Campra, Mouret, Batistin, Clerambault, and Rousseau
excelled in it. M. Ginguene, in the "Encyclopaedia Methodique," says of
these composers and their works:--

"They have left collections in which may be discovered among all the
faults of the age, when Italian music was unknown in France, much art
and knowledge of harmony, happy traits of melody, well-worked basses,
and above all recitatives in which the accent of declamation and the
character of the language are strictly observed."

In Germany, however, the cantata at this time was approximating to its
present form. Koch, a celebrated musical scholar of the early part of the
present century, says:--

"The cantata is a lyrical poem set to music in different, alternating
compositions, and sung with the accompaniment of instrumental music.
The various melodies of which the whole is composed are the aria, with
its subordinate species, the recitative or accompaniment, and the
arioso, frequently also intermixed with choruses."

Heydenreich, another writer of the same period, says:--

"The cantata is always lyrical. Its distinctive character lies in the
aptitude of the passions and feelings which it contains to be rendered
by music. The cantata ought to be a harmonious whole of ideas
poetically expressed, concurring to paint a main passion or feeling,
susceptible of various kinds and degrees of musical expression. It
sometimes may have the character of the hymn or ode, sometimes that of
the elegy, or of a mixture of these, in which, however, one particular
emotion must predominate."

The church cantata, according to Du Cange, dates back to 1314; but
subsequent writers have shown that the term prior to the seventeenth
century was used indiscriminately and without reference to any
well-defined style of vocal music, and that as applied to church
compositions it meant the anthem such as we now have, although not as
elaborate. The noblest examples of the sacred cantata are those by
Sebastian Bach, three hundred and eighty in all, over a hundred of which
have been published under the auspices of the Bach-Gesellschaft. They are
written in from four to seven movements for four voices and full
orchestra, usually opening with chorus and closing with a chorale, the
intermediate movements being in the form of recitatives, arias, and
duets. The text of these cantatas is either a literal transcription of
the Gospel or of portions of it. In the lat