Speranza
Opera/Oratorio.
Cronologia
Dall’A alla Z
Keywords: oratorio italiano, Italian opera and oratorio, Italian oratorio.
An oratorio is a large musical composition including an orchestra, a choir, and soloists.
Keyword:
Subtitles under which oratorios were performed:
“oratorio”
“opera sacra” – as opposed to “opera profana”.
“dramma sacro”, as opposed to “dramma profano”.
“azione sacra”, as opposed to “azione profana”.
“tragedia sacra”, as opposed to “tragedia profana”.
Like an opera, an oratorio includes the use of a choir, soloists, an ensemble, various distinguishable characters, and arias.
However, opera is musical theatre, while oratorio is strictly a concert piece — though oratorios are sometimes staged as operas, and operas are sometimes presented in concert form.
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, whereas the plot of an oratorio often deals with sacred topics, making it appropriate for performance in the church.
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 (“Seicento”) 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 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 harmonico 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: Historicus (narrator), tenor; St. Paul, tenor; 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 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 Rappresentatione di Anima, et di Corpo is an example of one of these works, but technically it is not an oratorio because it features acting and dancing.
It does, however contain music in the monodic style.
The first oratorio to be called by that name is Pietro della Valle’s 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 church halls in courts and public theaters.
Whether religious or secular, the theme of an oratorio is meant to be weighty.
It could include such topics as
-- the 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 popular composers of operas.
Composers 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 “San Tomaso.”
similar works written by Francesco Foggia and Luigi Rossi
Lasting about 30–60 minutes, oratori volgari were performed in two sections, separated by a sermon; their music resembles that of contemporary operas and chamber cantatas.
-- oratorio latino – 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 “Pietro 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 Four Passions 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.
Giorgio Frederico Handel, most famous today for his Messiah, also wrote other oratorios based on themes from Greek and Roman mythology and biblical topics.
Hadel is 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 battlehorse 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 Cristo secondo San Marco: oratorio.
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.
An oratorio is like an opera - but less. There is singing and a storyline but not much else. No staging, no costuming - sounds exciting, huh? There is some action - but you never see it - kind of like an existentialist play. All of the action is aired via a narrator (if you're Italian, you'd call this person a "testo" - if you're Latin, "storicus"*).
Other ways to tell an opera from an oratorio:
Oratorios have sacred text - stories based on the religious books.
"Oratorio" literally means "hall for prayer"
Oratorios have more work for the chorus than operas.
The chorus is the nameless bunch of people who aren't a character and all sing together - like a...chorus (maybe I didn't need to explain this point).
Oratorios have a lot of recitative.
Recitative is the part of operas that most people make fun of.
It’s where a person will sing-talk lines, usually on one note, and usually pretty rapidly.
It's used to get a bunch of miscellaneous text to the audience. It is rarely beautiful, but it works.
Why, then - if an oratorio is generally lamer than an opera, would it have caught on at all?
Lent and the English (independently).
Lent (Quaresima) is a religious season during which (in days of yore) theaters were closed - giving the church a monopoly on entertainment.
To understand why the English popularized the oratorio, we need to look at Handel.***
Handel was busy writing operas. He had four staged in successive years - each less successful than the last.
Speculation:
"Hmmm... my operas aren't doing so well. Hey, oratorios are easier to write than operas - and anyone who is any good today is writing operas. If I write an oratorio, it'll be guaranteed to be performed - especially if I make it Lent-y," Handel may have thought.
-- End of speculation.
This oratorio, "Israel in Egypt," was a success.
Handel was later commissioned to write the "Messiah". Every English speaking person of the time loved the "Messiah" because:
It was in English and
it was a great piece of music (a rare combination for the composer-starved island).
The result: “oratorio fever”.
English composers were writing oratorios for the next 150 years. The reason you haven't heard about these oratorios is that few (if any) were any good.
As at present understood, an oratorio is a musical composition for solo voices, chorus, orchestra, and organ, to a religious text generally taken from Holy Scripture.
The dramatic element contained in the text depends for its expression on the music alone.
The tradition that the oratorio originated in St. Philip Neri's oratory has recently been attacked, notably by the historian and critic E. Schelle, in "Neue Zeitschrift für Musik" (Leipzig, 1864).
The chief point he makes is that the oratories of San Girolamo and Santa Maria in Vallicella, at Rome, were unsuitable for the performance of sacred dramas.
In refutation, it suffices to recall the established fact that Emiglio del Cavaglieri's rapprasentazione sacra, "Anima e corpo", had its first performance in the Vallicella (Chiesa Nuova) in 1600, five years after the death of St. Philip.
Although the term “oratorio” was not applied to the new form until sixty years later (Andrea Bontempi, 1624-1705), there is an unbroken tradition connecting the exercises established by St. Philip with the period when the new art-form received its definite character.
While in the sixteenth century liturgical polyphonic music reached its highest development, secular music boasted only one ensemble or choral form, the madrigal.
The spirit of the Renaissance, that is the revolt against the domination of the arts by the spirit of the Church, led to the restoration of Greek monody, and gradually perfected compositions for one or more voices and instruments which ultimately culminated in the opera.
Filippo Neri, realizing the great power of music, provided in the rule for his congregation, "that his fathers together with the faithful, should rouse themselves to the contemplation of heavenly things by means of musical harmony".
Neri seized upon the good in the new trend and made it the foundation of a new form upon which he, perhaps unconsciously, put a stamp retained ever since.
Neri practically created a style midway between liturgical and secular music.
Neri’s love of simplicity caused him to oppose and counteract the prevailing artificial semi-pagan, literary, and oratorical style which had its musical counterpart in the display of contrapuntal skill for its own sake practised to so great an extent at that time.
Neri drew to himself masters like Giovanni Annimuccia and Pier Luigi da Palestrina, formed them spiritually, and bade them set to music, in simple and clear style, for three or four voices, short poems in the vernacular, generally written by himself, and called "Laudi spirituali".
Many of these were preserved by F. Soto di Langa, a musician and a disciple of the saint.
Their performance alternated with spiritual reading, prayer, and a sermon by one of the fathers, by a layman, or even by a boy.
From these exercises, which attracted enormous crowds, and obtained great renown throughout Italy, it was but a step to the Commedia harmonica "Amfiparnasso", by Orazio Vecchi (1550-1605), a dialogue in madrigal form between two choirs (first performed at Modena in 1594), and the rapprasentazione sacra "Anima e corpo", by Cavaglieri.
Cavalieri’s “Rapprasentazione” consists of short phrases for a single voice, more varied in form than the recitativo secco, but not yet sufficiently developed to have a distinct melodic physiognomy, accompanied by instruments, and choral numbers, or madrigals.
Similar productions multiplied rapidly.
Wherever the Oratorians established themselves they cultivated this form to attract the young people.
The municipal library of Hamburg contains a collection, gathered by Chrysander of twenty-two different texts which originated with the disciples of St. Philip during the second half of the seventeenth century.
Even more active in the creation and propagation of these musico-dramatic productions throughout this period were the Jesuits, who, especially in Germany, used these musical plays in their schools and colleges everywhere.
Up to the latter part of the seventeenth century the burden of the texts for these compositions was either
-- a legend,
-- the history of a conversion
-- the life of a saint, or
-- the passion of a martyr.
Among those who cultivated, or helped in developing, the oratorio in Italy were Benedetto Ferrari (1597-1681), “Samsone";
Agostino Agazzari (1578-1640), dramma pastorale, "Eumelio";
Loreto Vitorii (1588-1670) "La pellegrina costante", "Sant' Ignazio Loyola".
Giacomo Carissimi (1604-74), through whom the oratorio made a notable advance, was the first master to turn to Holy Scripture for his texts.
His works, with Italian texts, many of which have been preserved (see CARISSIMI) together with those of his contemporaries, show practically the same construction as is followed in the present time:
recitatives,
arias, duets, and terzettos, alternating with single and double choruses and instrumental numbers.
The ‘testo’ has replaced scenic display and dramatic action.
Carissimi's orchestration exhibits a resourcefulness and charm before unknown.
His oratorio "Jephtha" (in an arrangement by Dr. Immanuel Faisst) was performed successfully at Leipzig as recently as 1873.
After him, the greatest Italian master was Alessandro Scarlatti (1659-1725) a pupil of Francesco Provenzale and Carissimi.
Chief among Scarlatti’s works are
"I dolori di Maria" and
"Il Sacrificio d'Abramo".
About this time the leadership passed to Germany, where Heinrich Schütz (1585-1672) had previously prepared the soil by his compositions known as "Passion music" and other works resembling the Italian oratorio.
Others who had received their formation in Italy, but whose activity was chiefly confined to Germany, and who transplanted the oratorio thither, were Ignatius Jacob Holzbauer (1711-83),
"La Bethulia liberata"; Johann Adolphe Hasse (1699-1783),
"La Conversione di S. Agostino" etc.; Antonio Caldara (1670-1736); Nicolo Jomelli (1714-1774); Marc-Antoine Charpentier (1634-1704), a pupil of Carissimi and a gifted composer, wrote, besides a large number of works for the church, eighteen oratorios in the style of his master which had great vogue in France. His "Reniement de St. Pierre" has recently been revived with great success in Paris, and has since been published.
In the hands of Johann Mattheson (1681-1764), the oratorio becomes identified with Protestant worship in Germany.
Contemporary with George Frederick Händel (1685-1759) he wrote twenty-four oratorios, intended to be divided into two parts by a sermon, the whole constituting a religious service.
His texts were mostly taken from Scripture. Biblical events are brought into conjunction and contrasted with contemporary happenings, and a moral is drawn. Others who cultivated the oratorio form, particularly in Protestant Germany, were George Philip Telemann (1681-1767), Constantine Bellermann (1696-1758), and Dietrich Buxtehude (1637-1707).
Through Händel the oratorio attained a position in musical art more important than at any previous period in its history and never surpassed since.
In his hands it became the expression of the sturdy Saxon faith unaffected by the spirit of doubt latent in the religious revolt of the sixteenth century.
Formed in Germany and Italy, he united in a pre-eminent degree the highest creative gifts.
The most productive period of his life was spent in England, and, after having cultivated the opera for a number of years, he finally turned to the oratorio, producing a series of works ("The Messiah", "Israel in Egypt", "Saul", "Jephtha", "Belshazar", "Samson" etc.) unrivalled for heroic grandeur and brilliancy.
It may be said that they express the national religious ideal of a Protestant Christian people more adequately than does their form of worship.
This undoubtedly accounts for the interest taken in oratorio performances by the people in England and in Protestant Germany.
Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) produced two of the greatest oratorios which we possess: "The Creation" and "The Seasons".
While composed to secular texts, they breathe the most tender piety and joy through an inexhaustible wealth of lyric and lofty music.
A third oratorio, "Ritorno di Tobia", on a Biblical text, has not the same importance, nor does
Mozart (1756-91), in his only oratorio, "Davidde penitente", attain the artistic level of most of his productions, Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) wrote one oratorio, "The Mount of Olives", which shows him at his best.
Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (1809-47), in "Elijah" and "St. Paul", returns to the early Protestant feature of letting the supposed congregation or audience participate in the performance by singing the chorales or church hymns, the texts of which consist of reflections and meditations on what has preceded.
From this period the oratorio begins to be cultivated almost exclusively by Catholics. FranzkeLiszt (1811-86), with his "Christus" and "Legende der Heiligen Elizabeth", opens up a new and distinctly Catholic era.
France, which, since the days of Charpentier, had practically neglected the oratorio, probably on account of the opera appealing more strongly to French taste and temperament, and because of the lack of amateur singers has, within the last thirty years, furnished a number of remarkable works.
Charles-François Gounod (1818-93) with his "Redemption", and "Mors et Vita", gave a renewed impetus to the cultivation of the oratorio.
"Samson and Delilah" by Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-) may be performed either as an oratorio or as an opera; as opera it has attained the greater favour.
Jules Massenet (1842-) has essayed the form with his "Eve" and "Mary Magdalen", but his style is entirely too sensational and melodramatic to carry the text.
Gabriel Pierné's (1863-) "Children's Crusade" and the smaller work, "The Children at Bethlehem", have both obtained great popularity in Europe and America.
Italy's sole representative of any note in more than two hundred years is Perosi, with his trilogy "La passion di Cristo secondo Marco”m "The Transfiguration of Christ", and "The Resurrection of Lazarus", a "Christmas Oratorio", "Leo the Great", and "The Last Judgment".
Belgium and England have produced the three most remarkable exponents of the oratorio within the last fifty years. César Auguste Franck's (1822-90) oratorios, "Ruth", "Rebecca", "Redemption", and, above all, his "Beatitudes", rank among the greatest of modern works of the kind. Edward William Elgar (1857-) has become famous by his "Dream of Gerontius" and his "Apostles". But Edgar Tinel (1854-) is probably the most gifted among the modern Catholics who have reclaimed the oratorio from non-Catholic supremacy. His world-famous "St. Francis of Assisi" is perhaps more remarkable for the spiritual heights it reveals than for its dramatic power. Other works of his which have attracted attention are "Godoleva" and "St. Catherine".
It is a happy omen that all these authors, in the fore-front of present-day composers, command the highest creative and constructive skill which enables them to turn into Catholic channels all the modern conquests in means of expression. The Catholic Oratorio Society of New York was founded in 1904 to promote the knowledge and reproduction of oratorios that best exemplify the religious ideal.
CAPECELATRO, tr. POPE, The Life of St. Philip Neri (London, 1894); KRETZSCHMAR, Führer durch den Concertsaal, II (Leipzig, 1899); REIMANN, Geschichte der Musiktheorie (Leipzig, 1898); SPITTA, Die Passionsmusiken von Sebastian Bach und Heinrich Schütz (Hamburg, 1893); Jahrbuch der Musikbibliothek Peters für 1903 (Leipzig, 1904).
Otten, Joseph. "Oratorio." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 11. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1911.
Azione sacra Italian
Literally, 'sacred action'. 17th and early 18th century opera with religious subject. Performed at Vienna court. L'humanità redenta (Draghi, 1669)
Draghi, Bertali, Pietro Andrea Ziani, Giovanni Battista Pederzuoli, Cesti
Azione sepolcrale Italian alternative name for azione sacra
Rappresentazione sacra Italian alternative name for azione sacra
Sepolcro Italian Azione sacra on the subject of the passion and crucifixion of Christ. Draghi
Azione sacra. One of several terms commonly applied to the Sepolcro, composed to texts in Italian for the Habsburg court in Vienna in the second half of the 17th century.
The term “azione sacra” was also one of many used for the Italian Oratorio of the 18th century.
Both Zeno and Metastasio called their oratorio librettos azioni sacre.
A ‘staged oratorio’, or opera sacra, of the late 18th and early 19th centuries was also typically called an azione sacra.
Although oratorio was essentially an unstaged genre, the sepolcro was presented with a minimum of staging and action and the opera sacra was fully staged and acted in the manner of an opera.
