Cantata.
form belonging equally to sacred and secular music, viz., the cantata, in all probability first emanated from desire to possess in chamber music the recitative, invented by Peri and others, and supposed by themselves and their admirers to be a revival of Greek art. You will best judge of the primitive nature of the earliest cantatas, and understand the difference between them and the compositions which have since appeared under the same title, when I tell you that they were short dramatic stories, declaimed or recited by one voice to the accompaniment of a single instrument. In the seventeenth century this simple form was extended, by the insertion, at various intervals, of an air, the repetition of which gave the cantata the appearance of a rondo. The Italian school of that period, already mentioned in connection with the opera, did much to perfect this style of composition. Foremost amongst these masters stands Carissimi, who is credited with first adapting the cantata to church purposes. Amongst his secular cantatas there is one written to commemorate the death of Mary Queen of Scots. About the same time, Marcello, Cesti, and Lotti wrote in this form, and Alessandro Scarlatti contributed very many specimens, in which the accompaniments were elaborate and difficult. Some of Marcello’s are published for soprano and contralto, with clavecin accompaniment.
In the early part of the next century Domenico Scarlatti, the son of the Alessandro above named, considerably extended the form by making use of various movements in the one work. Pergolesi (1710-36) also wrote several cantatas, introducing important developments. A well-known one of his was Orfeo ed Euridice, written shortly before his death. Handel wrote several for the single voice, either with clavier or orchestral accompaniment, mostly for oboes and stringed instruments. In the life of Handel, published soon after his death (in 1760), the number is put down as two hundred; but this total will include his Church cantatas, a much more advanced form of composition, although composed when he was quite a young man.
The modern name for the primitive form of cantata is undoubtedly “Concert aria,” or “Scena,” into which it has merged. Under the latter titles we have splendid examples by Mozart, such as “Misero, O sogno?” “Bella mia fiamma,” “Misera dove son!” and “Non temer,” and single specimens by Beethoven, “Ah, perfido,” and by Mendelssohn, “Infelice.” The most important and valuable Church cantatas are those composed by John Sebastian Bach, consisting of five sets for every Sunday and holy day in the year, besides many single ones, such as “God’s time is the best,” and a sort of requiem ode for the Electress of Saxony. These Church cantatas are for four voices and full orchestra, and have from four to seven various movements. Bach wrote many secular cantatas as well, two of them being comic ones. His works abound in contrapuntal skill, and contain great beauties.
It remains to be said that in our times the word cantata is used as a title to choral works which, if sacred and written in oratorio style, are too short for that title or have no dramatis personæ; or, if secular, such as lyric dramas set to music, are not intended to be acted. Sir Sterndale Bennett’s May Queen is a good specimen of the latter, which may be said to bear the same relationship to opera that the sacred cantata of the present day does to oratorio.