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How to Listen to and Understand Great Music
Season 1 · Episode 14
The Lutheran Church Cantata
0.045mOctober 23, 2023
Unlike oratorio, the Lutheran church cantata was part of a regular religious service (specifically, the Sunday service). It evolved as a musical commentary on a given week’s particular Bible reading, becoming known as the musical “sermon before the sermon.” This lecture examines the evolution of the Lutheran church cantata and its use of operatic elements. It concludes with a discussion of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Cantata no. 140, Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme.
Episodes
- Episode 1How to Listen to and Understand Great Music
- Episode 2Sources—The Ancient World and the Early Church
- Episode 3The Middle Ages
- Episode 4Introduction to the Renaissance
- Episode 5The Renaissance Mass
- Episode 6The Madrigal
- Episode 7Introduction to the Baroque
- Episode 8Style Features of Baroque-era Music
- Episode 9National Styles—Italy and Germany
- Episode 10Fugue
- Episode 11Baroque Opera, Part 1
- Episode 12Baroque Opera, Part 2
- Episode 13The Oratorio
- Episode 14The Lutheran Church Cantata
- Episode 15Passacaglia
- Episode 16Ritornello Form and the Baroque Concerto
- Episode 17The Enlightenment and an Introduction to the Classical Era
- Episode 18The Viennese Classical Style, Homophony, and Cadence
- Episode 19Classical-era Form—Theme and Variations
- Episode 20Classical-era Form—Minuet and Trio: Baroque Antecedents
- Episode 21Classical-era Form—Minuet and Trio Form
- Episode 22Classical-era Form—Rondo Form
- Episode 23Classical-era Form—Sonata Form, Part 1
- Episode 24Classical-era Form—Sonata Form, Part 2
- Episode 25Classical-era Form—Sonata Form, Part 3
- Episode 26The Symphony—Music for Every Person
- Episode 27The Solo Concerto
- Episode 28Classical-era Opera—The Rise of Opera Buffa
- Episode 29Classical-era Opera, Part 2—Mozart and the Operatic Ensemble
- Episode 30The French Revolution and an Introduction to Beethoven
- Episode 31Beethoven’s Symphony no. 5 in C Minor, op. 67, Part 1
- Episode 32Beethoven’s Symphony no. 5 in C Minor, op. 67, Part 2
- Episode 33Introduction to Romanticism
- Episode 34Formal Challenges and Solutions in Early Romantic Music
- Episode 35The Program Symphony—Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique, Part 1
- Episode 36The Program Symphony—Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique, Part 2
- Episode 3719th-Century Italian Opera—Bel Canto Opera
- Episode 3819th-Century Italian Opera—Giuseppe Verdi
- Episode 3919th-Century German Opera—Nationalism and Experimentation
- Episode 4019th-Century German Opera—Richard Wagner
- Episode 41The Concert Overture, Part 1
- Episode 42The Concert Overture, Part 2
- Episode 43Romantic-era Musical Nationalism
- Episode 44Russian Nationalism
- Episode 45An Introduction to Early 20th-Century Modernism
- Episode 46Early 20th-Century Modernism—Claude Debussy
- Episode 47Early 20th-Century Modernism—Igor Stravinsky
- Episode 48Early 20th-Century Modernism—Arnold Schönberg