Editing Cantata (section)

==Twentieth century and beyond==
{{Cleanup|date=April 2018|reason=Recentism and WP:INDISCRIMINATE. See comment in wiki text for more information}}<!--This section is just a listing of pieces called (by the composer or somebody else) "cantatas". It is hard to read and seems borderline [[WP:INDISCRIMINATE]]. Either this is better summarized and a general conclusion about cantata writing in modern times can be found in some sources, or this goes in an appropriate list-article. It is also ridiculous that all these composers, most barely known, are listed, while Bach, whose cantatas are well known, is barely given a passing mention (i.e. this smells strongly of recentism). So this is an issue of [[WP:UNDUE]] too.-->
Cantatas, both of the chamber variety and on a grand scale, were composed after 1900 as well.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Hunter|first1=Sophie|title=Cantata in a Castle|url=http://sophiehunter.net/post/124990689820/written-by-sophie-hunter-the-guardian-25-july|website=The Guardian}}</ref> Indeed, it would not be an exaggeration to claim that one of the most popular pieces of classical music of the 20th century to the layman's ears, is a cantata, namely ''[[Carmina Burana (Orff)|Carmina Burana]]'' (1935–1936) by the German composer [[Carl Orff]].

In the early part of the century, secular cantatas once again became prominent, while the 19th-century tradition of sacred cantatas also continued. [[Ralph Vaughan Williams]] composed both kinds: "festival" cantatas such as ''Toward the Unknown Region'' (1907), ''Five Mystical Songs'' (1911), and ''[[Five Tudor Portraits]]'' (1936), and sacred cantatas including ''Sancta civitas'' (1926), ''Benedicite'' (1930), ''[[Dona nobis pacem (Vaughan Williams)|Dona nobis pacem]]'' (1936), and ''Hodie'' (1954). [[Joseph Ryelandt]] also composed secular and sacred cantatas, such as ''Le chant de la pauvreté'' Op.&nbsp;92 in 1928 and ''Veni creator'' Op.&nbsp;123 in 1938. [[Béla Bartók]] composed the secular ''[[Cantata Profana]]'', subtitled "The Nine Splendid Stags" and based on a Romanian folk tale, in 1930. Although it began as a song cycle (as reflected also by its title), [[Arnold Schoenberg]]'s ''[[Gurre-Lieder]]'' (1900–1903/1910–11) evolved into one of the century's largest secular cantatas. [[Paul Hindemith]] composed three works he designated as cantatas: ''Die Serenaden'', Op.&nbsp;35, for soprano, oboe, viola, and cello (1924), ''Mahnung an die Jugend, sich der Musik zu befleissigen'' (from the ''Plöner Musiktage'', 1932), and ''Ite angeli veloces'' for alto and tenor, mixed chorus, and orchestra, with audience participation (1953–55). Of [[Anton Webern]]'s last three compositions, two are secular cantatas: Cantata No. 1, Op.&nbsp;29 (1938–39), and Cantata No. 2, Op.&nbsp;31 (1941–43), both setting texts by [[Hildegard Jone]]. Webern had begun sketching a Third Cantata by the time he was killed in 1945. [[Ernst Krenek]] also composed two examples: a "scenic cantata", ''Die Zwingburg'', Op.&nbsp;14 (1922), and a ''Cantata for Wartime'', Op.&nbsp;95, for women's voices and orchestra (1943). [[Sergei Prokofiev]] composed ''Semero ikh'' (1917–18; rev. 1933), and in 1939 premiered a cantata drawn from the film music for ''[[Alexander Nevsky (Prokofiev)|Alexander Nevsky]]''.{{Citation needed|date=August 2011}} He wrote two festival cantatas, the ''[[Cantata for the 20th Anniversary of the October Revolution (Prokofiev)|Cantata for the Twentieth Anniversary of the October Revolution]]'', Op.&nbsp;74, and ''Flourish, Mighty Homeland'', Op.&nbsp;114, for the thirtieth anniversary of the same event

Patriotic cantatas celebrating anniversaries of events in the [[Russian Revolution|Revolution]] or extolling state leaders were frequently commissioned in the Soviet Union between 1930 and the middle of the century, though these occasional works were seldom among their composers' best. Examples include [[Dmitri Shostakovich]]'s ''Poem of the Motherland'', Op.&nbsp;47 (1947) and ''The Sun Shines over Our Motherland'', Op.&nbsp;90 (1952), and three works by Prokofiev, ''Zdravitsa!'' [Hail to Stalin] (1939). [[Dmitry Kabalevsky]] also composed four such cantatas, ''The Great Homeland'', Op.&nbsp;35 (1941–42), ''The Song of Morning, Spring and Peace'', Op.&nbsp;57 (1957–58), ''Leninists'', Op.&nbsp;63 (1959), and ''About Our Native Land'', Op.&nbsp;82 (1965).

