cantata
Americannoun
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cantatas
plural
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a choral composition, either sacred and resembling a short oratorio or secular, as a lyric drama set to music but not to be acted.
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a metrical narrative set to recitative or alternate recitative and air, usually for a single voice accompanied by one or more instruments.
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of cantata
1715–25; < Italian, equivalent to cant ( are ) to sing ( see cant 1) + -ata -ate 1
Explanation
If you ever listen to classical music, you’ve probably heard a cantata — a piece of religious music made for voices and instruments. Johann Sebastian Bach was a famous composer of cantatas. He wrote hundreds, and you’ve probably heard them played at weddings, in a church, at a party thrown by a king (or in car commercials). The word comes from the Italian cantare, which means “sing,” and the singers are the focus of a cantata — whether it’s one person or a whole choir. Cantatas are often based on religious writing, but can be inspired by poetry and literature as well.
Vocabulary lists containing cantata
Ordinary Hazards
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Blended
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Abel's Island
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Without a break, Dudamel began Estévez’s complex cantata, which he conducted from memory, with a searing fury that did not let up for 35 minutes.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 9, 2026
In the original, from 1934, Hitchcock united a cantata by one of his favorite composers, Arthur Benjamin, with the climax of a kidnap-assassination plot in a dramatic blending of action and music.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 24, 2026
The confluence of Day’s songs, Herrmann’s score and Benjamin’s cantata demolished the cliché of cinema music needing to stay in the background.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 24, 2026
In 2004, a Bach cantata that had been lost for decades was rediscovered in the papers of Japanese pianist Chieko Hara.
From Barron's ● Nov. 17, 2025
In 1943, she and the school’s music teacher, Altona Johns, put students through their paces in preparation for the year’s Christmas cantata, “The Light Still Shines.”
From "Hidden Figures" by Margot Lee Shetterly
Bach’s cantatas were limited by the forces available to him in a given week.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 24, 2026
And familiar pieces that we know in arrangements as “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring,” “My Heart Ever Faithful” and “Sheep May Safely Graze” began as movements in cantatas.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 24, 2026
The baritone Roderick Williams joined them for cantatas by Bach and Telemann.
From New York Times ● Feb. 13, 2023
In the 1940s Foss had already done two cantatas for voice and orchestra, “Song of Anguish” and “Song of Songs,” that were also on biblical texts.
From New York Times ● Oct. 2, 2022
Whether I play the blues or boogies, concertos or cantatas, I forget about me.
From "Blended" by Sharon M. Draper
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
