cantata
a choral composition, either sacred and resembling a short oratorio or secular, as a lyric drama set to music but not to be acted.
a metrical narrative set to recitative or alternate recitative and air, usually for a single voice accompanied by one or more instruments.
Origin of cantata
1Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use cantata in a sentence
Was he scribbling his cantatas up to the day before the performance?
I would take, say, ten of the cantatas, very selectively out of the 200 or so that have survived.
John Eliot Gardiner Discusses His Monumental Bach Biography | Malcolm Jones | November 10, 2013 | THE DAILY BEASTWe performed Bach cantatas on the appointed day all through the year.
John Eliot Gardiner Discusses His Monumental Bach Biography | Malcolm Jones | November 10, 2013 | THE DAILY BEASTIt all came from the year I spent doing nothing but Bach cantatas, the year 2000.
John Eliot Gardiner Discusses His Monumental Bach Biography | Malcolm Jones | November 10, 2013 | THE DAILY BEASTHe composed organ compositions, choruses, sacred and secular songs, anthems and cantatas.
Hallowed Heritage: The Life of Virginia | Dorothy M. Torpey
Such an assertion is less likely to be made now than before the discovery of the two Imperial cantatas of 1790.
The Life of Ludwig van Beethoven, Volume I (of 3) | Alexander Wheelock ThayerHis oratorios and cantatas were numbered by the hundred, many of which were produced only on a single occasion.
ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; | Hezekiah ButterworthOnly four movements in the whole collection are not traceable to other extant works; all the rest comes from church cantatas.
Of the solo cantatas two are Italian (one of these being Bach's only developed work for voice and clavier) and two are burlesque.
British Dictionary definitions for cantata
/ (kænˈtɑːtə) /
a musical setting of a text, esp a religious text, consisting of arias, duets, and choruses interspersed with recitatives
Origin of cantata
1Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Cultural definitions for cantata
[ (kuhn-tah-tuh) ]
A musical composition for voice and instruments and including choruses, solos, and recitatives.
The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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