Patriotic cantatas were also created in China during the [[Chinese Civil War|civil war]] and the [[Second Sino-Japanese War]]. For example, the [[Yellow River Cantata]] was composed in 1939.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2015-09-28 |title=The Story of the Cantata that Led to the Famous Yellow River Piano Concerto |url=https://www.wrti.org/arts-desk/2015-09-28/the-story-of-the-cantata-that-led-to-the-famous-yellow-river-piano-concerto |access-date=2025-05-09 |website=WRTI |language=en}}</ref>

In 1940, the Brazilian composer [[Heitor Villa-Lobos]] created a secular cantata titled ''Mandu çarará'', based on an Indian legend collected by Barbosa Rodrigues. [[Francis Poulenc]] composed in 1943 ''[[Figure humaine]]'', [[FP (Poulenc)|FP]] 120, a cantata for double mixed [[choir]] of 12 voices on poems by [[Paul Éluard]]. [[Igor Stravinsky]] composed a work titled simply ''[[Cantata (Stravinsky)|Cantata]]'' in 1951–52, which used stanzas from the 15th-century "Lyke-wake Dirge" as a narrative frame for other anonymous English lyrics, and later designated ''[[A Sermon, a Narrative and a Prayer]]'' (1961) as "a cantata for alto and tenor soli, speaker, chorus, and orchestra". [[Luigi Nono (composer)|Luigi Nono]] wrote ''[[Il canto sospeso]]'' in 1955–56. [[Hans Werner Henze]] composed a ''Cantata della fiaba estrema'' and ''Novae de infinito laudes'' (both in 1963), as well as a number of other works that might be regarded as cantatas, such as ''Kammermusik'' (1958, rev. 1963), ''Muzen Siziliens'' (1966), and ''[[El Cimarrón (musical work)|El Cimarrón]]'' (1969–70). ''[[Momente]]'' (1962–64/1969), one of the most important works of [[Karlheinz Stockhausen]], is often described as a cantata. [[Benjamin Britten]] composed at least six works he designated as cantatas: ''[[The Company of Heaven]]'' (1937), ''[[Rejoice in the Lamb]]'', Op.&nbsp;30 (1943), ''[[Saint Nicolas (Britten)|Saint Nicolas]]'', Op.&nbsp;42 (1949), the ''[[Cantata academica]]'', Op.&nbsp;62 (1959), the ''Cantata Misericordium'', Op.&nbsp;69 (1963), and ''[[Phaedra (cantata)|Phaedra]]'', Op.&nbsp;93 (1975). [[Alberto Ginastera]] also composed three works in this form: the ''Cantata para América Mágica'', Op.&nbsp;27 (1960), ''Bomarzo'', Op.&nbsp;32 (1964), and ''Milena'', Op.&nbsp;37 (1971), and [[Gottfried von Einem]] composed in 1973 ''An die Nachgeborenen'' based on diverse texts, the title taken from a poem of [[Bertolt Brecht]]. [[Mikis Theodorakis]] composed the cantatas ''According to the Sadducees'' and ''Canto Olympico''. [[Herbert Blendinger]]'s ''Media in vita'' was premiered in 1980, his ''Mich ruft zuweilen eine Stille'' (Sometimes a silence calls me) in (1992), and ''Allein den Betern kann es noch gelingen'' (It can only be achieved by those who pray) in 1995. [[Iván Erőd]] wrote in 1988/89) ''Vox Lucis'' (Voice of the Light), Op.&nbsp;56. [[Ivan Moody (composer)|Ivan Moody]] wrote in 1995 ''Revelation''.

Cantatas were also composed by [[Mark Alburger]], [[Erik Bergman]], [[Dave Brubeck]], [[Carlos Chávez]], [[Osvald Chlubna]], [[Peter Maxwell Davies]], [[Norman Dello Joio]], [[Lukas Foss]], [[Roy Harris]], [[Arthur Honegger]], [[Alan Hovhaness]], [[Dmitry Kabalevsky]], [[Libby Larsen]], [[Jón Leifs]], [[Peter Mennin]], [[Dimitri Nicolau]], [[Krzysztof Penderecki]], [[Allan Pettersson]], [[Daniel Pinkham]], [[Earl Robinson]], [[Ned Rorem]], [[William Schuman]] (''[[A Free Song]]''), [[Roger Sessions]], [[Siegfried Strohbach]], [[Michael Tippett]], [[Kurt Weill]], [[Jörg Widmann]] (''[[Friedenskantate (Widmann)|Friedenskantate]]'', ''Cantata in tempore belli'') and {{ill|Jan Ryant Dřízal|cs}} (''Christmas Cantata'').