From the 1780s to about 1820, the theatres of Naples often presented staged oratorios during Lent and usually designated them azione sacra.
Such works differed little from the opera seria of the time except for their subject matter, which was that of the traditional oratorio.
P.A. Guglielmi’s “Debora e Sisara: azione sacra” (1788, Naples) was favoured by numerous performances, both staged and unstaged, throughout Europe, as was
Rossini’s “Mosè in Egitto, called “azione tragico-sacra” in the libretto printed at Naples in 1818.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
R. Schnitzler: The Sacred Dramatic Music of Antonio Draghi (diss., U. of North Carolina, 1971)
H.E. Smither: ‘Oratorio and Sacred Opera, 1700-1825: Terminology and Genre Distinction’, PRMA, cvi (1979-80), 88-104
M.G. Accorsi: ‘Le azioni sacre di Metastasio: il razionalismo cristiano’, Mozart, Padova e la Betulia liberata: Padua 1989, 3-26
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An oratorio is an extended musical setting of a sacred text made up of dramatic, narrative and contemplative elements.
Except for a greater emphasis on the chorus throughout much of its history, the musical forms and styles of the oratorio tend to approximate to those of opera in any given period, and the normal manner of performance is that of a concert (without scenery, costumes or action).
The oratorio was most extensively cultivated in the 17th and 18th centuries but has continued to be a significant genre.
Distant antecedents of the oratorio may be found in the musical settings of sacred narrative and dramatic texts in the Middle Ages:
-- the liturgical drama,
-- the Divine Office for saints´ feasts,
-- the Passion and
-- the dialogue lauda.
Medieval miracle and mystery plays, as well as “rappresentazioni sacre”, are also related to the oratorio.
The real beginnings of the genre are to be found in the late Renaissance and early Baroque periods, where an ever-increasing interest in settings of dramatic and narrative texts gave rise first to opera and then to oratorio.
Such texts were widely used for polyphonic madrigals in the 16th century (e.g. Andrea Gabrieli, “Tirsi morir volea”) and for monodic madrigals, dialogues and dramatic cantatas in the 17th century (e.g. Monteverdi, “Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda: un oratorio secolare”).
Sacred music, too, was affected by this new tendency, as may be seen in the increasingly dramatic treatment of the “Passione”, and in the laude, spiritual madrigals and motets that use dramatic and narrative texts, all of which may be considered antecedents of the oratorio.
Lassus, for example, composed motets on the stories of
-- the finding of Jesus in the Temple,
-- la resurrezione di Lazzaro -- the raising of Lazarus
-- the marriage feast at Cana, the Annunciation and
-- Jesus on the road to Emmaus (Qui sunt hi sermones”
-- “Fili quid fecisti nobis sic”,
-- “Fremuit spiritus Jesus”,
-- “Nuptiae factae sunt”,
-- “Missus est angelus”.
These motets are related by text, but not by music, to the history of the oratorio.
In the first three decades of the 17th century (Seicento), however, dialogues were composed to texts based on similar biblical stories, but with greater dramatic emphasis in the new monodic style.
Both in text and music such works are often close to the genre later known as oratorio, but they are brief, are normally found in motet books (e.g. Severo Bonini´s ‘Dialogo della madonna e del angelo’ in his Libro de motetti a tre voci”, Venezia, 1609), and were intended to be used in church as motets.
Although oratorio has traditionally been considered to have originated within the context of Filippo Neri´s Roman oratory, recent research has pointed to its origin in the pan-Italian tendency towards greater emphasis on the dramatic element in sacred music.
In Florence in the late 16th century and the early 17th, for example, the Compagnia dell’arcangelo Raffaello performed dialogues comparable to those heard in Rome, and dialogue texts were composed by several Florentine poets, including
Ottavio Rinuccini,
Alessandro Ginori,
Benedetto Rigogli and
Benedetto Buonmattei (Hill, 1979).
Yet Rome was particularly active in the cultivation of sacred dialogues and oratorios, and appears to have been the locale in which the genre acquired its name. Landi.
In Rome, the immediate social context from which the oratorio emerged was provided by the spiritual exercises of the Congregazione dell´Oratorio, founded by Filippo Neri (1515-95).
Responding to the reforming spirit of the Council of Trent, Philippo Neri began in the 1550s the informal meetings, or spiritual “exercises”, for which he was to become famous.
In the earliest period these meetings, for prayer and the discussion of spiritual matters, comprised only a few men, Neri´s close friends and followers, and took place in his quarters at the church of
San Girolamo della Carità.
Those present for the exercises sang spiritual laude for entertainment, which Neri no doubt remembered from his Florentine boyhood, and which he considered an important element in the exercises.
As the spiritual exercises grew in popularity, larger quarters were necessary, and thus an “oratorio” was constructed in a space above the nave of the church.
In 1575 Neri and his followers, more numerous by then, were officially recognized by Pope Gregory XIII as a religious order, “La Congregazione dell´Oratorio”, and were given the church of
Santa Maria (Vallicella), which was soon replaced by a new one still known as the
Chiesa Nuova.
For the rest of Neri´s life and until the mid-18th century, the Congregazione dell´Oratorio continued to increase in strength and prominence.
Music continued to be important in the oratories, particularly those in Italy.
Sung in the 16th century by both the congregation and professionals, the music functioned as edifying entertainment and was intended to attract people to the spiritual exercises.
Throughout the second half of the 16th century, as in the earliest meetings, “laude” continued to be performed in the spiritual exercises of Neri´s oratory more frequently than any other genre.
These are usually quite simple three- and four-part pieces in popular poetic and musical styles, but sometimes they are more complex polyphonic works.
Between 1563 and 1600 nine different lauda books and four reprints were published specifically for the oratorians´ use.
Giovanni Animuccia composed two of the books, Francisco Soto de Langa compiled probably five, and Giovenale Ancina two.
The laude predominated in the exercises, but the more sophisticated motet and madrigale spirituale were not excluded, particularly for the musically elaborate “oratorio vespertino”, which took place in the oratorio after Vespers on feast days during the winter months.
Some of the finest musicians of Rome volunteered their services for the “oratorio vespertino”.
There is some evidence that Palestrina may have been active in these exercises.
Towards the end of the 16th century the laude used in the spiritual exercises reflected the pervading interest of the period in narrative and dramatic texts.
Alaleona (“La Storia dell´oratorio”, 1908), Pasquetti (“L’oratorio musicale in Italia”, 1906) and Schering (“La storia dell’oratorio”, 1911) saw a direct line of evolution, within the oratorio, from the laude with narrative and dramatic texts to the Italian oratorio.
The number of laude with such texts, however, is by no means as significant as it once appeared to be, and the hypothesis that the oratorio evolved directly from the lauda within the confines of the oratory is now unconvincing.
Rather, the origin of the oratorio seems more satisfactorily explained as resulting from the general tendency to incorporate dramatic elements into music for oratories.
Of special importance for the history of the oratorio was the performance, in 1600 at the oratory at the Chiesa Nuova, of Cavalieri´s
“La rappresentatione di Anima et di Corpo”.
This is the earliest known performance in an oratorio of a large-scale dramatic work in which the solo portions are set to music in the new monodic style.
Despite the location of its first performance and its significance for the development of oratorio, however, the “Rappresentatione di anima et di corpo” is not itself an oratorio, as Burney and many historians after him imagined it to be.
The work - with its scenery, costumes, acting and dancing - is much longer and more elaborate than works that later came to be called “oratorios” (in 1600 the term ‘oratorio’ was not yet used to designate a musical composition).
The widespread misconception of Cavalieri´s famous work has led to the erroneous assumption in some writings that the earliest oratorios were staged in the manner of operas.
Rather than being an oratorio, Cavalieri´s Rappresentatione has been shown to form part of the oratorian tradition, which extended from the late 16th century to the late 17th, of using young boys as actors in spiritual plays, usually during Carnival (Morelli, 1991, pp. Oratorio. 82-7).
Some such plays included musical insertions, others intermedi, and still others, like Cavalieri´s, were sung throughout.
Another study (Gianturco, 1995, pp.175-7) argues that Cavalieri´s
“Rappresentatione” was the earliest ‘moral opera’.
Apart from laude, little is known of the repertory performed in the spiritual exercises of the oratorians during the first decade of the 17th century, but the second and third decades are well represented by madrigali spirituali and dramatic dialogues composed for the oratorians by G.F. Anerio and others.
In the 16th century and the first half of the 17th, the word ‘oratorio’ most commonly referred to the building and the spiritual exercise that took place within it.
The meaning of the word was eventually broadened, however, to include the new musical genre used in the services, and the earliest documented use of it to mean a musical composition was in 1640.
In that year the Roman Pietro della Valle wrote in a letter to the Florentine theorist G.B. Doni that he had composed
L’oratorio della Purificatione
for the oratorio of the Chiesa Nuova.
The work is only about 12 minutes long, however, and is called a dialogue rather than an oratorio in its manuscript source.
Della Valle´s use of both terms, ‘dialogue’ and ‘oratorio’, illustrates the kind of terminological ambiguity that was prevalent in the mid-17th century.
About 20 years before della Valle´s “L’oratorio della purificazione”
a number of works appeared in Anerio´s
“Teatro armonico spirituale di madrigal” (Rome, 1619) that closely resemble many of those called oratorios in the 1640s and 1650s.
The 94 compositions in this ‘Spiritual Harmonic Theatre of Madrigals’ all have poetic texts that are dramatic at least in a general sense, and all are based on biblical or hagiographical sources.
The texts show some relationships to those of the 16th-century laude, but they tend to be longer and more dramatic.
14 of the madrigals are marked ‘dialogo’, and at least seven of these are sufficiently extended and close enough in conception to the oratorio of the mid-century to be termed oratorios:
Deh non vedete voi, Deh pensate ò mortali, Diteci pastorelli, Due figli un padre havea, Eccone al gran Damasco, Il vecchio Isach and Mentre su l´alto monte.
The longest and most dramatically developed of these, requiring about 20 minutes in performance, is
“Eccone al gran Damasco”,
based on the story of the conversion of San Paolo.
This work employs soloists for individuals (Narrator, tenor; Saul, tenor; Voice from Heaven, bass; and Ananias, tenor), a double eight-part chorus for groups within the drama (soldiers and angels) as well as for non-dramatic comments and reflections, and a five-part instrumental ensemble to play a ‘Combattimento con voci & instromenti’ and to double the final chorus.
The music of this work, and of the Teatro compositions in general, is in a concertato madrigal style, with relatively conservative, contrapuntally influenced sections for solo voice and organ bass accompaniment.
It is chiefly this conservative element, and the lack of distinction between recitative and aria styles, that distinguishes these early oratorios from those of the 1640s and 1650s.
LITURGICAL USE.
These works from the Teatro are oratorios not only in general conception but in function as well, for Anerio composed this book at the request of Oratio Griffi, the maestro di cappella of S Girolamo della Carità, for use in the vespertino services of the oratory of that church.
There is also clear evidence that the book was used in the oratorio at the Chiesa Nuova. Griffi was the author of the book´s dedication to the deceased Neri, in which he spoke of Neri´s use of music ‘to draw, with a sweet deception, the sinners to the holy exercises of the Oratory´, and this was the purpose of the Teatro.
Other works that appear to have been performed in the oratory at the Chiesa Nuova are more than 100 pieces found in three Roman manuscripts (I-Rn Mus.25 and 26 and I-Rv Z.122-30; Morelli, 1991, pp.67-72).
All have Italian texts set for four to eight voices and continuo.
Some are laude, but others are madrigali spirituali in the form of dramatic dialogues comparable with those in Anerio´s Teatro.
Among the composers represented in these manuscripts are Felice and G.F. Anerio, Giovanni de Macque, Ruggiero Giovannelli and Francesco Martini.
Further evidences of the repertory of the Roman oratory are found in two inventories (dated 1620 and 1622) of music owned by
La Congregazione dell´Oratorio in Bologna, which generally sought to follow the practices of the original congregation in Rome.
These works suggest that a considerable amount of monodic music, some with dramatic texts, was used in the oratories of both Rome and Bologna during the second decade of the 17th century.
Among the printed volumes listed in the inventory are Paolo Quagliati´s Affetti amorosi spirituali (Rome, 1617), and G.F. Anerio´s Selva armonica (Rome, 1617), Ghirlanda di sacre rose (Rome, 1619) and Teatro.
By the mid-17th century (secondo seicento) two closely related types of oratorio had developed, the oratorio latino and the “oratorio volgare”, using texts in Latin and Italian respectively.
In Rome at this period the oratorio latino appears to have been fostered exclusively in the services of the aristocratic
L’Oratorio del Santo Crocefisso, not related to but probably influenced by the oratories at the Chiesa Nuova and S Girolamo della Carità.
The last-named oratories, on the other hand, seem to have concentrated on the “oratorio volgare”, which aimed at a broader spectrum of the Roman public.
It is clear from the records of the oratorio at the Chiesa Nuova that music became increasingly important and elaborate there in the 1620s and 1630s under the leadership of the well-known soprano virtuoso and oratorian
Girolamo Rosini (1581-1644), prefect of music for the oratory from 1623 until his death.
Nevertheless, from the time of Anerio’s Teatro to 1630 no extant music is known that documents the further development of the “oratorio volgare”.
Several librettos and musical compositions dating from about 1630 to 1640, however, reveal some of the developments of that decade.
The poet Ottavio Tronsarelli´s Drammi musicali (Rome, 1632) includes four sacred texts that might have been intended to be set to music for performance in oratories.
Three of these are in one section or ‘act’:
La figlia de Iefte
La contessa delle virtù
L´essequie di Cristo.
and a fourth,
-- Faraone sommerso,
is a large work in three sections.
In Domenico Mazzocchi´s Madrigali (Rome, 1638) and his Musiche sacre e morali (Rome, 1640) there appear musical settings of portions of a long epic-lyrical poem by Giovanni Ciampoli (1589-1643), Coro di profeti, per la festa della Sant’Annuntiata, cantata nell´Oratorio della Chiesa nuova.
The entire libretto was first published posthumously in Ciampoli´s Poesie sacre (Bologna, 1648).
There is reason to believe that Mazzocchi may have set the entire text to music for the oratory and selected only these excerpts for publication.
This large libretto in three sections, although not called an oratorio in its source, clearly deserves that name for its remarkable length (over 500 lines of poetry) and its essentially narrative and contemplative character.
Della Valle´s contribution to the oratorio volgare, his
Dialogo della Purificazione (I-Rn Mus.123)
is exceptionally brief, as mentioned above, consisting of only 59 poetic lines.
Apart from being the earliest extant work to be referred to as an oratorio, it is also a curious piece of experimental music.
It is one of della Valle´s works in which he attempted to revive ancient Greek tunings, and its performance requires specially constructed instruments if the composer´s intentions are to be fully realized.
