pulpit denunciation. This cantata is sometimes called the First Passion
Oratorio, the second having been written at Hamburg in 1716.[6] In 1707
Handel was in Florence, where he wrote several cantatas, and thence went
to Rome, where he produced some church music in the same form, notably
the "Dixit Dominus," for five voices and orchestra; "Nisi Dominus," also
for five voices; and "Laudate pueri," for solos and full orchestral
accompaniment. The famous anthems written for the private chapel of James
Brydges, Duke of Chandos, familiarly known as the Chandos Anthems, are in
reality cantatas, as each one is preceded by an overture and in its
structural form comprises solos, choruses, and instrumentation for full
band and choir. It is also noteworthy that it was during Handel's
residence at the Duke's palace at Cannons that he wrote his first English
oratorio, the legitimate successor of the Chandos Anthems, and the
precursor of the great works destined to immortalize his name.

The cantatas left by Haydn are mainly secular in character; but it may
well be imagined that during the days of his early married life, when his
fanatical and termagant spouse was forcing him to write so much music for
the priests and monks whom she entertained so sumptuously below-stairs
while he was laboring above, more than one cantata must have come from
his pen, which would have been preserved had he not reluctantly parted
company with them to pacify his wife.

The term "cantata," as it is now used, is very elastic, and covers a
range of compositions which are too large to be considered as dramatic
arias or ballads,--though ballads are sometimes written for various
voices and orchestra,--and too small to be called operas or oratorios. It
can best be defined, perhaps, as a lyric narrative, sacred, didactic, or
dramatic in character, set to music for the concert stage only, being
without _dramatis personae_ in the theatrical acceptation of those words.
Its general form is that of the oratorio, being for solo voices, usually
the quartet, full chorus, and orchestra, though its shortness as compared
with the oratorio adapts it to performance by a small chorus, and
sometimes with only piano accompaniment. Among the most perfect forms of
the modern cantatas are such works as Mendelssohn's "Walpurgis Night,"
Sterndale Bennett's "May Queen," Max Bruch's "Odysseus" and "Frithjof's
Saga," Cowen's "Sleeping Beauty," Gade's "Comala," Hiller's "Song of
Victory