A cantata is a musical piece that includes singing and instruments. It usually has several parts and often includes a choir.

The meaning of the word "cantata" has changed over time. In the early 1600s, it described a simple song with one voice. Later in the 1600s, it referred to more complex songs with multiple voices, called "cantata da camera" and "cantata da chiesa." In the 1700s, cantatas became more dramatic. By the 1800s, most cantatas had religious texts and were similar to short oratorios. Cantatas used in church services are called church cantatas or sacred cantatas. Others are called secular cantatas. Some cantatas are written for special events, like Christmas. Composers such as Christoph Graupner, Georg Philipp Telemann, and Johann Sebastian Bach created sets of church cantatas for different times during the church calendar.

Historical context

The term "cantata" began in the early 17th century, at the same time as opera and oratorio. Before this, all refined music was sung. As instrumental music grew more advanced, the term "cantata" appeared, with instrumental music becoming developed enough to be written in sonatas. From the start of the 17th century until the late 18th century, the cantata was a major form of Italian vocal chamber music. It often included one or two solo voices with a basso continuo accompaniment (and sometimes a few solo instruments).

A cantata usually began with a spoken-like part called recitative, connected by a simple song repeated at intervals. Good examples can be found in the church music of Giacomo Carissimi. The English vocal solos of Henry Purcell, such as "Mad Tom" and "Mad Bess," show how this early form was used. When the da capo aria developed, the cantata became a series of two or three songs connected by recitative. George Frideric Handel's many Italian duets and trios are large-scale examples of this. His Latin motet "Silete Venti," for a solo soprano, demonstrates how this form was used in church music.

Differences from other musical forms

The Italian solo cantata often became very similar to a scene from an opera when it was large in scale. Similarly, church cantatas, whether performed by a single singer or a group, were often hard to tell apart from small oratorios or parts of larger oratorios. This is clear when looking at the church cantatas written by Johann Sebastian Bach, nearly 200 of which still exist (see List of Bach cantatas), or the Chandos Anthems by George Frideric Handel. In Bach's case, some of his larger cantatas are even called oratorios. His Christmas Oratorio is a set of six church cantatas meant to be performed on six separate days. However, together, these six cantatas form a complete artistic work, just like any classical oratorio.

Baroque

During the Baroque era, the word "cantata" kept its original Italian meaning to describe a long, secular vocal piece made up of different sections and usually written in the Italian style. At the same time, religious vocal pieces with multiple singers and instruments were widely used in Lutheran church services. These were often called geistliche Konzerte (meaning "sacred concerto"). Many of these pieces were named after their opening text. These works were composed not only by Johann Sebastian Bach but also by composers such as Dieterich Buxtehude, Christoph Graupner, Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel, and Georg Philipp Telemann. The editors of the Bach Gesellschaft used the term "sacred cantata" as a general term for most of Bach's religious compositions. Later, Philipp Spitta applied this term to similar works by composers like Heinrich Schütz. Many secular cantatas were written for noble events. These pieces were so similar in structure to sacred cantatas that some were adapted, either partially or fully, into sacred versions, such as in Bach's Christmas Oratorio.

Johann Sebastian Bach, whose nearly 200 cantatas survive today, was a major composer in this genre. His cantatas were typically written for a Baroque orchestra with string instruments, oboes, and a continuo group (which included bass and harmony instruments). Timpani and brass instruments were sometimes added during special occasions like Christmas or Easter. The vocal parts included a four-part choir and soloists. Some of Bach's cantatas were written for only one solo singer, such as BWV 51.

A few of Bach's cantatas, like Tritt auf die Glaubensbahn, BWV 152 (1714), were written as dialogue cantatas. These pieces showed interactions between two characters, often Jesus (sung by a bass) and the Soul (sung by a soprano).