Two librettos by the poet Francesco Balducci (1579-1642),
“La fede: oratorio” and
“Il trionfo: oratorio”,
have the distinction of being the earliest printed works to bear the term ‘oratorio’ in their titles as genre designations.
Both were published posthumously in the second volume of Balducci´s Rime (Rome, 1645-6).
“La fede: oratorio” is a narrative dramatic poem of over 450 lines in two sections, labelled ‘Parte prima’ and ‘Parte seconda’.
The poem is based on the Vieccho Testamento story of Abraham´s sacrifice of Isaac, and includes long narrative parts marked ‘Historia’, as well as roles for Abraham, Isaac, a chorus of virgins and a chorus of sages.
“Il trionfo: oratorio” is less than half as long as La fede and consists of only one section; it is essentially a contemplative, lyrical and allegorical work glorifying the Virgin, with a chorus, two brief passages labelled ‘Historia’ and only one other solo role, that of the Virgin.
Among the most advanced examples of the “oratorio volgare” in the mid-17th century are the following: Carissimi´s “Daniele”; an anonymous “Daniele” (possibly by Francesco Foggia); Marco Marazzoli´s “San Tomaso: oratorio à 5”; two anonymous works, “Giuseppe” and “Oratorio per la Settimana Santa” (the earliest known oratorio based on the Passion); and “Santa Caterina” (attributed to Marazzoli in Mischiati, 1962-3).
The texts of these works are poetic and are based on the Old Testament, New Testament and hagiography.
All are dramatic and include several characters in addition to a chorus (probably sung by an ensemble of the soloists), which represents the roles of groups within the drama and at times comments on the dramatic action.
Most of these works include narrative lines labelled ‘Testo’, set for a soloist.
All are divided into two sections, identified either as ‘Prima’ and ‘Seconda parte’ or ‘Prima’ and ‘Seconda cantata’.
Each section concludes with a chorus, sometimes called a ‘madrigale’ in the manuscript source.
Such works were performed without scenery or action, and, when they were given in an oratorio, a sermon was preached between the two sections.
The time required for the performance of these oratorios ranges from about 30 minutes to slightly more than an hour.
The music is like that of operas and secular cantatas of the period.
Recitative, arioso and aria styles are all used.
The blending of two or even all three of these within a relatively brief passage is common.
ORATORIO ARIA:
Among the arias the formal procedures used are the through-composed, strophic variation, ground bass and ABA forms, various rondo-like schemes, and binary forms with repeated sections.
Ensembles and choruses use both imitative and chordal styles in the manner of the late polyphonic madrigal.
Some of the works call for no instruments other than those used for the basso continuo.
When other instruments are specified, they are two violins, normally used for introductions to oratorios, supporting passages during choruses and ritornellos for choruses, ensembles and arias.
Rarely do they accompany a solo voice.
Among the works of the mid-century that do not conform to the norm of the 17th-century “oratorio volgare”, generally because of their more contemplative texts, are Carissimi´s “Oratorio della Santa Vergine” and Marazzoli´s “Per il giorno della resurrezione: oratorio à 6”.
A number of brief compositions (in one section of about eight to 12 minutes) of the mid-century resemble the normal “oratorio volgare” in virtually every respect except length; although some of these were certainly performed in oratories, they are rarely called oratorios in their sources (e.
g. della Valle´s “Oratorio della Purificazione”, mentioned above; Mario Savioni´s brief Oratorio per ogni tempo is an exception).
Rather, they were usually given a variety of other names, such as ‘cantata’, ‘concerto’ or ‘dialogo’.
Examples are Savioni´s Concerti morali e spirituali a tre voci (Rome, 1660); in the preface of this publication the composer promised to follow these works with a book of madrigali spirituali for five voices, to be sung at the end of each concerto, ‘thus, cantatas for oratories will be completed’.
He made good his promise in his Madrigali morali e spirituali (Rome, 1668).
Other works differing from oratorios only in their brevity were published in Agostino Diruta´s Poesie heroiche morali e sacre (Rome, 1646) and Teodoro Massucci´s Dialoghi spirituali (Rome, 1648).
From the musical standpoint the oratorio latino and volgare are not separate genres but one genre in different languages.
Both developed in the first half of the 17th century in Rome, and some of the same composers set oratorio texts in both languages, using the same style for both types.
From the literary standpoint, however, the oratorio volgare and latino differ considerably in the earliest period of their development.
The “oratorio volgare” uses a poetic text throughout, as is normally true of laude, madrigals, cantatas and operas.
The “oratorio latino” employs a text largely in prose, as do most motets. Thus motets with narrative and dramatic texts, as described above, might be considered the chief antecedents of the oratorio latino.
The Roman oratory in which the oratorio latino first developed, the Oratorio del SS Crocifisso (related to the church of S Marcello), was the meeting place of a religious society of Roman noblemen called “L’Arciconfraternita del Santo Crocifisso”, founded in the 16th century.
--- La arciconfraternita dell’oratorio.
The “arciconfraternita”´s chief ceremonies in which music was prominent were those on the five Fridays of Lent (Quaresima).
There is no known record of the compositions performed at the Oratorio del Santo Crocifisso during the late 16th century and early 17th; evidently no corpus of music was composed specifically for this oratorio, as the laude and Anerio´s Teatro were for the oratories of the Chiesa Nuova and S Girolamo della Carità.
Since Latin was the favoured language for the musical texts, however, motets were probably used.
Among the musicians in charge of the music at the Crocifisso in the late 16th century and early 17th were some of Rome´s most famous composers in both the stile antico and modern.
They included Palestrina, Marenzio, G.F. Anerio, Quagliati, G.M. and G.B. Nanino, Ottavio Catalani, Paolo Tarditi,
Stefano Landi,
Giovannelli, Virgilio Mazzocchi, Foggia, Loreto Vittori, Carissimi and others.
Since the oratorio was beginning to develop at S Girolamo della Carità and the Chiesa Nuova in the first third of the century, as Anerio´s Teatro indicates, it is reasonable to assume that it was also developing at this oratory and that some of the motets performed there in the same period were Latin dialogue motets with dramatic texts, like those mentioned above.
In fact, the librettist Arcangelo Spagna, in his early 18th-century sketch of the origin and history of the oratorio latino, traced its origin directly to motets that were used as substitutes for parts of the liturgy:
‘The Latin oratorios, in the beginning, were like those motets which are continually sung in the choirs of the religious and formerly were heard on every feast day instead of the antiphons, graduals and offertories’.
By 1639 oratorios appear to have been performed in the Oratorio del Santo Crocifisso, for in that year the French viol player André Maugars visited the oratory and heard two musical settings of biblical stories, one from the Old Testament before the sermon and another from the New Testament after the sermon.
In 1640 della Valle entered in his diary an account of a performance at the Oratorio del Santo Crocifisso of a work which he called his ‘Dialogo di Esther’; but he also referred to it as an oratorio in a letter to Doni the same year, and again in a letter of a few years later.
The music, which has not survived, is the earliest composition with a Latin text known to have been called an oratorio by its composer.
From della Valle´s comments about his Esther, it appears to have been similar in conception and duration to his Purificatione, mentioned above.
Carissimi was the most significant composer of Latin oratorios in the mid-17th century.
His reputation and influence as an oratorio composer extended beyond Rome and Italy to northern Europe in his own time, and more of his Latin oratorios are extant than of any of his contemporaries.
Scholars have differed considerably in regard to the number of Carissimi´s works with Latin texts that might justifiably be classified as oratorios, chiefly because all of the composer´s autograph manuscripts of his oratorios are lost and the surviving copies, mostly French sources, bear inconsistent and questionable genre designations.
For a survey of conflicting opinions regarding the number of Latin oratorios by Carissimi, see Smither: ‘Carissimi´s Latin Oratorios’, 1976.
Nevertheless, if one classifies as oratorios all of Carissimi´s Latin works that are similar in text, musical setting and duration to other composers´ works called oratorios in Italian sources of mid-17th-century Rome, one arrives at a total of 13 works which, with varying degrees of proximity to the norm of the genre, may be called oratorios.
Of these 13, eight may be classed as oratorios without qualification:
Baltazar
Ezechias
Il Diluvium universal
Dives malus
Jephte
Jonas
Judicium extremum
Judicium Salomonis.
These are the longest of Carissimi´s oratorios, and they require the largest performing groups, most of them making considerable use of the chorus.
According to the approach to classification suggested above, five other works may be considered oratorios with the qualification that they are exceptional because of their brevity:
Abraham et Isaac
Duo ex discipulis
Job
Martyres
Vir frugi et pater familias.
The works of this group make less use of chorus; because of their brevity the term ‘motet’ would suit them as well as ‘oratorio’.
All of Carissimi´s Latin oratorios are in one section only, which is normal for the Latin oratorio of the mid-century.
Eight of the texts are based on stories from the Old Testament, two on those from the New Testament and three on fragments from both.
Two of the texts are non-biblical.
Those based on biblical stories employ primarily narrative and dialogue texts (i.e. with few contemplative sections).
The narrative passages, sometimes designated ‘Historicus’, are set to music for one or more soloists, an ensemble or a chorus, and the characters in the drama are represented by soloists.
Exact biblical quotations of more than one or two verses are rare, but extended biblical paraphrases are common.
Important in the general structure of Carissimi´s oratorios are repetitions of instrumental ritornellos, of choruses, and of solo passages in aria style.
The styles of the solo parts range from relatively simple recitative through a more expressive recitativo arioso to that of a clearly structured aria.
Carissimi set some passages of considerable length in only one of these styles, but he more often mixed them within a single solo to express changing attitudes in the text, a procedure also employed in the oratorio volgare and in opera of this period.
Relatively long, independent sections in aria style that may be called arias (but are never so called in the sources) are normally through-composed, or in AB, ABB or strophic-variation forms.
The chorus plays a more prominent role in Carissimi´s Latin oratorios than in most of those of his contemporaries. Usually the chorus represents a group of individuals in the drama; at times, however, it functions as a narrator or as a commentator on the action.
The choruses range in size from three parts to triple choruses in 12 parts.
They are predominantly chordal, and their rhythm is usually based on the accents of the text.
Fugal texture plays only an incidental role. In the double and triple choruses an antiphonal style is used, often with quick alternations of the choruses in which the entering chorus begins on the final pitches of the concluding one. Of special interest in Carissimi´s oratorios is his careful attention to the declamation and expression of the text; he was particularly skilful in the use of rhetorical figures in music.
Most important among Carissimi´s contemporaries for their Latin oratorios were Domenico Mazzocchi (seven oratorios, most of which are called dialogues, in his Sacrae concertationes, Rome, 1664), Virgilio Mazzocchi (one oratorio, Ego ille quondam, in D. Mazzocchi´s Sacrae concertationes and in I-Bc Q45; his Beatum Franciscum in the same manuscript is better classed as a motet than an oratorio), Marazzoli (five oratorios in I-Rvat Chigi Q.VIII.188), Foggia (two oratorios in I-Bc Q43) and Bonifatio Gratiani (two oratorios in I-Bc Q43).
Gratiani´s are the only known Latin oratorios in two sections by a composer active in the mid-17th century.
By the 1660s (Secondo Seicento) the oratorio was a firmly established genre not only in Rome but also in other Italian cities, and its cultivation beyond the Alps had begun.
Oratorios continued to function in a more or less devotional context in oratories; during the course of the later 17th century and early 18th, however, they were performed with increasing frequency in the palaces (palazzo) of noblemen, where they functioned as quasi-secular entertainments, often as substitutes for opera during Lent (quaresima) when the theatres were closed.
In Rome the chief centres of oratorio performances in a devotional context continued to be the oratori, particularly those of
Oratorio di San Girolamo della Carità,
Oratorio della Chiesa Nuova
the Oratorio del Santo Crocifisso.
These oratories had become famous musical centres by the middle of the century, and during the second half of the century oratorios began to dominate their services, making the oratorio increasingly a place of entertainment; yet the practice of preaching a sermon between the two sections of an oratorio was retained.
Oratorios were also performed at educational institutions in Rome, such as the Jesuits´ Seminario Romano and the Collegio Clementino.
Performances in an essentially secular context frequently took place in the private palaces of such patrons as Queen Christina of Sweden, Cardinals Benedetto Pamphili and Pietro Ottoboni and Prince Ruspoli.
In a private palace an oratorio performance was a purely secular affair, usually with refreshments served to the guests during the interval between the work´s two sections.
Oratorios continued to be performed without operatic staging in this period, but the platform provided for the orchestra and singers would at times be elaborately decorated, with a painted background relevant to the subject of the oratorio; such was the stage for Handel´s oratorio
“La resurrezione” when given at the Ruspoli residence in Rome on Easter Sunday and Monday, 1708.
Cfr. the stage for G.B. Costanzi´s Componimento sacro per la festività del SS Natale (libretto by Metastasio), performed in Rome at the Palazzo della Cancelleria in 1727 for the annual Christmas meeting of the Arcadian Academy.
This is clearly a ‘concert’ performance.
The singers are seated (while singing, with books in their hands) in the centre of an elaborately decorated stage; string instruments are placed behind them, and the other instruments are in the orchestra pit.
In the Vatican Apostolic Palace, works approximating to oratorios (called oratorios in Marx, 1992, and cantatas in Gianturco, 1993) were performed on Christmas Eve in the second half of the 17th century and throughout much of the 18th.
Until 1714 these tended to be in one part only; thereafter, however, most were in two parts.
Among the most prominent oratorio composers active in Rome during this period were
Pasquini
Stradella,
Alessandro Scarlatti,
Caldara and, briefly, Handel.
A host of less prominent oratorio composers active there included Alessandro Melani, Antonio Masini, Ercole Bernabei, Antonio Foggia, Giovanni Bicilli, Giuseppe Pacieri, G.F. Garbi, Giuseppe Scalamani, Quirino Colombani, Gregorio Cola, G.B. Costanzi, F.C. Lanciani, Domenico Laurelli, G.L. Lulier, T.B. Gaffi and C.F. Cesarini.
Most of these men are named as composers in printed librettos, but few of their oratorio scores have survived.
Among the oratorio librettists active in Rome were Cardinals
Pamphili and
Ottoboni,
Sebastiano Lazarini and
Arcangelo Spagna.
Lazarini published a collection of ten of his librettos under the title “Sacra melodia di oratorii musicali” (Rome, 1678), and Spagna published at least 30 oratorio librettos, which appeared in his
“Oratorii overo melodrammi sacri” (Rome, 1706) and
“I fasti sacri” (Rome, 1720).
Spagna is also important for his treatise on the improvement of the oratorio libretto,
“Discorso intorno a gl´oratori”,
printed at the beginning of his
“Oratorii overo melodrammi sacri”.
Silvio Stampiglia, G.B. Grappelli, Francesco Posterla, G.F. Rubini, Bernardo Sandrinelli and Francisco Laurentino also wrote librettos for Roman oratorios.
