Why are Bach cantatas important?
Devotional poetry, biblical quotations and verses from Lutheran hymns, all strong on emotion and vivid expressions of mankind’s suffering, were used by Bach as cantata texts. The published sources of words provided scope for choruses, solo songs, dramatic recitatives and congregational hymns.
What are the characteristics of a typical Bach cantata?
Bach’s cantatas usually require four soloists and a four-part choir, but he also wrote solo cantatas (i.e. for one soloist singer) and dialogue cantatas for two singers. The words of Bach’s cantatas, almost always entirely in German, consist mostly of 18th-century poetry, Lutheran hymns and dicta.
What is the Bach cantata for today?
1st Sunday after Ascension Day or Exaudi.
What do sacred cantatas usually conclude with?
The musical numbers include arias (sung by one or a few soloists), connected by recita- tives and ariosos (commentaries more akin to speaking). Bach’s church cantatas usually end with a chorale, a simple tune very familiar to the congregation since childhood, but harmonized by Bach with unequaled skill and variety.
How many movements do Bach’s cantatas usually have?
Bach wrote over 200 cantatas. Bach’s church cantatas are single-movement works. on most Sundays of the church year.
How long is a Bach cantata?
about 20 minutes
A cantata is a vocal work lasting about 20 minutes that comprises several smaller pieces with solo voice, chorus and instrumental accompaniment — or sometimes all of these at once.
Which is the best definition for a cantata by Bach?
: a composition for one or more voices usually comprising solos, duets, recitatives, and choruses and sung to an instrumental accompaniment.
How many movements does a cantata have?
It is preceded by three symphonic movements, a device avowedly suggested by Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony; but the analogy is not accurate, as Beethoven’s work is a symphony of which the fourth movement is a choral finale of essentially single design, whereas Mendelssohn’s Symphony Cantata is a cantata with three …
Does cantata tell a story?
Although some are entirely original music, many modern Christmas cantatas incorporate traditional carols and tell the story of the birth of Jesus Christ.
Should I buy Bach’s secular cantatas?
With the Secular Cantatas included, along with exhaustive scholarly notes, texts and translations downloadable (and printable) from the CD-Rom included, this is a bargain that no collector can or should resist at the current asking price. Even if you own other other Bach Cantata recordings in abundance, don’t pass this up.
Who recorded all of Bach’s cantatas?
Helmuth Rilling (b. 1933) recorded all of Johann Sebastian Bach’s (1685-1750) sacred Cantatas between 1970 and 1985, with the Bach Collegium Stuttgart and in some cases, Württemburg Chamber Orchestra on 70 CDs as presented here.
What do you like most about Bach’s Bach Ensemble?
It has a great many strengths, never tires and is revealing in many ways of the world in which Bach worked, and lived.
Was Rilling’s Bach a ground-breaking enterprise?
Indeed, for its time, Rilling’s was something of a ground-breaking enterprise. He refused to be swept into modes in which he did not believe either by one-to-a-part advocates, or by those seeking to throw caution over and make a Bach with more than a nod in the direction of his latter day “arrangers”.