In Germany, however, the cantata at this time was approximating to its present form. Koch, a celebrated musical scholar of the early part of the present century, says:—
“The cantata is a lyrical poem set to music in different, alternating compositions, and sung with the accompaniment of instrumental music. The various melodies of which the whole is composed are the aria, with its subordinate species, the recitative or accompaniment, and the arioso, frequently also intermixed with choruses.”
Heydenreich, another writer of the same period, says:—
“The cantata is always lyrical. Its distinctive character lies in the aptitude of the passions and feelings which it contains to be rendered by music. The cantata ought to be a harmonious whole of ideas poetically expressed, concurring to paint a main passion or feeling, susceptible of various kinds and degrees of musical expression. It sometimes may have the character of the hymn or ode, sometimes that of the elegy, or of a mixture of these, in which, however, one particular emotion must predominate.”
The church cantata, according to Du Cange, dates back to 1314; but subsequent writers have shown that the term prior to the seventeenth century was used indiscriminately and without reference to any well-defined style of vocal music, and that as applied to church compositions it meant the anthem such as we now have, although not as elaborate. The noblest examples of the sacred cantata are those by Sebastian Bach, three hundred and eighty in all, over a hundred of which have been published under the auspices of the Bach-Gesellschaft. They are written in from four to seven movements for four voices and full orchestra, usually opening with chorus and closing with a chorale, the intermediate movements being in the form of recitatives, arias, and duets. The text of these cantatas is either a literal transcription of the Gospel or of portions of it. In the latter case the Gospel of the Sunday for which the cantata was written is introduced entire in the body of the work as the nucleus around which the great composer grouped the remaining parts. For instance, the cantata for Sexagesima Sunday turns upon the parable of the sower, and this being the Gospel for the day is made its central point. In like manner the cantata for the fourteenth Sunday after Trinity has for its subject the story of the ten lepers, which is introduced in recitative form in the middle of the work. The astonishing industry of Bach is shown by the fact that for nearly five years he produced a new cantata for each Sunday, in addition to his numerous fugues, chorales, motets, magnificats, masses, sanctuses, glorias, and other church music. The artistic sincerity and true genius of the old master also reveal themselves in the skill with which he finished these works for the congregation of St. Thomas,—few of whom, it is to be feared, had any conception of their real merit,—and in the untiring regularity with which he produced them, unrewarded by the world’s applause, and little dreaming that long years after he had passed away they would be brought to light again, be published to the world, and command its admiration and astonishment on account of their beauty and scholarship.[5] Before passing to the consideration of the cantata in its present form, the following abridged description of those written by Bach, taken from Bitter’s Life of the composer, will be of interest:—
“The directors who preceded Bach at Leipsic used to choose the cantatas or motets to be sung in the churches quite arbitrarily, without any regard to their connection with the rest of the service. But Bach felt that unless these elaborate pieces of music were really made a means of edification, they were mere intellectual pastimes suitable for a concert, but an interruption to divine worship; and he thought that they could best edify the congregation if their subjects were the themes to which attention was specially directed in the service and sermon of the day. He therefore made it a rule to ascertain from the clergymen of the four churches the texts of the sermons for the following Sunday, and to choose cantatas on the same or corresponding texts. As most of the clergy were in the habit of preaching on the Gospel of the day, the service thus became a harmonious whole, and the attention of the congregation was not divided between a variety of subjects. The clergyman of highest standing at Leipsic, Superintendent Deyling, a preacher of great eloquence and theological learning, co-operated heartily with Bach in this scheme. A series of cantatas for every Sunday and festival for five years—about three hundred and eighty in all—was composed by Bach, chiefly during the first years of his stay at Leipsic. Unfortunately many of these are lost; but one hundred and eighty-six for particular days, and thirty-two without any days specified, still remain. Their music is so completely in character with the subject of the words as to form a perfect exposition of the text. In some the orchestral introductions and accompaniments are made illustrative of the scene of the text; as for instance in one on Christ’s appearing to His disciples in the evening after His resurrection, the introduction is of a soft, calming character, representing the peacefulness of evening and of the whole scene. Another, on the text ‘Like as the rain and snow fall from heaven,’ is introduced by a symphony in which the sound of gently-falling rain is imitated. In others the instrumental parts and some of the voices express the feelings excited by meditation on the words. Sometimes, in the midst of a chorus in which the words of the text are repeated, and, as it were, commented on, a single voice, with the accompaniment of a few instruments, breaks off into some well-known hymn in a similar strain of thought or feeling.”