Other Italian cities important for the development of the oratorio in this period are Bologna, Modena, Florence and Venice.
In Bologna, judging primarily from information given in the librettos printed there, oratorios were sponsored not only by the oratorians, at their church of the Madonna di Galliera, but by a number of other religious societies as well, including the Arciconfraternita di Santa Maria della Morte, the Arciconfraternita de´ SS Sebastiano e Rocco, the Venerabile Compagnia detta de´ Fiorentini, the Venerandi Confratelli del SS Sacramento, the Veneranda Compagnia della Carità, the Arciconfraternita della SS Trinità, the Veneranda Confratelli di S Maria della Cintura and the Confraternita de´ Poveri della Regina de´ Cieli.
Among other places of performances were the oratorio of San Domenico and the church of San Petronio.
Performances of oratorios throughout the year marked a variety of occasions, including church feasts, the taking of religious vows, the visits of dignitaries and the celebration of such events as marriages or baptisms.
More oratorios were performed during Quaresima than in any other season.
Oratorios were given in both secular and sacred contexts
in such Bolognese academies as the Accademia dei Unanimi, the Accademia degli Anziani and the Accademia delle Belle Lettere.
Likewise in private palaces the contexts of oratorio performances were either sacred or secular.
Cazzati´s “Il transito di San Giuseppe”, for instance, was performed in 1665, with a sermon between the two sections, in the private oratorio of the palace of the Marquis Giuseppe Maria Paleotti.
Yet performances in private residences in Bologna had at times much the same secular atmosphere as did those in Rome - that of social gatherings for the entertainment of the aristocracy.
Nearby Modena was closely related to Bologna in its musical life, and many of the same composers were active in both cities.
The most important patron of the oratorio in Modena was Duke Francesco II d´Este, and the favoured place of the oratorio performances that he sponsored was the oratorio of the Congregazione di San Carlo.
Modena´s period of greatest oratorio activity was 1677-1702, during which 113 performances were given (Crowther, 1992, appx 1).
The repertory of oratorios given in the Bologna-Modena area included some works by composers of Rome, Venice and other cities, yet numerous local composers were also active.
Among the most important were Cazzati, G.P. Colonna, Antonio Giannettini, G.A. Perti, G.B. Bononcini and Vitali.
These composers and many others are represented in the Bologna and Modena libraries and archives by manuscript scores and printed librettos of oratorios.
The two poets who are represented by more librettos than any other in this repertory are G.A. Bergamori and G.B. Giardini.
In Florence
La Congregazione dell´Oratorio
was established at the church of San Firenze in 1632 and began to perform oratorios probably in the 1650s.
For the rest of the 17th century and throughout the 18th the oratorians of Florence were the most active sponsors of oratorio performances in the city.
Following the lead of the Congregazione dell´Oratorio in Rome, the Florentine oratorians presented an oratorio every Sunday and on selected feast days from All Saints´ Day (1 November) to Palm Sunday (Hill, 1979).
Most of these oratorios, which were by native Florentine composers, are lost, but many printed librettos survive.
Oratorios were also presented in Florence by the lay confraternities, in particular the Compagnia dell´Arcangelo Raffaello, the Compagnia di S Bernardino e S Caterina, the Compagnia di S Niccolò, the Compagnia di S Jacopo, and the Compagnia della Purificazione detta di S Marco and its subsidiary, the Ospizio del Melani (Hill, 1986).
Among the oratorio composers active in Florence were G.M. Casini, A.F. Piombi, G.M. Orlandini, F.M. Veracini, Carlo Arrigoni, G.N.R. Redi and Bartolomeo Felici.
Of special importance among the other oratorio composers of Tuscany is G.C.M. Clari, of Pistoia (Fanelli, 1998).
In Venice the oratorians initiated their activities in 1661 in the church of S Maria della Consolazione, detta della Fava.
The earliest oratorios were performed in the oratory of that church, probably as early as 1667 but at least by 1671, according to the oratorians´ extant records.
The account books of the oratorians show that Giovanni Legrenzi´s oratorios were composed for them.
The oratorians continued, with some interruptions, to present oratorios until the late 18th century (Arnold, 1986).
Oratorios began to be performed in the conservatories of Venice in 1677, when the Ospedale degli Incurabili presented its first oratorio, Carlo Pallavicino´s S Francesco Xaverio.
The majority of the oratorios given at the Venetian conservatories in the late Baroque period were in Latin.
These institutions and the Crocifisso in Rome were highly exceptional in Italy for their cultivation of the oratorio latino.
Among the composers of oratorios who were active in Venice in this period, in addition to Legrenzi and Pallavicino, were Pollarolo, Caldara (until 1700), Gasparini (after 1700), Lotti and Vivaldi.
Among the librettists of Venetian oratorios are Bernardo Sandrinelli, Nicolò Minato (more important for Vienna than Venice), F. M. Piccioli, G.M. Giannini, Pietro Pariati, Z. Vallaresso and J. Cassetti.
The libretto of an oratorio from about 1660 to about 1720 is an extended poem of about 350-450 lines, characteristically in two sections.
When set to music its performance time is about one and a half to two hours, with those in the earlier part of the period tending to be shorter than the later ones.
Oratorios in three or more sections are rare.
Slightly less exceptional are those in only one.
Brief spiritual cantatas for two or more voices, using dialogue between characters and sometimes including narrative passages, continued to be used in Italian oratories throughout the Baroque period.
These are usually designated by a term other than ‘oratorio’, as may be seen in Cazzati´s Diporti spirituali per camera e per oratorii (Bologna, 1668) and G.C. Predieri’s Cantate morali e spirituali (Bologna, 1696).
A few, however, are actually given the term of the larger form, as are Ghezzi´s Oratorii sacri a tre voci (Bologna, 1700) and Albergati´s Cantate et oratorii spirituali (Bologna, 1714).
The chief sources of oratorio librettos are the Bible, hagiography and moral allegory.
For biblical librettos, stories from the Old Testament were much more frequently employed than from the New.
Of the relatively few texts based on the New Testament, those on the Passione, without narrative sections and in poetic form, appear to have been the most numerous and are found mostly in the repertory of the Bologna-Modena area.
Hagiographical texts were used with increasing frequency from the mid-17th century to the early 18th until they rivalled, and with some poets and composers surpassed, the number of Old Testament texts.
The prominence of hagiographical subjects for oratorios has been attributed to the influence of the Counter-Reformation in general, and to that of Jesuit dramas in particular.
The Jesuit dramas had turned increasingly to hagiographical stories of conversion since about 1590 in an effort to further the process of conversion called for by the Council of Trent.
Since the oratorio was so important in Rome within the cultural milieu of the Counter-Reformation, it is not surprising that many oratorio librettos reflect aspects of Counter-Reformation sensibility:
Heroism
Mysticism
Asceticism
gruesomeness and
eroticism are all present.
Most prominent are the first three of these, but gruesomeness and eroticism are occasionally found.
The erotic element is important in the oratorios that stress the sensual aspects of female characters such as
Susanna
Judith
Esther and
Maria Maddalena
and emphasize love scenes of a worldly, operatic nature.
The oratorio with sensual emphasis has been termed the
‘oratorio erotico’.
Until about the last decade of the 17th century narrative sections, usually labelled ‘testo’, but sometimes ‘textus’, ‘poeta’, ‘storico’ or ‘historicus’, were common in oratorio librettos.
In the 18th century, however, Italian librettists virtually abandoned such narrative sections and relied exclusively on dramatic dialogue.
Oratorios usually required three to five soloists throughout this period, although exceptional works in the 17th century include as many as nine to 16 solo roles.
Following the lead of opera, oratorio in Italy nearly abandoned the chorus in the second half of the 17th century and the early 18th.
The few choruses used in oratorios are generally quite brief, and the composer usually set the text so that they could be sung by an ensemble of the soloists who sang the dramatic roles.
The requirement of a separate choral group for the performance of an oratorio is rare in Italy after Carissimi.
The development of the musical style of oratorio from about 1660 to about 1720 followed closely that of opera.
This development may be divided into two phases, one from the 1660s to the 1680s, and another from the 1680s to about 1720.
Even before the 1720s, early Classical style traits are clearly in evidence in the music of some oratorio composers.
From the 1720s these traits grew increasingly prominent, although for some time to come they were still mixed with traits of the late Baroque style.
As pointed out above, there are Roman, Bolognese-Modenese, Florentine and Venetian ‘schools’ of oratorio composers in the sense that certain composers wrote oratorios primarily for those centres.
From the standpoint of musical style, however, the extant oratorios of these composers show far more similarities than differences.
There seems to be a single, basic, ‘pan-Italian’ style within each phase, with only slight local variants.
Thus what has often been called the ‘Venetian’ style in discussions of opera is found equally in oratorios of Rome, Florence, Bologna and Modena, as well as Venice; likewise, the so-called ‘Neapolitan’ style seems to appear as early in Venice and Rome as in Naples.
From about 1660 to about 1720 most oratorios required three to five voices to sing the solo roles, and these united in ensembles of characters and in those few numbers marked ‘coro’ or ‘madrigale’.
Among the more important characteristics of the earlier phase, from the 1660s to the 1680s, are the small number of instruments normally required (either basso continuo alone, or two or three string parts plus continuo); the free intermingling of passages in recitative, arioso and aria styles; the predominance of arias accompanied only by basso continuo.
The relatively brief arias in strophic, modified strophic, binary or ternary forms (the ABB1 form is the most common, while ABA and ABA1 forms are infrequent, and the designation ‘da capo’ is virtually non-existent); and the basso-ostinato unification of arias.
The extant oratorios of Legrenzi –
Il Sedecia
La vendita del core umano and
La morte del cor penitente –
clearly represent this phase in the genre´s development, as do most of those by Stradella –
Ester
Susanna
San Giovanni Chrisostomo
Sant’Editta
Santa Pelagia);
Stradella´s San Giovanni Battista, one of the greatest works from this phase of the oratorio´s development, is exceptional for its large orchestra, using concerto grosso instrumentation.
In the 1680s and 1690s many oratorios continued to exhibit the characteristics described above, but new styles and structures grew increasingly important and dominated by the first decade of the 18th century.
Among the new characteristics are the tendency to use a larger and more colourful orchestra with concerto grosso instrumentation, the predominance of orchestrally accompanied arias, the occasional use of orchestrally accompanied recitative, the regular alternation of recitatives and arias, the predominance of the da capo form for arias and small ensembles and more elaborate coloratura passages.
The arias also show a clearer stylization in their expressions of such affections as
rage, vengeance, militarism, joy, lamentation, love and pastoral bliss, and in their programmatic imitations of phenomena such as birdcalls, storms, wind, ocean waves and waterfalls.
Early Classical tendencies (in particular the light, simple style favouring dance rhythms, balanced phrases and homophonic textures with slow harmonic rhythm) clearly appear in the second decade of the 18th century, especially in Caldara´s Roman oratorios.
Of primary significance for the history of this genre are the oratorios of Alessandro Scarlatti, which reflect the development of the oratorio from the 1690s to the end of the second decade of the 18th century, except that early Classical elements are virtually absent from them.
Handel´s La resurrezione (1708) is a masterly example of the contemporary oratorio volgare.
Vivaldi´s Juditha (1716) mixes early Classical elements with its essentially late Baroque style and shows that the oratorio latino is identical in every musical respect to the more fashionable oratorio volgare.
Caldara´s Roman oratorio
Santa Flavia Domitilla (1713) clearly reveals early Classical features.
The Italian oratorio was performed primarily in the Roman Catholic courts of Europe, where it usually functioned as a Lenten substitute for the extremely popular Italian opera and thus was accessible only to the aristocracy.
While the Dresden court and numerous smaller ones adopted the genre only in the 18th century, the Habsburg court in Vienna did so as early as the mid-17th century.
Particularly prominent for its cultivation of Italian opera, the Viennese court also became the most important centre of sacred dramatic music in the Italian language outside Italy.
Emperor Leopold I (1658-1705), both an avid patron of Italian music and a composer of at least nine sacred dramatic compositions, wrote the earliest oratorio known to have been performed in Vienna,
“Il sacrifizio d´Abramo” (1660).
Other patrons of the oratorio were Leopold´s stepmother, Eleonora, who was the empress dowager, and the Emperors Joseph I (1705-11) and Charles VI (1711-40), both of whom were musicians.
The most active period of oratorio cultivation closed with the death of Charles VI. Among the 17th-century composers of sacred dramatic music in Vienna, Antonio Draghi was the most prolific; others, in addition to Leopold I, were Antonio Bertali, Cesti, G.B. Pederzuoli, G.F. Sances and P.A. Ziani. Later composers (17th and 18th centuries) were C.A. Badia, F.T. Richter, P.F. Tosi and M.A. Ziani.
The latest period of Baroque oratorios in Vienna, being in the second decade of the 18th century, is best represented by the works of Caldara and Fux; composers of oratorios for Vienna in this late period whose works show a mixture of late Baroque and early Classical styles are Giovanni Bononcini, A.M. Bononcini, F.B. Conti, Matteo Pallota, Giuseppe Porsile, L.A. Predieri and the elder Georg Reutter.
Most important among the librettists of Viennese sacred dramatic works in the 17th century are Draghi and Minato; among the early 18th-century oratorio librettists of note are Pariati, G.C. Pasquini and Stampiglia. Of special significance are the two most famous 18th-century librettists Zeno and Metastasio (see below).
Sacred dramatic music at Vienna was identified by a number of terms, among them ‘oratorio’, ‘oratorio per il santissimo sepolcro’, ‘componimento sacro’, ‘rappresentazione sacra’ and ‘azione sacra’.
The 17th-century repertory may be generally divided, however, into two related genres, the oratorio and the sepolcro. The oratorio is normally in two sections, unstaged, and similar in virtually every other respect to the oratorio volgare of the second half of the 17th century in Italy; its general function was also similar, as both were Lenten substitutes for opera, but its immediate context differed, for it was performed in a court chapel as a part of a semi-liturgical service. The 17th-century sepolcro, which was often termed ‘rappresentazione sacra’, is like the Italian oratorio in text and music, with the following exceptions: it is normally in one section only, its text is restricted to the description or interpretation of the Passion, its performances were restricted to Maundy Thursday and Good Friday and it was performed with scenery, costumes and action.
