‘... zal opwekken tot luide dank- en jubelkreten’. De priestercantate in Nederland van 1860-1960

Abstract

The cantata in honour of priests in the Netherlands, 1860-1960 AD. This contribution surveys a very Roman-Catholic musical genre: the cantatas that were performed on the occasion of priestly ordinations, presentations and anniversaries of ordination. It was very much a festal genre. Its hey-day was between 1860 and 1960 AD, the period of Catholic emancipation in the Netherlands, characterized by a growing Catholic selfconsciousness around Pope, bishops, parish priests and religious. Distinctive for the contents of the cantatas is that the persons cheered were normally no more than an occasion to applaud the groups own selfconsiousness. This is even more so when we look at the actual performance of the cantatas. During the century under study the ‘sacred’ persons have been honoured in three distinctive ways in successive periods, vid. with (1) abundant concert-like pomp in the 19th century, which continued far into the 20th, followed by (2) more simple songs that excelled in dilettantism in both text and music and were performed just as loudly and dynamically as in the first period, and finally (3) with compositions that were both in their contents as well as in their performance much more restrained, considered and inspired, and, were finally also sung in honour of the religious as well as the priests.