Carissimi was, moreover, the first to perfect a form of music known as thecantata, consisting of recitative and arias for solo voice with figured bass accompaniment, a sort of vocal chamber music which was also suitable for use in the church. The form was further developed by Alessandro Scarlatti, and later by Handel.
In Germany the growths of both the oratorio and the cantata were greatly influenced by the more serious religious temper of the people and by the intimate personal religious sentiment which was the outcome of the Reformation. Naturally, the church music of the German composers was affected by the Italian schools, notably that of Venice, and by the general movement toward solo and concert style and the opera. But the chorales which, we have already seen, led to a form of organ music distinctively German colored all German Protestant religious music with a spirit that was completely wanting in Italian music of the same age. The chorale was incorporated into oratorios and into cantatas. The congregation was given a voice, shared in the musical expression of most profound and yet most intimate devotional feeling. By far the greatest of German composers of this time was Heinrich Schütz (1585-1672), whoseDafnehas already been mentioned. Most of his works were sacred. In the oratorio style belong the ‘Resurrection’ (1623), the ‘Seven Words’ (1645) and four settings of the story of the Passion, settings of the Psalms (1619) and theSymphoniæ sacræ(1629-1650). All these works, though full of dramatic feeling, are intensely religious, and foreshadow the great cantatas and the Passion of Johann Sebastian Bach, both in their richness of harmony and in their genuineness of feeling.
L. H.