The principal element of the scenery was the holy sepulchre of Christ, which was usually erected in the choir of the court chapel of Eleonora and in the main court chapel, the Hofburgkapelle. (The tradition of erecting sepulchres in the churches of Vienna to commemorate the Passion and death of Christ from Maundy Thursday to Holy Saturday can be documented as early as the beginning of the 15th century.) According to stage directions in extant sources, a curtain opened at the beginning of the performance to reveal the sepulchre, and in the course of the sepolcro the members of the cast were required to perform actions appropriate to the circumstances of the drama (e.g. to weep, carry a cross, lift a veil, kneel or bring flowers). For performances of Draghi´s sepolcri (which appear to be generally characteristic of the 17th-century sepolcro) in the chapel of Eleonora, the only scenery was the sepulchre; in the Hofburgkapelle, however, the sepulchre was supplemented by a large backdrop of painted scenery (see fig.4). In the early 18th century the tradition of erecting a sepulchre was continued at the Hofburgkapelle, but the works performed at the sepulchre were usually oratorios in two sections; at least seven of Caldara´s Viennese oratorios are specified to be performed at the sepulchre.
Of special importance for the Italian oratorio in the 18th century are the libretto changes that took place in the works of Zeno and Metastasio.
As the court poet from 1718 to 1729, Zeno wrote librettos for both operas and oratorios. Among his aims as an oratorio librettist were the restriction of oratorios to subjects found in the Bible, the adherence to the Aristotelian unities of action, time and place, and the creation of spiritual tragedies which would be suitable even as spoken dramas, though intended to be set to music as oratorios.
Zeno also opposed the introduction of divine personages in the oratorio.
Most of Zeno´s 17 oratorio librettos were first set to music by Caldara.
Zeno´s successor as court poet in 1730, Metastasio, one of the greatest poets of his time, retained many of the changes introduced by his predecessor.
Of Metastasio’s eight oratorio librettos, two of these were first set to music by Caldara, three by the elder Reutter, one by Porsile and one by Predieri.
Like Zeno, Metastasio preferred biblical subjects, and only one of his Viennese librettos, Sant´Elena al Calvario (1731), is non-biblical.
Metastasio also sought to adhere to the Aristotelian unities, and he avoided introducing divine personages.
But unlike his predecessor, Metastasio clearly distinguished between the libretto for an oratorio and one for a staged drama.
Thus his oratorio librettos tend to concentrate on the inner, psychological development of the drama, the external events themselves being outside the poetry, which only refers to them.
The appropriateness of Metastasio´s oratorio librettos for an unstaged musical genre and their highly polished literary style no doubt account for their being the favoured librettos of composers of Italian oratorios throughout the 18th century.
Until the first decade of the 18th century the musical style of Viennese oratorios remained similar to that of oratorios in Italy, but in the period of Fux and Caldara the style became more elaborate.
After 1716, the year of his arrival in Vienna from Rome, where his music had become increasingly galant, Caldara considerably modified his style by making it conform more closely to that of Fux, whose music had been favoured at the Viennese court for several years. In the Viennese oratorios of both composers the orchestral accompaniments and independent numbers are more elaborate than was characteristic in Italy; solo vocal lines reveal little of the early Classical element but are typical of the late Baroque period in their long, spun-out phrases; the choruses, while not more numerous, tend to be longer and more contrapuntal.
Vienna was by far the most prominent centre of oratorio cultivation in Roman Catholic, German-speaking areas, but oratorios and oratorio-like works were at times performed elsewhere in Catholic Austria and Germany.
Of special importance are the early 17th-century Latin dialogues of Daniel Bollius, active at Mainz. His Latin sacred dramatic work titled Repraesentatio harmonica conceptionis et nativitatis S Joannis Baptistae … composita modo pathetico sive recitativo (?1620) has been called the ‘first oratorio in Italian style composed on German soil’ (Gottron, 1959).
Early Classical style traits are often present in music of the late Baroque period, as in the Roman oratorios of Caldara, but these traits become particularly prominent in works composed from the 1720s onwards by men such as Vinci, Pergolesi and Leo.
This new style, with its emphasis on homophonic texture and symmetrical phrases, among other important elements, has often been referred to as that of the ‘Neapolitan school’, for some of its best exponents were trained at Naples.
Nevertheless, these early Classical traits seem to appear in Venice, Rome and elsewhere as early as in Naples, and the style was favoured by numerous composers associated neither with Naples nor with Italy.
This style became increasingly prominent in Italian oratorios from the 1720s on, and in the 1770s the fully developed style of the Classical period emerged.
Composers of oratorios other than Vinci, Pergolesi and Leo, who were associated with Naples early in their careers and who composed in the early Classical and Classical styles are Porpora, Jommelli, Piccinni, G.F. Majo, Antonio Sacchini, Cimarosa, P.A. Guglielmi, Paisiello and Zingarelli.
Among composers of oratorios whose works were in the early Classical or Classical style but were associated with other Italian centres of oratorio composition are Galuppi and Bertoni in Venice, and G.B. Casali, G.B. Costanzi and Pasquale Anfossi in Rome.
Throughout the period considered here the oratorio volgare dominated in Italy; at the Crocifisso, in Rome, where the oratorio latino had been fostered since Carissimi´s time, oratorio performances ceased after 1710, except for Holy Year 1725, and only at the conservatories in Venice did the oratorio latino continue to be used through most of the 18th century.
The two-part structure of the Italian oratorio, common in the Baroque period, was retained throughout the 18th century and beyond, and the librettos of Metastasio were among the most popular of this period.
The primary emphasis in oratorios continued to be on solo singing, and the chorus was little used.
The chief aria form was the da capo, although it became increasingly modified late in the century.
Arias emphasizing vocal display, already prominent in late Baroque oratorios, continued to be important throughout the 18th century and well into the 19th.
Of interest in later 18th-century Italy was the occasional presentation of staged performances of oratorios.
Such performances eliminated an important distinction between the genres of opera and oratorio, leaving only the sacred subject matter and the two-part structure as the essential distinguishing features of the oratorio.
For example, Guglielmi´s
“Debora e Sisara”, with a libretto by Carlo Sernicola, was first performed in Lent of 1788 with operatic staging (with machines, but without dancing) at the Real Teatro di S Carlo in Naples.
In the libretto printed for the performance, the work is sub-titled
‘azione sacra per musica’, a common label for oratorios of the time; characteristically for an oratorio it is divided into a prima parte and seconda parte (the word for ‘act’, common in operas, was not normally used in Italian oratorios), and except for its staging it is like the contemporary oratorio in every respect, including a closing chorus.
There is even biblical documentation, in footnotes, in the printed libretto, as is found in many oratorio librettos of the period.
Staged performances of Italian oratorios appear to have been more common in Naples than elsewhere, but they were occasionally given in other cities of Italy and abroad.
Outside Italy the Italian oratorio continued to play an important role in musical life, particularly in Vienna.
The Viennese court patronage of oratorio was not as significant after the death of Charles VI (1740) as it had previously been, but Giuseppe Bonno and Salieri, among others, continued to compose oratorios for the court.
With the founding of the Tonkünstler-Societät (1771), oratorios at Vienna became increasingly a part of public concert life; Haydn´s only Italian oratorio, Il ritorno di Tobia (1775), was first performed at a concert of this society.
The Roman Catholic court at Dresden became one of the most significant centres of Italian oratorio cultivation outside Italy by composers in the early Classical and Classical styles. The most important contributor of oratorios at the Dresden court was the Neapolitan-trained Hasse; others before and after him who composed Italian oratorios for this cA. Ristori, J.D. Zelenka, J.D. Heinichen, Joseph Schuster, Franz Seydelmann and J.G. Naumann. Italian oratorio, like Italian opera, was exported to almost every part of Europe during this period, including England, the Low Countries, Spain, Portugal and Russia. ourt are G.
The 19th century was a period of decline for the Italian oratorio.
The genre lingered on, with little vigour and with conservative opera seria characteristics, while the ‘staged oratorio’, or sacred opera, became increasingly popular.
Among the most frequently performed sacred operas was Rossini´s “Mosè in Egitto”, a three-act work called an ‘azione tragico-sacra’ in its earliest version, first performed during Lent of 1818 at the Teatro S Carlo in Naples.
Among the unstaged oratorios in 19th-century Italy are Simon Mayr´s Samuele (1821); Paolo Bonfichi´s Il Genesi (1826); Mercadante´s Le sette ultime parole di Nostro Signore (1841); Teodulo Mabellini´s Eudossia e Paolo, o I martiri (1845); Pietro Raimondi´s trilogy Giuseppe (1847-8), curiously experimental in that its three constituent oratorios (Putifar, Giuseppe and Giacobbe) are intended to be performed either successively or simultaneously; Giovanni Pacini´s Il trionfo di Giuditta (1854); Paolo Serrao’s Gli Ortonesi in Scio (1858); and Jacopo Tomadini´s La risurrezione del Cristo (1864).
New directions were taken in oratorio composition around the turn of the century in Italy.
Lorenzo Perosi rejected the oratorio volgare of the 18th and 19th centuries, with its heavy dependence on opera, and in his 12 oratorios (among them La risurrezione di Cristo, 1898; La risurrezione di Lazzaro, 1898; Il natale del Redentore, 1899; La strage degli innocenti, 1900; and Il giudizio universale, 1904) he consciously returned to the format of the Carissimi period, although his scale was larger and his materials were post-Wagnerian.
Most of Perosi´s oratorios are in two sections and have Latin texts, including a storico, or narration, which, in the manner of Carissimi, is distributed among various vocal parts.
His aim was to achieve a more serious religious expression than had been characteristic of Italian oratorio in the previous two centuries; to this end he made use of Gregorian chant and adopted a quasi-liturgical attitude, particularly in the numerous choruses.
The oratorios of the Franciscan priest Pater Hartmann (Paul Eugen Josef von An der Lan-Hochbrunn) continue in the direction established by Perosi.
Of South Tyrolean origin, Hartmann was active mostly in Rome. His five oratorios (S Petrus, 1900; S Franciscus, 1901; La cena del Signore, 1904; La morte del Signore, 1906; and Septem ultima verba Christi, 1908) set Latin texts in a post-Wagnerian harmonic style.
Other 20th-century Italian oratorios include Wolf-Ferrari´s Talitha Kumi (1900), Malipiero´s S Francesco d´Assisi (1921), Licino Refice´s Trittico francescano (1926), Franco Vittadini´s L´agonia del Redentore (1933), Antonio Veretti´s Il figliuol prodigo (1942) and Luigi Dallapiccola´s Job (1950).
Composers of Oratorios
Scarlatti,
Bach (JS, JCE, KPE),
Telemann
Handel
Hayden
Mendelssohn
Schumann
Remember
An oratorio is a religious opera, without the action.
This is not a joke. I know "Storicus" sounds like a pseudo-Greek narration character from "Xena" - but, again, I am not making this up.
Lent stories were very popular subjects of oratorios - followed by Christmas stories. Oratorios started moving away from sacred subjects in the 1800's and just never recovered.
Handel is not English.
________________________________________
Post Script: Questions
Did Schumann write oratorios?
Yep. He wrote 2 oratorios.
Das Paradies und die Peri (1843) and
Der Rose Pilgerfahrt (1851 - right around when he finally finished his 4th symphony)
I know you're thinking: Wasn't Schubert the guy who wrote masses and religious pieces and such? Well, yeah - Schumann's oratorios were secular (non-religious) oratorios.
Secular oratorios?
Yes; secular oratorios.
Don't blame me - I just research this stuff.
Didn't you just say one of the defining features of an oratorio is that it is religious?
Um... Thank you for stopping by. Come back soon. Nice whether we're having... Gotta go! Bye!
(ordered chronologically by year of premiere)
CRONOLOGIA DEL’ORATORIO ITALIANO.
1600. De’Cavalieri
1716. Antonio Vivaldi, Juditha triumphans
1724 Johann Sebastian Bach, the St John Passion
• 1724 Georg Riedel (Altstadt Kantor), "monumental oratorio", the entire Gospel of Matthew
• 1727. Johann Sebastian Bach, the St Matthew Passion
• 1734 Johann Sebastian Bach, the Christmas Oratorio (1734)
•
• 1735, Johann Adolph Hasse, various including Serpentes ignei in deserto –
• 1732 George Frideric Handel, Esther
• 1733 George Frideric Handel, Deborah
• 1739 George Frideric Handel, Saul
• 1739 George Frideric Handel, Israel in Egypt
• 1741 George Frideric Handel, Messiah
• 1743 George Frideric Handel, Samson
• 1747 George Frideric Handel, Judas Maccabaeus (1747)
• 1748 George Frideric Handel, Joshua
• 1752 George Frideric Handel, Jephtha
• 1769 Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Die Israeliten in der Wüste
• 1798 Joseph Haydn La creazione
• 1801 Joseph Haydn, The Seasons
• 1803 Ludwig van Beethoven, Christ on the Mount of Olives
• 1836 Felix Mendelssohn, St. Paul
• 1843 Robert Schumann, Paradise and the Peri
• 1846 Felix Mendelssohn, Elijah
• 1854 Hector Berlioz, L'enfance du Christ
• 1862 Franz Liszt, Christus
• 1867 Théodore Dubois, Les sept paroles du Christ
• 1900 Edward Elgar, The Dream of Gerontius
• 1903 Edward Elgar, The Apostles
• 1906 Edward Elgar, The Kingdom
• 1927 Igor Stravinsky's "opera-oratorio" Oedipus Rex
• 1929 Artur Kapp, Job
• 1938 Franz Schmidt, The Book with Seven Seals (Das Buch mit sieben Siegeln)
• 1941 Michael Tippett, A Child of Our Time
• 1950 Alexandre Tansman, Isaïe le prophète
• 1968 Hans Werner Henze, Das Floß der Medusa
• 1976 Lorenzo Ferrero, Le néant où l'on ne peut arriver
• 1994 Mona Lyn Reese, Choose Life, Uvacharta Bachayim
• 2000 John Adams, El Niño
• 2005 Illayaraja, Thiruvasakam
• 2006 Julian Anderson, Heaven is Shy of Earth
• 2007 Eric Idle and John Du Prez, Not the Messiah (He's a Very Naughty Boy)
ORATORIO COMPOSERS.
Compositori d’oratori (‘volgari’)– dall’A alla Z.
BONFICHI
BOSSI, Enrico
CARISSIMI
DONIZETTI
MABELLINI
MERCADANTE
MOZART
PACINI
PEROSI, Lorenzo.
ROSSINI
SCARLATTI
STRADELLA
VERDI
WOLFF-FERRARI
ZINGARELLI
ORATORI dall’A alla Z
AGNESE, Sant’ (Pacini)
CAMILLO, San (Mercadante) (1841)
CARCERE MAMERTINO, Il (Pacini)
GERUSALEMME, la distruzione di (Pacini)
GIAELE (Mercadante) (1842)
GIOVANNI battista, la decollazione di San: azione sacra posta in musica dal sig. don Paolo Bonfichi (1827) (Bonfichi).
GIUDITTA (Pacini)
Sette parole di nostro signore, Le (1838) (Mercadante)
Trionfo della fede (Pacini)
Trionfo della religione (Pacini)
GENESI, La -- (Bonfichi).
