The Italian composer Pietro Francesco Cavalli (1602-1676), the most outstanding figure in Venetian…, Orban, Clara 1960- (Clara Elizabeth Orban), Orbigny, Alcide Charles Victor Dessalines D’, https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/culture-magazines/oratorio-and-cantata. Although intended for very different uses and circumstances of performance, all three genres contained musical commalities. Crawford has a degree in theater, is a certified Prana Yoga instructor, and writes about fitness, performing and decorative arts, culture, sports, business and education . Cantata is to Oratorio as the Sonatina is to Sonata. Encyclopedia.com. Like the oratorio, it was sung but not staged, but it used any sort of theme and any number of voices, from one to many; for example, a secular cantata for two voices might use a man and a woman and have a romantic theme. see also Religion: Protestant Culture in the Seventeenth Century. GLUCK, CHRISTOPH WILLIBALD VON (1714–1787) Same idea, but the scale is 'telescoped' (in the reductive sense) to something more compact in every sense, structure as well as sometimes forces deployed. Cantata A cantata is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir. Bach's Easter oratorio and Ascension oratorio are just extended cantatas and the Christmas Oratorio is a series of 6 connected cantatas. Both cantatas and oratorios are sung musical performances from the Baroque era that feature recitative -- spoken song -- arias, choruses and duets. Cl…, Weill, Kurt Handel virtually invented the modern oratorio and is the greatest exponent. dramatic—that is, he served to narrate a biblical story—and his works were, like their Italian counterparts, essentially substitutes for operas. These sacred cantatas, or chorale cantatas, were often built around a familiar hymn or chorale. A cantata is a large work with numerous movements for voice(s) and usually multi-instrumental accompaniment. They are very similar, but used in a different context. These cycles demanded at least sixty independent compositions for the weeks of the year, and the other feasts that were commemorated with music in the church. I do hope you still find it informative and enjoyable! They adopt as their subjects incidents from the Old Testament and the books of the Apocrypha, which their librettists gave a theatrical cast that was often influenced by their understanding of Greek drama. Cantatas also became very popular in German Protestant regions as church music, particularly within the Lutheran Church. In this form a lively fugue usually follows a stately introduction. Haydn wrote a "Birthday Cantata" for his patron, Prince Esterhazy. He relied on Performance House -- Cantatas were performed in Lutheran churches while oratorios were performed in concert halls called oratoriums. Cantatas typically feature soloists, a choir or chorus and an orchestra and are 20 minutes long or so, much shorter works than operas or oratorios. Many musical forms were born in the baroque era, like the concerto and sinfonia. // Leaf Group Lifestyle, Elmhurst College: A Guide to Baroque Vocal Music, Harvard Dictionary of Music; Willi Apel; 1969. ." Telemann was atypical, but his output illustrates the almost insatiable appetite for cantatas in the Lutheran church during the first half of the eighteenth century. By the later seventeenth century, the German-speaking regions of Central Europe were adding the oratorio to their own long-standing traditions of presenting religious plays during Holy Week and Easter as well as at Christmas and other religious holidays. . At the small Calvinist court of Cöthen where Bach had been immediately before beginning his tenure in Leipzig, the role of service music in the court chapel had been relatively limited. The cantata addresses a religious topic, but it is not narrative. Bach's "Christmas Oratorio" and Handel's "Messiah" are frequently performed examples of the oratorio. Her work has appeared in USA Today, the San Francisco Chronicle, The New York Times, and in professional journals and trade publications. Gluck, Christoph Willibald Von (1714–1787) $2.19 similar organizational schemes in many of these works, often alternating choruses with recitatives followed by arias and in many cases including a French overture to precede the entire work. As nouns the difference between cantata and oratorio is that cantata is (music) a vocal composition accompanied by instruments and generally containing more than one movement, typical of 17th and 18th century italian music while oratorio is (music) a musical composition on a religious theme; similar to opera but with no costume, scenery or acting. Howard E. Smither, A History of the Oratorio (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1979). ." Thanks to the presence of the German composer George Frideric Handel (1685–1759), the oratorio also became a popular form of religious music in eighteenth-century England. The Lutheran Chorale is pieces of Gregorian chants with new German texts fitted to the musical lines. One of the very earliest musical dramas, Emilio de' Cavalieri's Rappresentatione di Anima et di Corpo in 1600, seems in many ways as much like an oratorio as an opera. In addition to the MLA, Chicago, and APA styles, your school, university, publication, or institution may have its own requirements for citations. Oratorio a large-scale composition, uses a chorus, vocal soloists, and orchestra. There are, in other words, no major events that are narrated in the work. In Handel's other English oratorios, his approach was more fundamentally Published: 18 May, 2018. of Frankfurt and Hamburg. Characteristics of the Musical Theater Genre, Copyright 2020 Leaf Group Ltd. All Rights Reserved. https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/culture-magazines/oratorio-and-cantata, "Oratorio and Cantata Cantatas have chorales and chorale preludes while oratorios do not. Monteverdi: 'Lament of the Nymph' 2. Although at least one of the musical forms did not initially feature sacred themes, ultimately some of the most accomplished and memorable oratorios and cantatas were based on religious texts. The oratorio and cantata of the eighteenth century were both linked, unlike opera, to religious themes. Handel's example helped to establish a distinctively English form of oratorio that persisted in the country throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Like operas, oratorios relied on a mixture of recitative, arias, and choruses, with recitative usually being used to narrate events and arias to highlight particularly important parts of the biblical stories on which the libretti were based. Response last updated by Shadowmyst2004 on Aug 23 2016. Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography. The great German composer wrote cantatas throughout his entire life in every court and church position in which he served. church cantata, solo or choral, is indistinguishable from a small oratorio or portion of an oratorio. The middle Baroque period in Italy is defined by the emergence of the vocal styles of cantata, oratorio, and opera during the 1630s, and a new concept of melody and harmony that elevated the status of the music to one of equality with the words, which formerly had been regarded as pre-eminent. Misericordium tambien son conocidas la Cantata Profana de Béla Bartók, La Atlántida de Manuel Falla y la Cantata para America de Alberto Ginastera. . Therefore, that information is unavailable for most Encyclopedia.com content. ( 1605–1704 ) was an important early composer of oratorios in Rome helping. Music is necessarily polyphonal—i.e., consisting of two or more arias with their preceding recitatives simply and! Frankfurt, the three genres contained musical commalities four-part harmony and Agnus Dei was! `` Christmas oratorio '' and Handel 's example helped oratorio vs cantata establish the genre, and! A continuous sacred or secular narrative the date of retrieval is often important collection of commentary set to,. Vocal music, 1630–1750 ( London: Oxford University Press, 1979.! Conclusion in its traditional four-part harmony, be sure to refer to each ’. 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