Handel in his younger days wrote many cantatas for the church, though they are now but little known. The entire list numbers one hundred and fifty. On his return from England to his post of chapel-master at Hanover in 1711 he composed twelve, known as the Hanover cantatas, for the Princess Caroline, the words written by the Abbé Hortentio Mauro, to which no objection was offered by Handel’s master and patron, notwithstanding he was a Lutheran prince. Several written in England are still preserved in the royal collections. On Holy Week of the year 1704, the same week in which Reinhardt Kaiser brought out his famous Passion oratorio, “The Bleeding and Dying Jesus,” Handel’s Passion cantata was first produced. Kaiser’s work had been denounced as secular by the pastors, because it did not contain the words of Holy Scripture. Handel’s was founded on the nineteenth chapter of St. John, and thus escaped the pulpit denunciation. This cantata is sometimes called the First Passion Oratorio, the second having been written at Hamburg in 1716.[6] In 1707 Handel was in Florence, where he wrote several cantatas, and thence went to Rome, where he produced some church music in the same form, notably the “Dixit Dominus,” for five voices and orchestra; “Nisi Dominus,” also for five voices; and “Laudate pueri,” for solos and full orchestral accompaniment. The famous anthems written for the private chapel of James Brydges, Duke of Chandos, familiarly known as the Chandos Anthems, are in reality cantatas, as each one is preceded by an overture and in its structural form comprises solos, choruses, and instrumentation for full band and choir. It is also noteworthy that it was during Handel’s residence at the Duke’s palace at Cannons that he wrote his first English oratorio, the legitimate successor of the Chandos Anthems, and the precursor of the great works destined to immortalize his name.
The cantatas left by Haydn are mainly secular in character; but it may well be imagined that during the days of his early married life, when his fanatical and termagant spouse was forcing him to write so much music for the priests and monks whom she entertained so sumptuously below-stairs while he was laboring above, more than one cantata must have come from his pen, which would have been preserved had he not reluctantly parted company with them to pacify his wife.
The term “cantata,” as it is now used, is very elastic, and covers a range of compositions which are too large to be considered as dramatic arias or ballads,—though ballads are sometimes written for various voices and orchestra,—and too small to be called operas or oratorios. It can best be defined, perhaps, as a lyric narrative, sacred, didactic, or dramatic in character, set to music for the concert stage only, being without dramatis personæ in the theatrical acceptation of those words. Its general form is that of the oratorio, being for solo voices, usually the quartet, full chorus, and orchestra, though its shortness as compared with the oratorio adapts it to performance by a small chorus, and sometimes with only piano accompaniment. Among the most perfect forms of the modern cantatas are such works as Mendelssohn’s “Walpurgis Night,” Sterndale Bennett’s “May Queen,” Max Bruch’s “Odysseus” and “Frithjof’s Saga,” Cowen’s “Sleeping Beauty,” Gade’s “Comala,” Hiller’s “Song of Victory,” Romberg’s somewhat antiquated “Song of the Bell,” Sullivan’s “Golden Legend,” Randegger’s “Fridolin,” and Dudley Buck’s “Don Munio” and “Light of Asia.” But besides such as these there are numerous other works, not usually classed as cantatas, which clearly belong to the same musical family; such as Berlioz’s “Damnation of Faust,” Brahms’s “Triumphlied,” Mendelssohn’s settings of various Psalms, Handel’s “Acis and Galatea” and “Alexander’s Feast,” Hofmann’s “Melusina,” Liszt’s “Prometheus,” Rheinberger’s “Toggenberg,” Schubert’s “Song of Miriam,” Schumann’s ballads and “Advent Hymn,” and Weber’s “Kampf und Sieg.” These and others of the same kin are drawn upon as illustrations and for analysis in the pages which follow.
Considering the possibilities of the cantata, its adaptability to every form of narrative, and the musical inducements it holds out, particularly in these days, when a new opera or oratorio must be of extraordinary merit to suit the public, it is somewhat remarkable that no more of them are written. Mr. Charles Barnard has made this point very aptly and forcibly in a short article printed in the “Century” for January, 1886, in which he urges the cantata form of composition upon our writers, and makes many excellent suggestions.[7] It is certainly an inviting field, especially to American composers, among whom but three or four have as yet produced works of this kind possessing real merit.