Cfr. Passione -- Requiem -- Mass (liturgy) -- -- Mass (music) -- Cantata -- Oratorio Society (disambiguation)
References
1. ^ "The History of Music". http://www.archive.org/stream/historyofmusic05naumuoft/historyofmusic05naumuoft_djvu.txt. 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. Chapel Hill, NC: Univ. of N.C. Press, 1977
• 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.
"Musical Forms - Oratorio". The Grove Concise Dictionary of Music. The Classical Music Pages. http://w3.rz-berlin.mpg.de/cmp/g_oratorio.html.
Categories:
• Italian loanwords
• Western classical music styles
Refs.
The oratorio in Bologna.
“The oratorio in Venice”
MGG1 (P. Damilano, L. Tagliavini and others)
MGG2 (J. Riepe, D. Mielke-Gerdes and others)
SmitherHO
C.H. Bitter:
Beiträge zur Geschichte des Oratoriums (Berlin, 1872/R)
O. Wangemann: Geschichte des Oratoriums von den ersten Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart (Leipzig, 1882/R)
H. Kretschmar: Führer durch den Konzertsaal, ii/2: Oratorien und weltliche Chorwerke (Leipzig, 1890, rev. 5/1939 by H. Schnoor)
G. Pasquetti: L´oratorio musicale in Italia (Florence, 1906, 2/1914)
D. Alaleona: Studi su la storia dell´oratorio musicale in Italia (Turin, 1908, 2/1945 as Storia dell´oratorio musicale in Italia)
A. Schering: Geschichte des Oratoriums (Leipzig, 1911/R)
F. Raugel: L´oratorio (Paris, 1948)
G. Massenkeil, ed.: Das Oratorium, Mw, xxxvii (1970; Eng. trans., 1970)
H.E. Smither: ‘The Baroque Oratorio: a Report on Research Since 1945’, AcM, xlviii (1976), 50-76
T. Dox: American Oratorios and Cantatas: a Catalogue of Works written in the United States from Colonial Times to 1985 (Metuchen, NJ, 1986)
J. Johnson and H. Smither, eds.: The Italian Oratorio 1650-1800: Works in a Central Baroque and Classical Tradition (New York, 1986-7) [31 vols. of MS facs.]
K. Pahlen: The World of Oratorio (Portland, OR, 1990)
G. Massenkeil: Oratorium und Passion (Teil 1) (Laaber, 1998)
MGG1 (‘Dialog’, E. Noack)
MGG2 (‘Dialog’, W. Brown)
D. Alaleona: ‘Su Emilio de´ Cavalieri, la Rappresentatione di Anima e di Corpo e alcune sue composizioni inedite’, Nuova musica, x (1905), 35, 47
D. Alaleona: ‘Le laudi spirituali italiani nei secoli XVI e XVII e il loro rapporto coi canti profani’, RMI, xvi (1909), 1-54
T. Kroyer: ‘Dialog und Echo in der alten Chormusik’, JbMP 1909, 13-32
E.J. Dent: ‘The Laudi Spirituali in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries’, PMA, xliii (1916-17), 63-95
K. Meyer: ‘Das Offizium und seine Beziehung zum Oratorium’, AMw, iii (1921), 371-404
L. Bordot and L. Ponelle: Saint Philippe Néri et la société romaine de son temps (1515-1595) (Paris, 1926; Eng. trans., 1932)
H.J. Moser: Die mehrstimmige Vertonung des Evangeliums, i (Leipzig, 1931/R)
B. Becherini: ‘La Rappresentazione di anima e corpo di Emilio de´ Cavalieri’, RaM, xvi (1943), 1-34
L. Cervelli: ‘Le laudi spirituali di Giovanni Animuccia, e le origini dell´oratorio musicale a Roma’, RaM, xx (1950), 116-31
C. Gasbarri: L´oratorio filippino (1552-1952) (Rome, 1957)
C. Winter: ‘Studien zur Frühgeschichte des lateinischen Oratoriums’, KJb, xlii (1958), 64-76
C. Gasbarri: L´oratorio romano dal Cinquecento al Novecento (Rome, 1962)
M. Trevor: Apostle of Rome: a Life of Philip Neri, 1515-1595 (London, 1966)
H.E. Smither: ‘The Latin Dramatic Dialogue and the Nascent Oratorio’, JAMS, xx (1967), 403-33
H.E. Smither: ‘Narrative and Dramatic Elements in the Laude Filippine, 1563-1600’, AcM, xli (1969), 186-99
R. Chauvin: ‘Six Gospel Dialogues for the Offertory by Lorenzo Ratti’, AnMc, no.9 (1970), 64-77
J.W. Hill: ‘Oratory Music in Florence’, AcM, li (1979), 108-36
H. Smither, ed.: Antecedents of the Oratorio: Sacred Dramatic Dialogues, 1600-1630, Oratorios of the Italian Baroque, i, Concentus musicus, vii (Laaber, 1985)
G. Distaso: De l´altre meraviglie: teatro religioso in Puglia, Musica e teatro: quaderni degli Amici della Scala, vi (Milan, 1987)
A. Maugars: Response faite à un curieux sur le sentiment de la musique d´Italie (Paris, c1640); ed. J. Hevillan (Paris, 1991, 2/1992); Eng. trans. (Geneva, 1993)
S. Lazarini: Sacra melodia di oratorii musicali (Rome, 1687)
A. Spagna: Oratorii overo melodrammi sacri (Rome, 1706); prefaces and Ger. trans., SIMG, viii (1906-7), 43-70
A. Spagna: I fasti sacri (Rome, 1720)
F. Chrysander: ‘Die Oratorien von Carissimi’, AMZ, new ser., xi (1876), 67-9, 81-3, 113-15, 130-32, 145-7
M. Brenet: ‘Les «oratorios» de Carissimi’, RMI, iv (1897), 460-83
A. Solerti: ‘Lettere inedite sulla musica di Pietro della Valle a G.B. Doni ed una veglia drammatica-musicale del medesimo’, RMI, xii (1905), 271-338
A. Schering: ‘Neue Beiträge zur Geschichte des italienischen Oratoriums im 17. Jahrhundert’, SIMG, viii (1906-7), 43-69
A. Michieli: ‘Le Poesie sacre dramatiche di Apostolo Zeno’, Giornale storico della letteratura italiana, xcv (1930), 1-33
M.A. Zorzi: ‘Saggio di bibliografia sugli oratorii sacri eseguiti a Venezia’, Accademie e biblioteche d’Italia, iv (1930-31), 226-46, 394-403, 529-43; v (1931-2), 79-96, 493-508; vi (1932-3), 256-69; vii (1933-4), 316-41
E. Dagnino: ‘Quanti sono gli oratorii di Bernardo Pasquini?’, NA, ix (1932), 270-76
E. Dagnino: ‘Ancora degli oratorii di Bernardo Pasquini’, NA, xi (1934), 68-9
R. Casimiri: ‘Oratorii del Masini, Bernabei, Melani, Di Pio, Pasquini e Stradella in Roma nell´anno santo 1675’, NA, xiii (1936), 157-69
R. Lustig: ‘Saggio bibliografico degli oratorii stampati a Firenze dal 1690 al 1725’, NA, xiv (1937), 57-64, 109-16, 244-50
F. Vatielli: ‘L´oratorio a Bologna negli ultimi decenni del Seicento’, NA, xv (1938), 26-35, 77-87
U. Rolandi: ‘Oratorii stampati a Firenze dal 1690 al 1725’, NA, xvi (1939), 32-9
L.P. Beveridge: Giacomo Carissimi (1605-1674): a Study of his Life and his Music with Latin Texts (diss., Harvard U., 1944)
G. Massenkeil: Die oratorische Kunst in den lateinischen Historien und Oratorien Giacomo Carissimis (diss., U. of Mainz, 1952)
A. Damerini: ‘L´oratorio musicale nel Seicento dopo Carissimi’, RMI, lv (1953), 149-63
A. Ghislanzoni: ‘Tre oratori e tre cantate morali di Luigi Rossi ritrovati nella Biblioteca Vaticana’, RBM, ix (1955), 3-11
A. Damerini: ‘Le due «Maddalene» di G. Bononcini’, CHM, ii (1956-7), 115-25
G. Massenkeil: ‘Die Wiederholungsfiguren in den Oratorien Giacomo Carissimis’, AMw, xiii (1956), 42-60
A. Liess: ‘Materialen zur römischen Musikgeschichte des Seicento: Musikerlisten des Oratorio San Marcello 1664-1725’, AcM, xxix (1957), 137-71
A. Liess: ‘Die Sammlung der Oratorienlibretti (1679-1725) und der restliche Musikbestand des Fondo San Marcello der Biblioteca Vaticana in Rom’, AcM, xxxi (1959), 63-80
R. Ewerhart: ‘New Sources for Handel´s «La resurrezione»’, ML, xli (1960), 127-35
O. Mischiati: ‘Per la storia dell´oratorio a Bologna: tre inventari del 1620, 1622 e 1682’, CHM, iii (1962-3), 131-70
W. Müller-Blattau: ‘Untersuchungen zur Kompositionstechnik in den Oratorien Giacomo Carissimis’, Mf, xvi (1963), 209-23
G.L. Dardo: ‘«La Passione» di Attilio Ariosti’, Chigiana, xxiii (1966), 59-87
M. Fabbri: ‘Torna alla luce la partitura autografa dell´oratorio «Il primo omicidio» di Alessandro Scarlatti’, Chigiana, xxiii (1966), 245-64
U. Kirkendale: Antonio Caldara: sein Leben und seine venezianisch-römischen Oratorien (Graz, 1966)
R. Schnitzler: The Passion-Oratorios of Giacomo Antonio Perti (M.F.A. thesis, Ohio U., 1967)
A. Ziino: ‘Pietro della Valle e la «musica erudita»: nuovi documenti’, AnMc, no.4 (1967), 97-111
D.G. Poultney: The Oratorios of Alessandro Scarlatti: their Lineage, Milieu, and Style (diss., U. of Michigan, 1968)
L. Bianchi: Carissimi, Stradella, Scarlatti e l´oratorio musicale (Rome, 1969)
W.C. Hobbs: Giovanni Francesco Anerio´s ‘Teatro armonico spirituale di madrigali’: a Contribution to the Early History of the Oratorio (diss., Tulane U., 1971)
H.E. Smither: ‘What is an Oratorio in Mid-Seventeenth-Century Italy?’, IMSCR XI: Copenhagen 1972, 657-63
D. Poultney: ‘Alessandro Scarlatti and the Transformation of the Oratorio’, MQ, lix (1973), 584-601
M.D. Grace: Marco Marazzoli and the Development of the Latin Oratorio (diss., Yale U., 1974)
H.E. Smither: ‘Carissimi´s Latin Oratorios: their Terminology, Functions, and Position in Oratorio History’, AnMc, no.17 (1976), 54-78
W. Witzenmann: ‘Zum Oratorienstil bei Domenico Mazzocchi und Marco Marazzoli’, AnMc, no.19 (1979), 52-93
J.A. Griffin: The Oratorios of Giovanni Paolo Colonna and the Late Seventeenth-Century Oratorio Tradition in Bologna and Modena (diss., U. of North Carolina, 1978)
J.W. Hill: ‘Oratory Music in Florence, II’, AcM, li (1979), 246-67
C. Vitali: ‘Giovanni Paolo Colonna maestro di cappella dell´Oratorio Filippino in Bologna’, RIM, xiv (1979), 128-54
B. Brumana: ‘Per una storia dell´oratorio musicale a Perugia nei secoli XVII e XVIII’, Esercizi: arte musica, spettacolo, iii (1980), 97-167
