Cantata Singers (New York, N.Y.)

The Cantata Singers was an amateur choir born out of professional scholarship and a desire to recreate authentic performances of the music of Bach and his predecessors with an emphasis on chamber chorus, chamber orchestra, and the acoustics of a stone-walled church.

Cantata Singers was founded in 1934 as Cantata Society of New York by Paul Boepple (1896-1970) as an adjunct of the Dalcroze School, of which Boepple was then director, and changed to Cantata Singers in 1936. The Cantata Singers was one of the first groups in the United States to attempt authentic performances of Baroque music and set a standard for basing performances on expert direction supported by methodical research. The story of the Cantata Singers is in large part the story of those scholars who directed the ensemble over time, such as: Paul Boepple, Arthur Mendel (1905-1979), Alfred Mann (1917-2006), Robert Hickok and Kenneth Cooper (1941- ). Kenneth Cooper was to be the last of the Cantata Singers' conductors taking over for the 1969-1970 season. The Cantata Singers were incorporated in Dec. 1941, with their stated purpose "to stimulate public interest in the performance of choral music, particularly that of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, in the style of its period; and to offer the public an opportunity to hear this music and its membership the opportunity to sing it and thereby to contribute to the education of the musical public." Over time the Cantata Singers' repertoire was expanded to include works from the Baroque all the way up to and including music of the 20th century. During 1969-1970 the organization faced the ongoing challenge of meeting expenses and now had difficulty attracting and retaining members, especially with filling the sections of men's voices. The organization to all intents and purposes ceased to exist after June 1970. Its only activity during the fiscal year ended June 30, 1971, was to try to raise money from members and friends to pay off some of the debts it had incurred.

From the description of Cantata Singers records, 1936-1971. (New York Public Library). WorldCat record id: 222299558

The Cantata Singers was an amateur choir born out of professional scholarship and a desire to recreate authentic performances of the music of Bach and his predecessors with an emphasis on chamber chorus, chamber orchestra, and the acoustics of a stone-walled church.

The Cantata Singers is a name that has been and continues to be used by a number of different vocal ensembles. Among them are the Vancouver Cantata Singers, the Cantata Singers of Ottawa, the Ann Arbor Cantata Singers, the Prince George Cantata Singers, and the Pleasantville Cantata Singers. Perhaps the most famous of these ensembles active today is the one based in Boston, Massachusetts, founded in 1964, and called simply, the Cantata Singers. There is also a vocal ensemble called The New York Cantata Singers that was originated in 1992. However, the present collection represents none of these but one of the original such groups; this Cantata Singers was established in New York City in 1934. These choirs share not only similar names, but similar purpose, namely to present otherwise forgotten masterpieces, especially of the Baroque period, and with a particular interest in the Cantatas of Johann Sebastian Bach.

In accordance with the practice of the period and the intentions of the composers, the music was performed in churches, and the arrangement of the choir, as well as any orchestral accompaniment, was reproduced in numbers and proportion. Authentic performance practice has often been a point of contention between musicologists, especially when the music is centuries old and the intentions of the composers only become evident through fastidious research if they can ever be conclusively determined. The Cantata Singers was one of the first groups in the United States to attempt authentic performances of Baroque music and set a standard for basing performances on expert direction supported by methodical research. As such, the story of the Cantata Singers is in large part the story of those scholars who directed the ensemble over time.

Paul Boepple (1896-1970) founded a Cantata Society of New York in 1934 as an extension of Dalcroze School of Music. In addition to having studied at the Basel Conservatory, the Royal Academy for Music in Munich, Boepple had been a student at the Dalcroze Institute in Geneva where he went on to teach as Emile Jaques-Dalcroze’s assistant for seven years. In 1926 the Swiss-born conductor came to the United States where he became the Director of the Dalcroze School of Music in New York from 1926-1941. He conducted the choir for only two years before he assumed conductorship of the Dessoff Choirs upon Madame Margarethe Dessoff’s retirement.

