Speranza
An "oratorio" is a large musical composition including an orchestra, a choir, and soloists.
Like an opera, an oratorio includes the use of a choir, soloists, an ensemble, various distinguishable characters, and arias.
Oratorios are sometimes staged as operas.
In an oratorio there is generally little or no interaction between the characters, and no props or elaborate costumes.
A particularly important difference is in the typical subject matter of the text.
Opera tends to deal with history and mythology, including age-old devices of romance, deception, and murder.
The plot of an oratorio, on the other hand, often deals with sacred topics, making it appropriate for performance in the church, rather than a theatre.
Protestant composers took their stories from the Bible,
while Catholic composers looked to the lives of saints.
Oratorios became extremely popular in early 17th century Italy
partly because of
the success of the opera
and the Church's prohibition of spectacles during Lent.
Oratorios became the main choice of music during that period for opera audiences.
Although medieval plays such as the
"Ludus Danielis",
and Renaissance dialogue motets such as those of the Oltremontani had characteristics of an oratorio, the first oratorio is usually seen as Emilio de Cavalieri's
"La Rappresentatione di Anima, et di Corpo".
Monteverdi composed
"Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda"
which can be considered as the first _secular_ oratorio.
The origins of the oratorio can be found in sacred dialogues in Italy.
These were settings of Biblical, Latin texts and musically were quite similar to motets.
There was a strong narrative, dramatic emphasis and there were conversational exchanges between characters in the work.
Giovanni Francesco Anerio's "Teatro armonico spirituale" (1619)
is a set of 14 dialogues, the longest of which is 20 minutes long and covers the conversion of St. Paul and is for four soloists:
Istorico (narrator), tenore;
San Paolo, tenore;
Voice from Heaven, bass; and
ananias, tenor.
There is also a four part chorus to represent any crowds in the drama.
The music is often contrapuntal and madrigal-like.
Philip Neri’s
"La congregazione dell'Oratorio"
featured the singing of spiritual laude.
These became more and more popular and were eventually performed in specially built oratories (prayer halls) by professional musicians.
Again, these were chiefly based on dramatic and narrative elements.
Sacred opera provided another impetus for dialogues, and they greatly expanded in length (although never really beyond 60 minutes long).
Cavalieri’s "La Rappresentatione di Anima, et di Corpo" is an example of one of these works.
It contains music in the monodic style.
The first oratorio to be called by that name is Pietro della Valle’s
"L'Oratorio della Purificazione", but due to its brevity (only 12 minutes long) and the fact that its other name was "dialogue", we can see that there was much ambiguity in these names.
During the second half of the 17th century, there were trends toward the secularization of the religious oratorio.
Evidence of this lies in its
regular performance outside the church hall
in a theater.
Whether religious or secular, the theme of an oratorio is meant to be weighty.
It could include such topics as Creation, the life of Jesus, or the career of a classical hero or biblical prophet.
Other changes eventually took place as well, possibly because
most composers of oratorios
were also composers of operas.
They began to publish the librettos of their oratorios as they did for their operas.
Strong emphasis was soon placed on arias while the use of the choir diminished.
Female singers became regularly employed, and replaced the male narrator with the use of recitatives.
By the mid-17th century, two types had developed:
"oratorio volgare" (in Italian).
Representative examples include:
Giacomo Carissimi's Daniele
Marco Marazzoli's S Tomaso
Similar works written by Francesco Foggia and Luigi Rossi
Lasting about 30–60 minutes, oratorio volgares were performed in two sections, separated by a sermon.
Their music resembles that of contemporary operas and chamber cantatas.
"oratorio latino" (in Latin).
First developed at the "Oratorio del Santissimo Crocifisso", related to the church of San Marcello al Corso in Rome.
The most significant composer of "oratorio latino" was Giacomo Carissimi, whose "Jephte" is regarded as the first masterpiece of the genre.
Like most other Latin oratorios of the period, it is in one section only.
In the late baroque oratorios increasingly became "sacred opera".
In Rome and Naples Alessandro Scarlatti was the most noted composer.
In Vienna the court poet Metastasio produced annually a series of oratorios for the court which were set by
Caldara, Hasse and others.
Metastasio's best known oratorio libretto
"La passione di Gesù Cristo"
was set by at least 35 composers from 1730–90.
In Germany, the middle baroque oratorios moved from
the early-baroque Historia style Christmas and
Resurrection settings of Heinrich Schütz, to
the Passions (Marco, Matteo, Luca, Giovanni) of J. S. Bach, oratorio-passions such as Der Tod Jesu set by Telemann and Carl Heinrich Graun.
After Telemann came the galante oratorio style of C. P. E. Bach.
The Georgian era saw a German-born monarch and German-born composer define the English oratorio.
George Frideric Handel, most famous today for his Messiah, also wrote other oratorios based on themes from Greek and Roman mythology and biblical topics.
He is also credited with writing the first English language oratorio, Esther.
Handel's imitators included the Italian Lidarti who was employed by the Amsterdam Jewish community to compose a Hebrew version of "Esther".
