Cantata

Introduction

A cantata is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir.   In its early development  the cantata became a group of two or three arias joined by recitative. The meaning of the term changed over time, from the simple single voice madrigal of the early seventeenth century, to the multi-voice “cantata da amera” and the “cantata da chiesa” of the later part of that century.  Cantatas for use in the liturgy of church services are called church cantata or sometimes sacred cantata, others sometimes secular cantata.

https://courses.candelalearning.com/music2014summerfmuyaklich/chapter/1-9-1-chorale-cantata/

The chorale  cantata which will be  will be the focus of this course,  is a sacred composition for voices and instruments, principally from the German Baroque era, in which the organizing principle is the words and music to a chorale. Usually a chorale cantata is in multiple movements or parts. Most chorale cantatas were written between approximately 1650 and 1750. By far the most famous are by J. S. Bach, especially the cantatas composed in his second annual cycle of cantatas, started in Leipzig in 1724.

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.  It became a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir.

The chorale cantata was  pioneered by J. S. Bach. There would be about 7 movements. The first and last movements used the first and last strophes of the chorale, but the inner movements— 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 (combinations of  recitatives and arias)  were for smaller groups.

Most compositions were written write for local performances; often the composer was the music director at a church, and the music was written, copied, and performed in short order, and remained in manuscript..

Johann Sebastian Bach composed around two hundred cantatas. Several cantatas were, and still are, written for special occasions, such as Christmas cantatas.

Cantatas were in great demand for the services of the Lutheran church. Sacred cantatas for the liturgy or other occasions were also  composed by Dieterich Buxtehude, Heinrich Stölzel and Georg Philipp Telemann,  to name a few. Many secular cantatas were also composed for events in the nobility.

https://courses.lumenlearning.com/music-app-rford/wp-admin/post.php?post=844&action=edit

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By the late Baroque, the genre of cantata had become more substantial. The cantatas of J.S. Bach and his contemporaries were longer, involved more instruments and singers, and chorus, and were usually performed for larger audiences.

.Listen: Cantatas

A sacred cantata by Dieterich Buxtehude: Dialogus inter Christum et fidelem animam

Baroque

Cantatas were in great demand for the services of the Lutheran church. Sacred cantatas for the liturgy or other occasions were not only composed by Bach but also by Dieterich Buxtehude, Christoph Graupner, Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel and Georg Philipp Telemann, to name a few. Many secular cantatas were composed for events in the nobility. They were so similar in form to the sacred ones that many of them were parodied (in parts or completely) to sacred cantatas, for example in Bach’s Christmas Oratorio.

A Bach Cantata –

Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben (Heart and mouth and deed and life),  BWV 147,[a] is a church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach. It was written originally in Weimar in 1716   (BWV 147a) for Advent but then  expanded in 1723 for the feast of the Visitation in Leipzig, where it was first performed on 2 July 1723. The  expanded version is the one we will hear below. Read all the notes below, following them as you listen to this work. 

bACH cANTATA 147  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herz_und_Mund_und_Tat_und_Leben,_BWV_147

The cantata is scored for four soloists and a four-part choir, a trumpet, two oboes (oboe d’amore, oboe da caccia), two violins, viola and basso continuo including bassoon. Its ten movements are in two parts, movements 1 to 6 to be performed before the sermon –  the others after the sermon.

Part I
1. 0:00 – Chorus: Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben  The opening chorus is elaborate, focused on the theme that the Christian is to be a witness of Jesus, as John the Baptist was, with all his being.
2.4:25  Recitative (tenor): Gebenedeiter Mund!  Note  the tone colors , harmonies and texture used to accompany and intisify the drams of the singing here.  The movement begins with an expanded instrumental concerto in which a trumpet fanfare is responded to by the strings. The ritornello is played with interwoven vocal parts and finally repeated as in the beginning.
3. 6:20 Aria (alto, oboe d’amore): Schäme dich, o Seele nicht   Note the change of instrumental accompanyment to the woodwinds.  Each of these sections have is own single affection. They are all individualized by their choice of instruments in the  accompanyment.
4. 9:50 Recitative (bass): Verstockung kann Gewaltige verblenden. Note the drama emphasized by the  harmony – diminished chords.
5. 12:20  Aria (soprano, violin): Bereite dir, Jesu, noch itzo die Bahn (3)
     There is an instrumental interlude after this soprano aria.
6. 15:45   Chorale: Wohl mir, daß ich Jesum habe (Familiar  chorale – Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring.  Note the instrumental interludes between the phrases. sing throughout this chorale. Also  note the movement inherent in this instrumental sections. 

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Second Part –  Optional listening – not required for this course.

If you t include the second part in your listening  – note that the the sections  are very interesting, beautiful, and individualized  each with  one affection.

Part II
7. Aria (tenor): Hilf, Jesu, hilf, daß ich auch dich bekenne (4)
8. Recitative (alto): Der höchsten Allmacht Wunderhand
9. Aria (bass, trumpet, oboes): Ich will von Jesu Wundern singen (5)
Movement 9, a bass aria, alludes again to the Baptist who in turn referred to Isaiah. The voice is accompanied by an obbligato trumpet and strings, reminiscent of the opening movement.
10. Chorale: Jesus bleibet meine Freude – The final movement is a chorale of which Franck only submitted two lines. The continuation was found in a contemporary hymnal.

When Bach expanded the cantata, he probably used the same opening movement, the first aria as movement 3, the second as movement 7, the third as movement 5, and the fourth with a new text as movement 9. The closing chorale was not used in the later work.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herz_und_Mund_und_Tat_und_Leben,_BWV_147a

The opening chorus renders the complete words in three sections, the third one a reprise of the first one and even the middle section not different in character. An instrumental ritornello is heard in the beginning and in the end as well as, slightly changed, in all three sections with the choir woven into it. In great contrast all three sections conclude with a part accompanied only by basso continuo. Sections one and three begin with a fugue with colla parte instruments. The fugue subject stresses the word Leben (life) by a melisma extended over three measures. The soprano starts the theme, the alto enters just one measure later, tenor after two more measures, bass one measure later, the fast succession resulting in a lively music as a good image of life. In section three the pattern of entrances is the same, but building from the lowest voice to the highest.

The three recitatives are scored differently, the first accompanied by chords of the strings, the second by continuo, the third as an accompagnato of two oboes da caccia which add a continuous expressive motive, interrupted only when the child’s leaping in the womb (in German: Hüpfen) is mentioned which they illustrate.

The three arias of the original cantata are scored for voice and solo instruments (3., 5.) or only continuo, whereas the last aria, speaking of the miracles of Jesus, is accompanied by the full orchestra.

The chorale movements 6 and 10, ending the two parts of the cantata, are the same music based on a melody by Johann Schop, “Werde munter, mein Gemüthe“, a melody which Bach also used in his St Matthew Passion for the the words “Bin ich gleich von dir gewichen“. This simple four-part choral part is embedded in a setting of the full orchestra dominated by a motive in pastoral triplets derived from the first line of the chorale melody.[2]

The  unifiying chorale tune : Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring

The music of the chorale movements is now best known for the piano transcription by Dame Myra Hess of Hugh P. Allen’s choral version of Bach’s arrangement, and is notable under the title Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring which approximately relates to “Jesus bleibet meine Freude“, more closely translated as “Jesus shall remain my joy”.]