Arthur Mendel (1905-1979) became Boepple’s successor in 1936 and the organization soon after became known as The Cantata Singers. Mendel had earned his Bachelor’s from Harvard University in 1925 and studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris from 1925-1927. Upon returning to the States he worked as a music critic for The Nation (1930-1933), literary editor for G. Schirmer (1930-1938), editor of the American Musicological Society's journal (1940-1943), and editor for Associated Music Publishers (1941-1947). He also taught at the Dalcroze School of Music in New York (1938-1950), serving as president from 1947-1950. The Cantata Singers were incorporated in December, 1941, with their stated purpose “to stimulate public interest in the performance of choral music, particularly that of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, in the style of its period; and to offer the public an opportunity to hear this music and its membership the opportunity to sing it and thereby to contribute to the education of the musical public.” They were interested in presenting the choral works of Bach as nearly as possible to the way they would have been performed under Bach’s own direction. In 1949, Mendel was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for music research and the Cantata Singers served as his “workshop” as he continued his study of Bach’s music in performance. Mendel has been celebrated as one of the foremost Bach scholars and, in particular, The Bach Reader (1945), has been widely influential and regularly republished. Under Mendel’s baton the Cantata Singers performed works by Bach including the St. Matthew Passion (1950), St. John Passion (1951), B-minor Mass Cantatas (1951), Ascension Oratorio (1952), and Magnificat (1952). They also revived choral works by the 17th century German composer, Heinrich Schutz, including The Christmas Story and German Requiem (1952). Also in 1952, Mendel was appointed Professor of Music at Princeton University where he was the Departmental Chairman from 1952-1967. In order to manage his new responsibilities he resigned his post with the Cantata Singers in 1953. He was the organization’s longest running conductor and remained an attentive advisor and honorary member in the years following his seventeen-year tenure.

A native of Hamburg, Germany, Alfred Mann (1917-2006) was educated at the Milan Conservatory and at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik, where he studied with Kurt Thomas and Max Seiffert. He was a professional musician who had performed with Cantata Singers under Mendel on double bass, viola, and recorder, when he became Mendel’s successor in 1953. Also a specialist in the performance of Baroque music, especially Bach and Handel, Mann added works by Monteverdi, Buxtehude, and Handel to the Cantata Singers repertoire. Alfred Mann was Professor of Music at Rutgers University from 1946, becoming Professor Emeritus in 1980, and Professor of Musicology at Eastman School of Music also in 1980. He has published influential translations and discussions of the writings of Fux, and has come to be recognized internationally as a leading authority on the music of Bach and Handel.

Over time the Cantata Singers’ repertoire was expanded to include works from the Baroque all the way up to and including music of the 20th century. Thomas Dunn (1925- ) had studied at the Peabody Conservatory and Johns Hopkins University and later at Harvard and the Amsterdam Conservatory. As a graduate student at Harvard he organized an orchestra and chorus to sing Bach Cantatas. He had a keen interest in church music, choral music, and performance practice. By the time Thomas Dunn was appointed conductor of the Cantata Singers for the 1959-1960 season, the audience for Baroque works that the Cantata Singers had worked to create had grown large enough that there were various opportunities to hear that music as other organizations were performing this music as well. That fact, paired with Dunn’s own interests, inspired the new conductor to expand the choir’s repertoire once again, directing contrastive performances of Britten’s St. Nicholas (1959), Honegger’s King David (1963), and Brahms’ German Requiem, (1965), as well as works by disparate composers such as Purcell (1659-1695), Haydn (1732-1809), Verdi (1813-1901), and Poulenc (1899-1963). In 1959 Dunn had founded The Festival Orchestra and the two ensembles performed together on a number of occasions, notably the Midsummer Music Festival, organized by the Cantata Singers, which was held in 1963 and 1964, and served as a predecessor for what was to become the Mostly Mozart Festival.

Robert Hickok assumed conductorship of The Cantata Singers in 1966. He had studied with Paul Hindemith at Yale and was chairman of the Brooklyn College Music Department and conductor of its Chorus and Chorale. Under the direction of Hickok, The Cantata Singers, in an effort to combat a steadily rising financial deficit, began producing concerts that were a capella or supported by minimal accompaniment. These concerts also saw a renewed focus on earlier composers such as Josquin des Pres (1445-1521), Ludwig Senfl (1490-1556), and Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck (1532-1621).

The organization faced the ongoing challenge of meeting expenses and now had difficulty attracting and retaining members. Under Hickok the choir had difficulty especially with filling the sections of men’s voices. Kenneth Cooper (1941- ) was to be the last of the Cantata Singers’ conductors taking over for the 1969-1970 season.

In addition to the influential music scholars who conducted the Cantata Singers, the choir engaged professional vocal and instrumental soloists on a contract basis to perform in many of their concert programs. Among these were the likes of Betty Allen, Jean Kraft, Florence Kopleff, Saramae Endich, Jan DeGaetani, Patricia Brooks (Mann), Helen Boatwright, Judith Raskin, Adele Addison, Janice Harsanyi, Russell Oberlin, Arthur Burrows, Ralph Kirkpatrick, Albert Fuller, John Reardon, John Langstaff, Tony Tamburello, Jon Humphrey, George Shirley, Paul Matthen, William Warfield, Charles Bressler, David Clatworthy, Nicholas di Virgilio, Loren Driscoll, Therman Bailey, Nancy Williams, Walter Carringer, Charles Berberian, and many others.

The organization to all intents and purposes ceased to exist after June, 1970. Its only activity during the fiscal year ended June 30, 1971, was to try to raise money from members and friends to pay off some of the debts it had incurred.

From the guide to the Cantata Singers records, 1936-1971, (The New York Public Library. Music Division.)