CANTATA. — The cantata in general has its origins in the 17th century. Accompanied monody, which succeeded 16th-century polyphony, gave rise to the cantata, which seems to combine the two previous forms in its indiscriminate use of chorus and recitative. A distinction is made between church cantatas and chamber cantatas. The former developed mainly in Germany, reaching formal perfection in the art of BACH. The latter found a fertile ground in Italy, where it manifested itself in four distinct schools: Florence, Venice, Rome, and Naples.
The church cantata opens with a multi-voiced chorus, followed by a series of arias and duets, concluding with another final chorus. BACH left a rich series of cantatas; over two hundred are counted. Most are for Protestant religious services. The chamber cantata, as the term itself indicates, was performed in the apartments of noble houses, with few singers, few instruments, and no choral parts. The subject matter was never religious. It may be said that the chamber cantata, by cultivating and developing solo singing in every way, paved the way for theatrical music.
In Rome, as in Venice, Florentine monody assumed independent forms, though still uncertain. Luigi Rossi and Giacomo Carissimi gave it stable form in Rome, the former for the chamber cantata and the latter for the church cantata. Even in Bologna, the cantata had illustrious exponents such as Cazzati, Bononcini, and Perti. In Naples, thanks to the genius of Alessandro Scarlatti, the chamber cantata reached the highest degree of artistic interest, both for its increasingly dramatic subjects and for its increasingly rich instrumentation, as well as for the rich melodic vein peculiar to that region. The form of the cantata came to an end in Naples around 1700. From the cantata two currents emerged: pure instrumental music and theatrical music.