G. Price: Il Sedecia: a Seventeenth-Century Oratorio by Giovanni Legrenzi (diss., U. of Kentucky, 1980)
H. Baker: The Oratorios of Benedetto Marcello (1686-1739) (diss.
Oratorio. , Rutgers U., 1982)
A.V. Jones: The Motets of Carissimi (Ann Arbor, 1982)
G. Dixon: ‘Oratorio o motetto? alcune reflessioni sulla classificazione della musica sacra del Seicento’, NMRI, xvii (1983), 203-22
E. Ozolins: The Oratorios of Bernardo Pasquini (diss., UCLA, 1983)
D. and E. Arnold: The Oratorio in Venice (London, 1986)
G. Dixon: Carissimi (Oxford, 1986)
J.W. Hill: ‘Oratory Music in Florence, III’, AcM, lviii (1986), 129-79
B. Przybyszewska-Jarminska: ‘Tipi, forma e funzioni dei dialoghi latini di Kasper Förster junior’, Tradizione e stile: Como 1987, 209-19
E. Selfridge-Field: ‘Italian Oratorio and the Baroque Orchestra’, EMc, xvi (1988), 506-13
H.E. Smither: ‘Musical Interpretation of the Text in Stradella´s Oratorios’ [1972], Chigiana, xxxix (1988), 287-316
J. Riepe: ‘Überlegungen zur Funktion des italienischen Oratoriums im letzten Drittel des 17. Jahrhunderts am Beispiel von Giovanni Legrenzis Sedecia und La caduta di Gierusalemme von Giovanni Paolo Colonna’, Giovanni Legrenzi e la cappella ducale di San Marco: Venice and Clusone 1990, 605-42
A. Morelli: Il tempio armonico: musica nell´Oratorio dei Filippini in Roma (1575-1705), AnMc, no.27 (1991)
G. Staffieri: ‘L´Athalie di Racine e l´oratorio romano alla fine del XVII secolo’, RdM, lxxvii (1991), 291-310
E.S. Bonini: Il fondo musicale dell’ Arciconfraternita di S. Girolamo della Carità (Rome, 1992)
V. Crowther: The Oratorio in Modena (Oxford, 1992)
M.T. Ferrer-Ballester: ‘El Oratorio barroco hispánico: localización de fuentes musicales anteriores a 1730’, Revista de musicología, xv (1992), 1-12
C. Gianturco: ‘«Cantate spirituali e morali», with a Description of the Papal Sacred Canata Tradition for Christmas 1676-1740’, ML, lxxiii (1992), 1-31
M. Girardi: ‘Per una definizione delle origini dell´oratorio a Venezia e i libretti per oratorio di Bernardino Sandrinelli’, Rivista internazionale di musica sacra, xiii (1992), 112-49
H.-J. Marx: ‘Römische Weihnachtsoratorien aus der ersten Hälfte des 18. Jahrhunderts’, AMw, xlix (1992), 163-99
F. Noske: Saints and Sinners: the Latin Musical Dialogue in the Seventeenth Century (Oxford, 1992)
C. Gianturco: ‘Opera sacra e opera morale: due «altri» tipi di dramma musicale’, Il melodramma italiano in Italia e in Germania nell´età barocca: Como 1993, 169-77
J. Riepe: Die Arciconfraternita di S. Maria della Morte in Bologna: Beiträge zur Geschichte des italienischen Oratoriums im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert (diss., U. of Bonn, 1993)
J. Riepe: ‘Gli oratorii di Giacomo Antonio Perti’, Studi musicali, xxii (1993), 115-232
C. Gianturco: Alessandro Stradella (1639-1682): his Life and Music (Oxford, 1994)
C. Gianturco: ‘Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno: Four Case-Studies in Determining Italian Poetic-Musical Genres’, JRMA, cxix (1994), 43-59
B. Przybyszewska-Jarminska: ‘The Sacred Dramatic Dialogue in Seventeenth-Century Poland: Facts and Suppositions’, Musica Iagellonica, i (1995), 7-21
J.G. Fanelli: The Oratorios of Giovanni Carlo Maria Clari (Bologna, 1998)
L. von Köchel: Die kaiserliche Hof-Musikkapelle in Wien von 1543 bis 1867 (Vienna, 1869/R)
G. Adler, ed.: Musikalische Werke der Kaiser Ferdinand III, Leopold I, und Joseph I (Vienna, 1892-3/R)
A. von Weilen: Zur Wiener Theatergeschichte: die vom Jahre 1629 bis zum Jahre 1740 am Wiener Hofe zur Aufführung gelangten Werke theatralischen Charakters und Oratorien (Vienna, 1901)
G. Renker: Das Wiener Sepolcro (diss., U. of Vienna, 1913)
C. LaRoche: Antonio Bertali als Opern- und Oratorienkomponist (diss., U. of Vienna, 1919)
E. Wellesz: ‘Die Opern und Oratorien in Wien von 1660-1708’, SMw, vi (1919), 5-138
H. Vogl: ‘Zur Geschichte des Oratoriums in Wien von 1725 bis 1740’, SMw, xiv (1927), 241-64
R. Haas and J. Zuth, eds.: ‘Dreifache Orchesterteilung im Wiener Sepolchro’, Festschrift Adolf Koczirz (Vienna, 1930), 8-10
F. Biach-Schiffmann: Giovanni und Ludovico Burnacini (Vienna, 1931)
A.B. Gottron: Mainzer Musikgeschichte von 1500 bis 1800 (Mainz, 1959)
R. Schnitzler: The Sacred Dramatic Music of Antonio Draghi (diss., U. of North Carolina, 1971)
G. Gruber: Das Wiener Sepolcro und Johann Joseph Fux (Graz, 1972)
J. Herczog: ‘Tendenze letterarie e sviluppo musicale dell´oratorio italiano nel Settecento tra Vienna e il paese d´origine’, NRMI, xxv (1991), 217-29
Oratorio: Bibliography
protestant germany, baroque
MGG2 (‘Abendmusik’, K. Snyder; ‘Historia’, G. Konradt)
R. Schwartz: ‘Das erste deutsche Oratorium’, JbMP 1898, 59-65
M. Seiffert: ‘Anecdota Schütziana: Schützens Werke in einer verschollenen Bibliothek Lüneburgs: seine Oratorium vom reichen Mann und armen Lazarus’, SIMG, i (1899-1900), 213-18
M. Seiffert: ‘Matthias Weckmann und das Collegium musicum in Hamburg’, SIMG, ii (1900-01), 76-132
W. Maxton: ‘Mitteilungen über eine vollständige Abendmusik Dietrich Buxtehudes’, ZMw, x (1927-8), 387-95
L. Krüger: Die hamburgische Musikorganisation im 17. Jahrhundert (Strasbourg, 1933)
H. Edelhoff: ‘Die Abendmusiken in Lübeck’, Musik und Kirche, viii (1936), 53-8, 122-7
W. Stahl: ‘Die Lübecker Abendmusiken im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert’, Zeitschrift des Vereins für Lübeckische Geschichte und Altertumskunde, xxix (1938), 1-64
W. Menke: Das Vokalwerk Georg Philipp Telemanns: Überlieferung und Zeitfolge (Kassel, 1942)
F. Smend: ‘Neue Bach-Funde’, AMf, vii (1942), 1-39; repr. in F. Smend: Bach-Studien, ed. C. Wolff (Kassel, 1969), 137-52
C. LaRoche: ‘Bachs Himmelfahrts-Oratorium’, Bach-Gedenkschrift, ed. K. Matthaei (Zürich, 1950), 42-65; repr. in F. Smend: Bach-Studien, ed. C. Wolff (Kassel, 1969), 195-211
G. Karstädt: ‘Das Textbuch zum «Templum Honoris» von Buxtehude’, Mf, x (1957), 506-8
O. Söhngen: ‘Die Lübecker Abendmusiken als kirchengeschichtliches und theologisches Problem’, Musik und Kirche, xxvii (1957), 181-91
J. Birke: ‘Eine unbekannte anonyme Matthäuspassion aus der zweiten Hälfte des 17. Jahrhunderts’, AMw, xv (1958), 162-86
C.H. Rhea: The Sacred Oratorios of Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767) (diss., Florida State U., 1958)
M. Geck: ‘Die Authentizität des Vokalwerks Dietrich Buxtehudes in quellenkritischer Sicht’, Mf, xiv (1961), 393-415
G. Godehart: ‘Telemanns «Messias»’, Mf, xiv (1961), 139-55
G. Karstädt: Die ‘extraordinairen’ Abendmusiken Dietrich Buxtehudes (Lübeck, 1962)
W. Maxton: ‘Die Authentizität des «Jüngsten Gerichts» von Dietrich Buxtehude’, Mf, xv (1962), 382-94
M. Geck: ‘Nochmals: die Authentizität des Vokalwerks Dietrich Buxtehudes in quellenkritischer Sicht’, Mf, xvi (1963), 175-81
B. Baselt: ‘Actus musicus und Historie um 1700 in Mitteldeutschland’, Wissenschaftliche Beiträge der Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, ser.G, viii/1 (1968), 77-103; abridged in GfMKB: Leipzig 1966, 230-37
W. Maertens: ‘Georg Philipp Telemanns Hamburger «Kapitänsmusiken»’, Festschrift für Walter Wiora, ed. L. Finscher and C.-H. Mahling (Kassel, 1967), 335-41
S.A. Malinowski jr: The Baroque Oratorio Passion (diss., Cornell U., 1978)
S. Ruhle: An Anonymous Seventeenth-Century German Oratorio in the Düben Collection (Uppsala University Library vok. mus. i. hskr. 71) (diss., U. of North Carolina, 1982)
Oratorio. H. Kümmerling: ‘«Difficile est satyram non scribere» oder: «Über eine gewisse Passion eines so genannten weltberühmten Mannes»’, Beiträge zur Geschichte des Oratoriums seit Händel: Festschrift Günther Massenkeil zum 60. Geburtstag, ed. R. Cadenbach and H. Loos (Bonn, 1986), 57-69
S. Oschmann: Jan Dismas Zelenka: seine geistlichen italienischen Oratorien (Mainz, 1986)
H. White: The Oratorios of Johann Joseph Fux (diss., Trinity College, Dublin, 1986)
K. Langrock: Die sieben Worte Jesu am Kreuz: ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Passionsmusik (diss., U. of Bochum, 1987)
W. Nagel: ‘Ein Dialog John Hilton´s’, MMg, xxix (1897), 121-34
S. Taylor: The Indebtedness of Handel to Works by Other Composers: a Presentation of Evidence (Cambridge, 1906/R)
E. Bredenförder: Die Texte der Händel-Oratorien: eine religionsgeschichtliche und literarsoziologische Studie (Leipzig, 1934)
R.M. Myers: Handel´s Messiah: a Touchstone of Taste (New York, 1948/R)
P.M. Young: The Oratorios of Handel (London, 1949)
J. Herbage: ‘The Oratorios’, Handel: a Symposium, ed. G. Abraham (London, 1954/R), 66-131
J.P. Larsen: Handel´s Messiah: Origins, Composition, Sources (London, 1957, 2/1972/R)
I. Spink: ‘English Seventeenth-Century Dialogues’, ML, xxxviii (1957), 155-63
G.-F. Wieber: Die Chorfuge in Händels Werken (Frankfurt, 1958)
W. Dean: Handel´s Dramatic Oratorios and Masques (London, 1959/R)
H.-B. Dietz: Die Chorfuge bei G.F. Händel: ein Beitrag zur Kompositionstechnik des Barock (Tutzing, 1961)
W. Shaw: Textual and Historical Companion to Handel’s Messiah (London, 1965)
B. Smallman: ‘Endor Revisited: English Biblical Dialogues of the Seventeenth Century’, ML, xlvi (1965), 137-45
J. Tobin: Handel´s Messiah: a Critical Account of the Manuscript Sources and Printed Editions (London, 1969)
W. Dean: ‘How Should Handel´s Oratorios be Staged?’, Musical Newsletter, iv/1 (1971), 11-15
H. Meier: Typus und Funktion der Chorsätze in Georg Friedrich Händels Oratorien (Wiesbaden, 1971)
I. Bartlett: ‘Boyce and the Early English Oratorio’, MT, cxx (1979), 293-7, 385-7
A. Hicks: ‘The Late Additions to Handel´s Oratorios and the Role of the Younger Smith’, Music in Eighteenth-Century England: Essays in Memory of Charles Cudworth, ed. C. Hogwood and R. Luckett (Cambridge, 1983), 147-69
K. Kropfinger: ‘Israel in Egypt - das fragwürdige Fragment’, Beiträge zur Geschichte des Oratoriums seit Händel: Festschrift Günther Massenkeil zum 60. Geburtstag, ed. R. Cadenbach and H. Loos (Bonn, 1986), 1-27
M. Marx-Weber and H.-J. Marx: ‘Der deutsche Text zu Händels Messias in der Fassung von Klopstock und Ebeling’, ibid., 29-55
A.H. Shapiro: ‘Drama of an Infinitely Superior Nature: Handel´s Early English Oratorios and the Religious Sublime’, ML, lxxiv (1993), 215-45
R. Smith: Handel´s Oratorios and Eighteenth-Century Thought (Cambridge, 1995)
Oratorio: Bibliography
charpentier and the oratorio in france
K. Nef: ‘Das Petrus-Oratorium von Marc-Antoine Charpentier und die Passion’, JbMP 1930, 24-31
H.W. Hitchcock: The Latin Oratorios of Marc-Antoine Charpentier (diss., U. of Michigan, 1954)
H.W. Hitchcock: ‘The Latin Oratorios of Marc-Antoine Charpentier’, MQ, xli (1955), 41-65
C. Barber: ‘Les oratorios de Marc-Antoine Charpentier’, RMFC, iii (1963), 91-130
C. Cessac: Marc-Antoine Charpentier (Paris, 1988; Eng. trans., 1995)
Oratorio: Bibliography
early classical and classical 18th-century oratorio
J.-F. Le Sueur: Essai de musique sacrée, ou musique motivée et méthodique, pour la Fête de Noël à la messe du jour (Paris, 1786)
J.-F. Le Sueur: Exposé d´une musique une, imitative, et particulière à chaque solemnité (Paris, 1787)
M. Brenet: Les concerts en France sous l´ancien régime (Paris, 1900/R)
G. Servières: ‘Les oratorios de J.-F. Le Sueur’, Tribune de Saint-Gervais, xi (1905), 43-55, 78-87, 109-17; repr. in G. Servières: Episodes d´histoire musicale (Paris, 1914), 23-101
O.G. Sonneck: Early Concert-Life in America (1731-1800) (Leipzig, 1907/R, 3/1959)
M. Friedlaender: ‘Van Swieten und das Textbuch zu Haydns «Jahreszeiten»’, JbMP 1909, 47-56
L. Kamie?ski: Die Oratorien von Johann Adolf Hasse (Leipzig, 1912)
R. Haas: ‘Eberlins Schuldramen und Oratorien’, SMw, viii (1921), 9-44
H. Miesner: Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach in Hamburg (Heide, 1929)
P. Baumgärtner: Gottfried van Swieten als Textdichter von Haydns Oratorien (diss., U. of Vienna, 1930)
C. Schneider: ‘Die Oratorien und Schuldramen Anton Cajetan Adlgassers’, SMw, xviii (1931), 36-65
K. Geiringer: ‘Haydn´s Sketches for «The Creation»’, MQ, xviii (1932), 299-308
K. Nef: ‘Die Passionsoratorien Jean-François Lesueurs’, Mélanges de musicologie offerts à M.
Oratorio. Lionel de la Laurencie (Paris, 1933), 259-68
V.L. Redway: ‘Handel in Colonial and Post-Colonial America’, MQ, xxi (1935), 190-207
D.F. Tovey: ‘Haydn´s «Creation» and «Seasons»’, Essays in Musical Analysis, v (London, 1938/R), 114-49
A. Damerini: ‘La morte di San Giuseppe’, G.B. Pergolesi (1710-1736): note e documenti, Chigiana, iv (1942), 63-70
G. Pannain: ‘Haydn e la «Creazione»’, RaM, xviii (1948), 1-14
E.F. Schmid: ‘Haydns Oratorium «Il ritorno di Tobia»: seine Entstehung und seine Schicksale’, AMw, xvi (1959), 292-313
K. Schnürl: ‘Haydns «Schöpfung» als Messe’, SMw, xxv (1962), 463-79
A.D. McCredie: ‘John Christopher Smith as a Dramatic Composer’, ML, xlv (1964), 22-38
A. Riedel-Martiny: Die Oratorien Joseph Haydns: ein Beitrag zum Problem der Textverstonung (diss., U. of Göttingen, 1965)
A. Tyson: ‘The 1803 Version of Beethoven´s Christus am Oelberge’, MQ, lvi (1970), 551-84
H.C. Wolff: ‘Un oratorio sconosciuto di Leonardo Leo’, RIM, vii (1972), 196-213
J.M. Chamblee: The Cantatas and Oratorios of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (diss., U. of North Carolina, 1973)
D.H. Foster: ‘The Oratorio in Paris in the 18th Century’, AcM, xlvii (1975), 67-133
H. Smither: ‘Oratorio and Sacred Opera, 1700-1825: Terminology and Genre Distinction’, PRMA, cvi (1979-80), 88-104
B. van Boer jr: ‘Der Tod Jesu von Joseph Martin Kraus: ein Oratorium der Sturm und Drang-Bewegung’, Joseph Martin Kraus in seiner Zeit: Buchen 1980, 65-82
H. Smither: ‘Haydns Il ritorno di Tobia und die Tradition des italienischen Oratoriums’, Joseph Haydn: Cologne 1982, 160-88
N. Temperley: ‘New Light on the Libretto of The Creation’, Music in Eighteenth-Century England: Essays in Memory of Charles Cudworth, ed. C. Hogwood and R. Luckett (Cambridge, 1983), 189-211
J.L. Johnson: The Oratorio at Santa Maria in Vallicella in Rome, 1770-1800 (diss., U. of Chicago, 1983)
A.P. Brown: Performing Haydn´s ‘The Creation’: Reconstructing the Earliest Renditions (Bloomington, IN, 1985)
S. Brandenburg: ‘Beethovens Oratorium Christus am Ölberg: ein unbequemes Werk’, Beiträge zur Geschichte des Oratoriums seit Händel: Festschrft Günther Massenkeil zum 60. Geburtstag, ed. R. Cadenbach and H. Loos (Bonn, 1986), 203-20
R. Cadenbach: ‘Carl Philipp Emanuel Bachs Vertonung der Auferstehung und Himmelfahrt Jesu von Karl Wilhelm Ramler: Beobachtungen zur muskalischen Auslegung einer geistlichen Dichtung’, ibid.