Christoph Graupner served as Hofkapellmeister at the court of Hesse-Darmstadt and composed over 1,400 cantatas during his nearly 50 years there, making him the most important contributor to the genre. While only a few of Bach's cantatas included accompanied chorales (where vocal parts were supported by instruments), most of Graupner's chorales featured detailed ritornello sections. This may be because Bach's Leipzig congregation was expected to sing along, but the Darmstadt court was not. Additionally, many of Graupner's cantatas used complex orchestral effects and unusual instruments, such as the 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 word "cantata" became mainly used for choral music, different from music sung by a single person. In the early 19th century, cantatas often included choral music that was more melodic and songlike than in oratorios. Some cantatas, like Ludwig van Beethoven's Der glorreiche Augenblick, Carl Maria von Weber's Jubel-Kantate, and Felix Mendelssohn's Die erste Walpurgisnacht, included complex sections such as fugues. Anton Bruckner wrote several cantatas, including Name-day cantatas, a Festive Cantata, and two secular works, Germanenzug and Helgoland. His Psalm 146 is also a cantata. Mendelssohn's Lobgesang, called a Symphony Cantata, combines elements of a symphony and an oratorio. It begins with three symphonic movements, inspired by Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, but differs because Mendelssohn's work is a cantata with symphonic preludes. Johannes Brahms explored choral music's full expressive potential in Rinaldo, set to a text by Goethe, similar to Mendelssohn's Walpurgisnacht. Other cantatas, such as Beethoven's Meeresstille and works by Brahms, John Henry Maunder, and John Stanley, show different ways to set poetry to choral music. The French Prix de Rome competition required candidates to submit a cantata. Hector Berlioz tried three times before winning in 1830 with Sardanapale. Most Prix de Rome cantatas are now forgotten, but Debussy's L'enfant prodigue (1884) is still performed today. In the late 19th century, Gustav Mahler composed Das klagende Lied (1878–1880) and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor created a successful trilogy of cantatas, The Song of Hiawatha (1898–1900).

Twentieth century and beyond

Cantatas, which can be small or large in size, were written after 1900 as well. One of the most famous cantatas from the 20th century is Carmina Burana, composed by Carl Orff of Germany between 1935 and 1936.

At the beginning of the 20th century, secular cantatas became popular again, and the tradition of sacred cantatas from the 19th century continued. Ralph Vaughan Williams wrote both types of cantatas. His festival cantatas include Toward the Unknown Region (1907), Five Mystical Songs (1911), and Five Tudor Portraits (1936). His sacred cantatas include Sancta civitas (1926), Benedicite (1930), Dona nobis pacem (1936), and Hodie (1954). Joseph Ryelandt also wrote secular and sacred cantatas, such as Le chant de la pauvreté Op. 92 (1928) and Veni creator Op. 123 (1938). Béla Bartók composed the secular Cantata Profana, subtitled "The Nine Splendid Stags," based on a Romanian folk tale, in 1930. Arnold Schoenberg’s Gurre-Lieder (1900–1903/1910–11), which began as a song cycle, became one of the largest secular cantatas of the century. Paul Hindemith composed three works he called cantatas: Die Serenaden Op. 35 (1924), Mahnung an die Jugend, sich der Musik zu befleissigen (1932), and Ite angeli veloces (1953–55). Two of Anton Webern’s last compositions were secular cantatas: Cantata No. 1 Op. 29 (1938–39) and Cantata No. 2 Op. 31 (1941–43), both using texts by Hildegard Jone. Webern started sketching a third cantata before his death in 1945. Ernst Krenek wrote two examples: Die Zwingburg Op. 14 (1922), a "scenic cantata," and Cantata for Wartime Op. 95 (1943), for women’s voices and orchestra. Sergei Prokofiev composed Semero ikh (1917–18; revised 1933) and a cantata based on music from the film Alexander Nevsky (1939). He also wrote two festival cantatas: 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.

In the Soviet Union from 1930 to the middle of the century, patriotic cantatas were often created to celebrate events in the Revolution or honor leaders. 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, including 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).

Patriotic cantatas were also created in China during the civil war and the Second Sino-Japanese War. For example, the Yellow River Cantata was composed in 1939.

In 1940, the Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos created a secular cantata titled Mandu çarará, based on an Indian legend collected by Barbosa Rodrigues. Francis Poulenc composed Figure humaine FP 120 (1943), a cantata for double mixed choir of 12 voices on poems by Paul Éluard. Igor Stravinsky composed a work titled Cantata (1951–52), which used stanzas from the 15th-century "Lyke-wake Dirge" as a narrative frame for other English lyrics, and later called A Sermon, a Narrative and a Prayer (1961) a "cantata for alto and tenor soli, speaker, chorus, and orchestra." Luigi Nono wrote Il canto sospeso (1955–56). Hans Werner Henze composed Cantata della fiaba estrema and *Novae de infinit