Cantata  is the third panel in a triptuch of chamber works in which the w#two other pieces are Autumnal for violin and piano and Sonya's Lullaby for piano. The first performance was given in Athens in September 1979. The composer has written the following notes on it:

Cantata was
begun at Tanglewood, Massachussets in July 1975 and completed in London
in October 1977> During this period I was trying, as it were, to
define my musical space - a time of considerable frustration and little
completed work - exploring harmonic areas I had stumbled upon when
composing the first part of my Third Symphony, 1973-79. The three pieces which eventually emerged, Autumnal, Sonya's Lullaby and Cantata form a sort of mini coherence, and on another level, intimate, diary-like expressions.

Cantata
is quite compact - relaxed and lyrical - a single movement playing for
about ten minutes. The title was arrived at after noticing that the
relationships between the various episodes reminded me of the
interdependence of the recitatives and more or less self-contained
numbers in some 18th century cantatas, an impression reinforced by the
predominance of the oboe.

A slow introductory section
proceeds, via a sequence of quasi-developmental episodes, towards a
wild climatctic passage featuring an elaborately ornamented, almost
oriental oboe line, over manic violin and cello pizzicati. There
ofllows an extended coda in which the opening oboe melody reappears in
altered form over a gently rocking repeated figure in the strings.

Although
essentially abstract, the work is certainlysubjective, which fact may
encourage the listener to let the music evoke whatever personal imagery
it may contain.

Oliver Knussen