A cantata (Italian, 'sung') is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment and generally containing more than one movement. Vocal music is Music performed by one or more Singers with or without non-vocal instrumental accompaniment Musical composition is an original piece of Music the structure of a musical piece the process of creating a new A musical instrument is a device constructed or modified for the purpose of making Music. In Music, accompaniment is the art of playing along with a soloist or ensemble, often known as the Lead, in a Supporting manner A movement is a self-contained part of a Musical composition or Musical form.

Historical context

The term did not exist prior to the 16th century, when all "cultured" music was vocal, but with the rise of instrumental music in the 17th century the term emerged as the instrumental art became sufficiently developed to be embodied in sonatas. High culture is a term now used in a number of different ways in Academic discourse whose most common meaning is the set of cultural products mainly in the An instrumental is a Musical composition or recording without Lyrics or any other sort of Vocal music; all of the Music is produced by As a means of recording the passage of Time, the 17th Century was that Century which lasted from 1601 - 1700 in the Gregorian calendar Usage of sonata The Baroque applied the term sonata to a variety of works though most works in the Baroque Period were fugues and toccatas From the middle of the 17th until late in the 18th century a favorite form of Italian chamber music was the cantata for one or two solo voices, with accompaniment of harpsichord and perhaps a few other solo instruments. The 18th century lasted from 1701 to 1800 in the Gregorian calendar, in accordance with the Anno Domini / Common Era numbering system Chamber music is a form of Classical music, written for a small group of instruments which traditionally could be accommodated in a palace chamber A harpsichord is a Musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It consisted at first of a declamatory narrative or scene in recitative, held together by a primitive aria repeated at intervals. Recitative /rɛsɪtə'tiv/ (also known by its Italian name "recitativo" (/retʃita'tivo/ is a style of delivery (much used in Operas Oratorios This article is about the musical term "aria" For other meanings or uses of the word see Aria (disambiguation. 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. Giacomo Carissimi (baptized April 18 1605 &ndash January 12 1674 was an Italian Composer, one of the most celebrated masters of the early Baroque, Henry Purcell (ˈpɜrsəl 10 September 1659 (? – 21 November 1695 was an English Baroque Composer. With the rise of the da capo aria, the cantata became a group of two or three arias joined by recitative. The da capo aria was a musical form prevalent in the Baroque era 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.

Differences between 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. Opera is an art form in which Singers and Musicians perform a Dramatic work (called an opera which combines a text (called a Libretto An oratorio is a large Musical composition including an Orchestra, a Choir, and soloists The oratorio was somewhat modeled after the Opera This is equally evident whether we examine the unparalleled church cantatas of Bach, of which nearly 200 are extant (see list of cantatas by Johann Sebastian Bach), or the Chandos Anthems of Handel. This is a list of Cantatas by Johann Sebastian Bach in order of BWV number as given in Wolfgang Schmieder 's catalogue of Bach's works In Johann Sebastian Bach's case many 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. WikipediaWikiProject Composers#Lead section.2 This article is written in British English including maximised use of "-ise" The Christmas Oratorio (German Weihnachtsoratorium) BWV 248 is a musical work by Johann Sebastian Bach celebrating the Christmas An oratorio is a large Musical composition including an Orchestra, a Choir, and soloists The oratorio was somewhat modeled after the Opera

The essential point, however, in Bach's church cantatas is that they formed part of a church service. Many of Bach's greatest cantatas begin with an elaborate chorus followed by a couple of arias and recitatives, and end with a plain chorale. A chorale was originally a Hymn of the Lutheran church sung by the entire congregation This has often been commented upon as an example of Bach's indifference to artistic climax in the work as a whole. But no one will maintain this who realizes the place which the church cantata occupied in the Lutheran church service. The text was carefully based upon the gospel or lessons for the day; unless the cantata was short the sermon probably took place after the first chorus or one of the arias, and the congregation joined in the final chorale. Thus the unity of the service was the unity of the music; and, in the cases where all the movements of the cantata were founded on one and the same chorale-tune, this unity has never been equalled, except by those 16th-century masses and motets which are founded upon the Gregorian tones of the festival for which they are written. In Western music, motet is a word that is applied to a number of highly varied choral musical compositions

In modern times the term cantata is applied almost exclusively to choral, as distinguished from solo vocal music. It is just possible to recognize as a distinct artistic type that kind of early 19th-century cantata in which the chorus is the vehicle for music more lyric and songlike than the oratorio style, though at the same time not excluding the possibility of a brilliant climax in the shape of a light order of fugue. In Music, a fugue (ˈfjuːg is a type of contrapuntal composition or technique of composition for a fixed number of parts, normally referred Ludwig van Beethoven's Glorreiche Augenblick is a brilliant pot-boiler in this style; Carl Maria von Weber's Jubel Cantata is a typical specimen, and Felix Mendelssohn's Die erste Walpurgisnacht is the classic. Ludwig van Beethoven ( English ˈlʊdvɪg væn ˈbeɪtoʊvən, 16 December 1770 &ndash 26 March 1827 was a German Composer and Pianist. Carl Maria Friedrich Ernst von Weber ( 18 December 1786 in Eutin, Holstein, Germany - 5 June 1826 in London Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, born and generally known as Felix Mendelssohn (February 3 1809 &ndash November 4 1847 was a German Composer Die erste Walpurgisnacht (The First Walpurgis Night) is a Cantata for Choir and Orchestra written by Felix Mendelssohn. Mendelssohn's Symphony Cantata, the Lobgesang, is a hybrid work, partly in the oratorio style. The Symphony No 2 in B flat major, op 52 called the "Lobgesang" (or "Hymn of Praise" Symphony was composed by Felix Mendelssohn. It is preceded by three symphonic movements, a device avowedly suggested by Beethoven's ninth symphony; but the analogy is not accurate, as Beethoven's work is a symphony of which the fourth movement is a choral finale of essentially single design, whereas Mendelssohn's Symphony Cantata is a cantata with three symphonic preludes. The full lyric possibilities of a string of choral songs were realized by Johannes Brahms in his Rinaldo, that- like the Walpurgisnacht- was set to a text by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Johannes Brahms ( pronounced ˈbʁaːms (May 7 1833 &ndash April 3 1897 was a German Composer Rinaldo, a cantata for tenor solo four-part male chorus and orchestra was begun by Johannes Brahms in 1863 as an entry for a choral competition announced in Aachen ˈjoːhan ˈvɔlfgaŋ fɔn ˈgøːtə (in English generally ˈgɝːtə 28 August 1749 22 March 1832 was a German writer The remaining types of cantata (beginning with Beethoven's Meeres-stille, and including most of those by Brahms's and many notable small English choral works) demonstrate the many ways a poem may be set to choral music.

Media

"Dialogus inter Christum et fidelem animam"

A sacred cantata by Dieterich Buxtehude. Dieterich Buxtehude ( Dietrich, Diderich) (c 1637 &ndash 9 May 1707 was a German-Danish Organist, Lutenist

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Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring

Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben, BWV 147, by J. S. Bach

Problems listening to the file? See media help. WikipediaWikiProject Composers#Lead section.2 This article is written in British English including maximised use of "-ise"

References

See also

• Motet
• Oratorio
• Sonata

External links

• Definitions of musical terms
• Dictionary of musical terminology, with audio pronunciation of the many foreign terms