Die Vorstellungskraft spazieren führen

It "takes the imagination for a walk" with diverse modes of expression, writes Sébastien de Brossard about the concertante genre cantata.
Around 1700, the French cantata in particular appeared as a special poetic and musical phenomenon, albeit one of short duration. The cantata, originally from Italy, now combined Italian instrumental and French vocal music: a versatile new genre had been invented. This raises questions about cultural transfers and stylistic mixtures (goût réuni), which have already been answered in different ways both in the context of contemporary, ideologically charged discussions and in research. In this context, the genre has often been thematized with reference to opera rather than as an independent work. The latest assumption, on the other hand, understands the cantata as a variable musical-literary "structural type" with a catalytic function. The author picks up there, approaches the French cantatas, their genre-specific, stylistic and topically opera-influenced manifestations through analyses, considers them for the first time as works of their own right with their own dramaturgy, and works out ideologies, social networks, milieus, genre boundaries as well as overlaps and