Music. [It.; = ‘a thing sung, a song, a composition to be set to music,’ f. cantare to sing; for the It. ending -ata see -ADE.]
1. Originally, a narrative in verse set to recitative, or alternate recitative and air, for a single voice, accompanied by one or more instruments; now applied to a choral work, either sacred and resembling an oratorio but shorter, or secular, as a lyric drama set to music but not intended to be acted. (See Grove, Dict. Mus., I. 304/2.)
1734. H. Carey (title), Cantatas for a voice, with Accompaniment.
1744. J. Green, Psalmody, 140. Cantata, a Song in an Opera Stile.
1751. Smollett, Per. Pic. (1779), I. ii. 22. Pipes performed the whole cantata.
1775. Mrs. Harris, in Priv. Lett. 1st Ld. Malmesbury, I. 296. A very fine new cantata composed by Ranzini.
1861. N. A. Woods, Pr. Wales in Canada, 140. The Montreal Oratorio Society performed … a grand Cantata specially composed.
† 2. A song, chant. (nonce-use.)
a. 1754. Fielding, True Patr., Wks. 1775, IX. 311. The … swan, whose last breath goes out in a cantata.
Hence Cantatize v. nonce-wd. To perform cantatas.
1842. Blackw. Mag., LI. 24. The flexile trills of a cantatizing Signora.
