sancta civitas and Toward the Unknown Region of Ralph Vaughan Williams, Cantata Profana of Béla Bartók, Cantata No. 1, op. 29 of Anton Webern and Cantata on Old English Texts of Igor Stravinsky)