Chorale cantata

In music, a chorale cantata 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.

Description

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. Later the chorale cantata developed into three general forms:

Chorale cantata (Bach)

Chorale cantatas by Johann Sebastian Bach are church cantatas in which both text and music are based on one Lutheran hymn. In his second annual cycle in Leipzig, beginning with the first Sunday after Trinity of 1724, he planned to compose a chorale cantata for each occasion of the liturgical year. He composed new works until Palm Sunday of 1725 (less than a full year later), and in later years added several works for the occasions he had omitted. This cycle, also termed the "chorale cantata year", has been named "the largest musical project that the composer ever undertook".

History

Hymns in Lutheranism

The reformer Martin Luther advocated the use of vernacular hymns during services. He wrote several himself, also worked on their tunes, and helped publish four of them in the First Lutheran hymnal, the Achtliederbuch. Leipzig also had a strong tradition of sacred hymns. In 1690, the minister of the Thomaskirche, Johann Benedikt Carpzov, had announced that he would preach not only on the Gospel but also on a related song, "good, beautiful, old, evangelical and Lutheran song", and that Johann Schelle, then the director of music, would play the song before the sermon.