Johann Sebastian Bach Cantata
1. A cantata is a result of the Reformation movement and its creation is accredited to the Lutheran Church. The cantata is the result of many composers and poets of the time elaborating and modifying the Lutheran chorales, congregational hymns that were specific to every Sunday service of the Lutheran church, by incorporating their own lines of poetry or ornamenting the melody in order to express and elaborate the message from the original hymn. A very well known adopter of the cantata was Johann Sebastian Bach; a Lutheran himself, his cantatas consisted of five to eight movements, some consisting of solo or duet arias and some consisting of fully ensemble choruses.
2. The collegium musicum was a collection of university students from the …show more content…
Ritornellos are defined as instrumental refrains, instrumental recurring passages; they serve the purpose of providing a sense of unity through the recurring passages they elicit. What makes them peculiar is every instance the ritornello is referenced, it is at a different key, which helps in adding another level of depth to the form of a piece. Ritornellos became very important for Baroque music mostly because two of the Baroque Era’s most important composers, Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel, were quite fond of it and included them in many of their pieces. Two very famous pieces from these composers that used these ritornellos were Bach’s Cantata No. 140 Wachet auf and Handel’s Messiah; in both instances, ritornellos were used as a means to augment the form of the pieces, mainly by separating each of the parts (e.g. A-A-B) that made up the form. For example in Bach’s Cantata, the piece opens with a ritornello, and then goes on to refer back to it at 1:32, of course at a different key, this happens again at 3:04 and 5:32 and every time at a different key. Similarly, in Handel’s Messiah there is also a ritornello in the opening and again is referenced at various points of the piece, but what makes this one interesting is that the voice and ritornello alternate very quickly form each other, clearly augmenting this sense of unity that ritornellos seem to
2. The collegium musicum was a collection of university students from the …show more content…
Ritornellos are defined as instrumental refrains, instrumental recurring passages; they serve the purpose of providing a sense of unity through the recurring passages they elicit. What makes them peculiar is every instance the ritornello is referenced, it is at a different key, which helps in adding another level of depth to the form of a piece. Ritornellos became very important for Baroque music mostly because two of the Baroque Era’s most important composers, Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel, were quite fond of it and included them in many of their pieces. Two very famous pieces from these composers that used these ritornellos were Bach’s Cantata No. 140 Wachet auf and Handel’s Messiah; in both instances, ritornellos were used as a means to augment the form of the pieces, mainly by separating each of the parts (e.g. A-A-B) that made up the form. For example in Bach’s Cantata, the piece opens with a ritornello, and then goes on to refer back to it at 1:32, of course at a different key, this happens again at 3:04 and 5:32 and every time at a different key. Similarly, in Handel’s Messiah there is also a ritornello in the opening and again is referenced at various points of the piece, but what makes this one interesting is that the voice and ritornello alternate very quickly form each other, clearly augmenting this sense of unity that ritornellos seem to