Britain continued to look to Germany for its composers of oratorio.
The Birmingham Festival commissioned various oratorios including Felix Mendelssohn's "Elijah" in 1846, later performed in German as Elias.
German composer Georg Vierling is noted for modernizing the secular oratorio form.
John Stainer's The Crucifixion (1887) became the stereotypical battle-horse of massed amateur choral societies.
Edward Elgar tried to revive the genre in the first years of the next century.
Oratorio returned haltingly to public attention with Stravinsky's "Oedipus Rex" (1927) in France, and Franz Schmidt's The Book with Seven Seals (Das Buch mit sieben Siegeln) (1938) in Germany.
Postwar oratorios include Arthur Honegger Jeanne d'Arc au Bûcher,
Krzysztof Penderecki St. Luke Passion,
René Clemencic Kabbala, and Osvaldo Golijov, "La passione di Gesù Cristo secondo San Marco".
Oratorios by popular musicians include Paul McCartney's "Liverpool Oratorio".
Oratorios usually contain:
An overture, for instruments alone
Various arias, sung by the vocal soloists
Recitative, usually employed to advance the plot
Choruses, often monumental and meant to convey a sense of glory.
Frequently the instruments for oratorio choruses include timpani and trumpets.
Chronology of the oratorio:
Antonio Vivaldi,
"Juditha triumphans"
RV 644 (1716)
Johann Sebastian Bach, the St John Passion (1724)
Georg Riedel (Altstadt Kantor), "monumental oratorio", the entire Gospel of Matthew 1724.
Johann Sebastian Bach, the St Matthew Passion (1727/1736)
Johann Sebastian Bach, the Christmas Oratorio (1734)
Johann Adolph Hasse, various including Serpentes ignei in deserto - (1735, 1736 or 1739)
George Frideric Handel, Esther (1732)
George Frideric Handel, Deborah (1733)
George Frideric Handel, Saul (1739)
George Frideric Handel, Israel in Egypt (1739)
George Frideric Handel, Messiah (1741).
George Frideric Handel, Samson (1743)
George Frideric Handel, Judas Maccabaeus (1747)
George Frideric Handel, Joshua (1748)
George Frideric Handel, Jephtha (1752)
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Die Israeliten in der Wüste (1769)
Joseph Haydn, The Creation (1798)
Joseph Haydn, The Seasons (1801)
Ludwig van Beethoven, Christ on the Mount of Olives (1803)
Felix Mendelssohn, St. Paul (1836)
Robert Schumann, Paradise and the Peri (1843)
Felix Mendelssohn, Elijah (1846)
Hector Berlioz, L'enfance du Christ (1854)
Franz Liszt, Christus (1862–1866)
Théodore Dubois, Les sept paroles du Christ (1867)
Edward Elgar, The Dream of Gerontius (1900)
Edward Elgar, The Apostles (1903)
Edward Elgar, The Kingdom (1906)
Igor Stravinsky's "opera-oratorio" Oedipus Rex (1927)
Artur Kapp, Hiiob (Job) (1929)
Franz Schmidt, The Book with Seven Seals (Das Buch mit sieben Siegeln) (1938)
Michael Tippett, A Child of Our Time (1941)
Alexandre Tansman, Isaïe le prophète (1950)
Hans Werner Henze, Das Floß der Medusa (1968, rev. 1990)
Lorenzo Ferrero, Le néant où l'on ne peut arriver (1976)
Mona Lyn Reese, Choose Life, Uvacharta Bachayim (1994)
John Adams, El Niño (2000)
Illayaraja, Thiruvasakam (2005)
Julian Anderson, Heaven is Shy of Earth (2006/10)
Eric Idle and John Du Prez, Not the Messiah (He's a Very Naughty Boy) (2007)
Passion
Requiem
Mass (liturgy)
Mass (music)
Cantata
Oratorio Society (disambiguation)
[edit] References
1.^ "The History of Music". Retrieved 9 February 2012.
Bukofzer, Manfred F. Music in the Baroque Era. New York, NY: W.W. Norton and Co., Inc, 1947.
Smither, Howard. The History of the Oratorio. vol. 1–4, Chapel Hill, NC: Univ. of N.C. Press, 1977–2000.
Deedy, John. The Catholic Fact Book. Chicago, IL: Thomas Moore Press, 1986.
Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy, grovemusic.com (subscription access).
Hardon, John A. Modern Catholic Dictionary. Garden City, NY: Double Day and Co. Inc., 1980.
New Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967.
Randel, Don. "Oratorio". The Harvard Dictionary of Music. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press, 1986.
McGuire, Charles Edward. Elgar's Oratorios: The Creation of an Epic Narrative. Aldershot: Ashgate Press, 2002.
McGuire, Charles Edward. "Elgar, Judas, and the Theology of Betrayal." In 19th-Century Music, vol. XXIII, no. 3 (Spring, 2000), pp. 236–272.
[edit] External links
"Musical Forms - Oratorio". The Grove Concise Dictionary of Music. The Classical Music Pages.
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