95-122
G. Feder: ‘Die Jahreszeiten nach Thomson, in Musik gesetzt von Joseph Haydn’, ibid., 185-201
H. Federhofer: ‘Die donnernde Legion von Joseph Barta: ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Wiener Oratoriums am Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts’, ibid., 135-50
F. Lippmann: ‘Zur Affektdarstellung in Johann Adolf Hasses Oratorium La conversione di S. Agostino’, ibid., 71-94
M. Vogel: ‘Drei Flöten in Haydns Schöpfung’, ibid., 179-84
H. Werber: ‘Mozart und andere: La Betulia liberata - Vertonungen im Vergleich’, ibid., 151-78
H. Smither: ‘The Function of Music in the Forty Hours Devotion of 17th- and 18th-Century Italy’, Music from the Middle Ages through the 20th Century: Essays in Honor of Gwynn S. McPeek, ed. C.P. Comberiati and M.C. Steel (New York, 1988), 149-74
H. Smither: ‘Arienstruktur- und Stil in den Oratorien und Kantaten Bachs’, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach und die europäische Musikkultur: Hamburg 1988, 345-68
H. Smither: ‘The Other Creation: an Italian Response to Haydn’, Essays in Musicology: a Tribute to Alvin Johnson, ed. L. Lockwood and E. Roesner (Philadelphia, 1990), 220-34
J. Best: Music and Society in Eighteenth-Century Germany: the Music Dramas of Johann Heinrich Rolle (1716-1785) (diss., Duke U., 1991)
N. Temperley: Haydn, The Creation (Cambridge, 1991)
B.H. van Boer: ‘Justus Friedrich Wilhelm Zachariä´s Die Pilgrime auf Golgotha: a Passion Oratorio Libretto’, Ars lyrica, vi (1992), 87-102
Oratorio: Bibliography
19th century
J.T. Mosewius: ‘Über das Oratorium Moses von A.B. Marx’, AMZ, xliv (1842), 953-9, 972-9, 997-1003, 1027-32
F.P. Laurencin d´Armond: Das Paradies und die Peri (Leipzig, 1859)
O. Jahn: ‘Über Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy´s Oratorium Paulus’, Gesammelte Aufsätze über Musik (Leipzig, 1866/R), 13-39
O. Jahn: ‘Über Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy´s Oratorium Elias’, Gesammelte Aufsätze über Musik (Leipzig, 1866/R), 40-63; Eng. trans. in Mendelssohn and his World, ed. R.L. Todd (Princeton, NJ, 1991), 364-81
T. Baxter: Mendelssohn´s Elijah (London, 1880)
W. Stumpf: Les béatitudes van C.A. Franck (Amsterdam, 1895)
F.G. Edwards: The History of Mendelssohn´s Oratorio ‘Elijah’ (London, 1896/R)
J.G. Prod´homme: Le cycle Berlioz, i: La damnation de Faust (Paris, 1896); ii: L´enfance du Christ (Paris, 1898)
L. Pistorelli: ‘Jacopo Tomadini e la sua «Risurrezione del Cristo»’, RMI, vii (1899), 762-91
K. Anton: Beiträge zur Biographie Carl Loewes, mit besonderer Berücksichtigung seiner Oratorien und Ideen zu einer volkstümlichen Ausgestaltung der protestantischen Kirchenmusik (Halle, 1912)
C. Forsyth: ‘The First Performance of Gounod´s «Redemption»’, ML, vi (1925), 85-93
T. Armstrong: ‘Mendelssohn´s Elijah’, ML, xiv (1933), 396
A. Finzi: ‘«Le beatitudini» di César Franck’, RMI, xlii (1938), 20-33
R.M. Kent: A Study of Oratorios and Sacred Cantatas Composed in America Before 1900 (diss., State U. of Iowa, 1954)
J. Werner: ‘Mendelssohn´s Elijah: the 110th Anniversary’, MT, xcviii (1957), 192-3
H.C. Wolff: ‘Mendelssohn and Handel’, MQ, xlv (1959), 175-90
H. Lomnitzer: Das musikalische Werk Friedrich Schneiders (1786-1853), insbesondere die Oratorien (Marburg, 1961)
N. Temperley: ‘Mendelssohn´s Influence on English Music’, ML, xliii (1962), 224-33
J. Werner: Mendelssohn´s Elijah (London, 1965)
J.A. Mussulman: ‘Mendelssohnism in America’, MQ, liii (1967), 335-46
M. Geck: Deutsche Oratorien 1800 bis 1840: Verzeichnis der Quellen und Aufführungen (Wilhelmshaven, 1971)
M. Palotai: Liszt´s Concept of Oratorio as Reflected in his Writings and in Die Legende von der Heiligen Elisabeth (diss., U. of Southern California, 1977)
A. Kurzhals-Reuter: Die Oratorien Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdys: Untersuchungen zur Quellenlage, Entstehung, Gestaltung und Überlieferung (Tutzing, 1978)
E. Reimer: ‘Kritik und Apologie des Oratoriums im 19. Jahrhundert’, Religöse Musik in nicht-liturgischen Werken von Beethoven bis Reger, ed. W. Wiora, G. Massenkeil and K.W. Niemöller (Regensburg, 1978), 247-56
F. Riedel: ‘Die Bedeutung des Christus von Franz Liszt in der Geschichte des Messias-Oratoriums’, Liszt-Studien II: Eisenstadt 1978, 153-62
L. Orr: Liszt´s Christus and its Significance for Nineteenth-Century Oratorio (diss., U. of North Carolina, 1979)
N. Burton: ‘Oratorios and Cantatas’, Music in Britain: the Romantic Age 1800-1914, ed. N. Temperley (London, 1981/R), 214-41
F. Reinisch: Das französische Oratorium von 1840 bis 1870 (Regensburg, 1982)
H.E. Smither: ‘Haydns Il ritorno di Tobia und die Tradtion des italienischen Oratoriums’, Joseph Haydn: Cologne 1982, 160-88
C. Hughes: The Origin of ‘The First Patriotic Oratorio’: Stepan Anikievich Degtiarev´s ‘Minin i Pozharskii’ (1811) (diss.
Oratorio. , U. of North Carolina, 1984)
F. Reinisch: ‘Liszts Oratorium Die Legende von der Heiligen Elisabeth: ein Gegenentwurf zu Tannhäuser und Lohengrin’, Franz Liszt und Richard Wagner: Eisenstadt 1983, 128-51
G. Nauhaus: ‘Schumanns Das Paradies und die Peri: Quellen zur Entstehungs-, Aufführungs- und Rezeptionsgeschichte’, Schumanns Werke: Text und Interpretation: Düsseldorf 1985, 133-48
W. Kirsch: ‘Richard Wagners Biblische Scene Das Liebesmahl der Apostel’, HJbMw, viii (1986), 157-84
F. Krummacher: ‘Religiosität und Kunstcharakter: über Mendelssohns Oratorium Paulus’, HJbMw, viii (1986), 97-117
H. Smither: ‘Messiah and Progress in Vitorian England’, EMc, xiii (1985), 339-47
H.-J. Bauer: ‘Wagners musikdramatisches Oratorium Das Liebesmahl der Apostel’, Beiträge zur Geschichte des Oratoriums seit Händel: Festschrift Günther Massenkeil zum 60. Geburtstag, ed. R. Cadenbach and H. Loos (Bonn, 1986), 269-81
W. Boetticher: ‘Das ungeschriebene Oratorium Luther von Robert Schumann und sein Textdichter Richard Pohl’, ibid., 297-307
W. Kirsch: ‘Oratorium und Oper: zu einer gattungsästhetischen Kontroverse in der Oratorientheorie des 19. Jahrhunderts (Materialien zu einer Dramaturgie des Oratoriums)’, ibid., 221-54
H. Loos: ‘L´enfance du Christ, «Das erste Oratorium eines Zukunft-Musikers»: Hector Berlioz und die Tradition’, ibid., 309-27
K.W. Niemöller: ‘Das Oratorium Christus von Franz Liszt: ein Beitrag zu seinem konzeptionellen Grundlagen’, ibid., 329-45
D. Pistone: ‘L´oratorio à Paris de 1870 à 1900’, ibid., 345-56
H. Schröder: ‘Zu Adolf Bernhard Marx´ Mose’, Beiträge zur Geschichte des Oratoriums seit Händel: Festschrift Günther Massenkeil zum 60. Geburtstag, ed. R. Cadenbach and H. Loos (Bonn, 1986), 255-68
M. Staehelin: ‘Elias, Johann Sebastian Bach und der Neue Bund: zur Arie Es ist genug in Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdys Oratorium Elias’, ibid., 283-96; Eng. trans. in Mendelssohn and his World, ed. R.L. Todd (Princeton, NJ, 1991), 121-36
G. Stanley: ‘Bach´s Erbe: the Chorale in the German Oratorio of the Early Nineteenth Century’, 19CM, xi (1987), 121-49
M. Schwarzer: Die Oratorien von Max Bruch: eine Quellenstudie (Berlin, 1988)
G. Stanley: The Oratorio in Prussia and Protestant Germany: 1812-1848 (diss., Columbia U., 1988)
G. Stanley: ‘Religious Propriety versus Artistic Truth: the Debate between Friedrich Rochlitz and Louis Spohr about the Representation of Christ in Des Heilands letzte Stunden’, AcM, lxi (1989), 66-82
S. Ledbetter: ‘Two Seductresses: Saint-Saëns´s Delilah and Chadwick´s Judith’, A Celebration of American Music: Words and Music in Honor of H. Wiley Hitchcock, ed. R. Crawford, R.A. Lott and C.J. Oja (Ann Arbor, 1990), 281-301
R. Dusella: Die Oratorien Carl Loewes (Bonn, 1991)
B. Mohn: ‘Das englische Oratorium von 1846 bis 1910: Versuch einer ersten Erfassung der Quellen und summanfasenden Darstellung’ (MA thesis, Bonn U., 1992)
P. Maurizi: ‘Misticismo e spettacolo negli oratori di Franz Liszt’, Rivista internazionale di musica sacra, xiv (1993), 278-96
C. Mori: ‘L´oratorio Isacco figura del Redentore di Francesco Morlacchi e la Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung’, Esercizi musica e spettacolo, new ser., iii (1993), 99-110
J. Daviero: ‘Schumann’s «New Genre for the Concert hall»: Das Paradies und die Peri in the Eyes of a Contemporary’, Schumann and his World, ed. L. Todd (Princeton, 1994), 129-55
H.E. Smither: ‘«Une musique une, imitative, et particulière a chaque solemnité»: The «Mass-Oratorios» of Jean-François Le Sueur’, Res musiche: Essays in Honour of James W. Pruett, ed. P.R. Laird and C.H. Russell (Warren, MI, forthcoming)
Oratorio: Bibliography
20th century
G. Bressan: ‘Il momento perosiano’, RMI, vi (1899), 385-99
E. de Schoultz-Adaïewsky: ‘Le massacre des innocents: oratorio en deux parties de Don Lorenzo Perosi’, RMI, vii (1900), 746-68
E. de Schoultz-Adaïewsky: ‘L´entrée du Christ à Jérusalem: oratorio en deux parties de Don Lorenzo Perosi’, RMI, vii (1900), 536-55
A. Coeuroy: ‘Present Tendencies of Sacred Music in France’, MQ, xiii (1927), 584-604
N.G. Long: ‘A Child of Our Time: a Critical Analysis of Michael Tippett´s Oratorio’, MR, viii (1947), 120-30
J.L. Broeckx: Review of M. De Jong: The Song of Hiawatha, MQ, xxxiv (1948), 609-12
L. Burkat: Review of H. Barraud: Le mystère des saints innocents, MQ, xxxvii (1951), 241-3
H. Cowell: Review of F. Martin: Golgotha, MQ, xxxviii (1952), 291-4
H. Cowell: Review of M. Tippett: A Child of our Time, MQ, xxxviii (1952), 440-43
J.S. Weissman: Review of I. Stravinsky: Oedipus rex, MR, xiii (1952), 231-7
L. Morton: Review of L. Foss: A Parable of Death, MQ, xxxix (1953), 595-600
. Roncaglia: ‘L´oratorio di Lorenzi Perosi’, Immagini esotiche nella musica italiana, Chigiana, xiv (1957), 103-7
G. Roncaglia: ‘Il «Transitus animae» e «Giudizio universale» di Lorenzo Perosi’, Immagini esotiche nella musica italiana, Chigiana, xiv (1957), 109-13
H. Headley: The Choral Works of Arthur Honegger (diss., North Texas State U., 1959)
N. Atkinson: ‘Michael Tippett´s Debt to the Past’, MR, xxiii (1962), 195-204
M. Bernheimer: Review of F. Martin: Le vin herbé, MQ, xlviii (1962), 525-8
W. Mellers: ‘Stravinsky’s Oedipus as 20th Century Hero’, MQ, xlviii (1962), 300-12
R.S. Hines, ed.: The Composer´s Point of View (Norman, OK, 1963)
W.C. Holmes: Review of R. Palmer: Nabuchodonosor, MQ, l (1964), 367-70
D.C. Johns: Review of J.N. David: Ezzolied, MQ, l (1964), 241-3
G. Roncaglia: ‘L´arte di Lorenzo Perosi e La strage degli innocenti’, Chigiana, xxii (1965), 237-53
C. Marinelli: Review of K. Penderecki: Dies irae, RIM, ii (1967), 436-7
A. Rössler: ‘Messiaens Oratorium La transfiguration in Lissabon uraufgeführt’, Melos, xxxvi (1969), 389 only
K. Wagner: ‘Untergang bei der Ausreise: Henzes Floss der Medusa kentert in Hamburg’, Melos, xxxvi (1969), 19-22
K. Foesel: ‘Nürnberg zeigt Henzes «Floss» als theatralische Imagination’, Melos, xxxix (1972), 232-4
A.C. Fehn: Change and Permanence: Gottfried Benn´s Text for Paul Hindemith´s Oratorio Das Unaufhörliche (Berne, 1977)
J.M. Christensen: Arnold Schoenberg´s Oratorio Die Jakobsleiter (diss., UCLA, 1979)
H.D. Voss: Arthur Honegger, ‘Le Roi David’: ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Oratoriums im 20. Jahrhundert (Munich, 1983)
S. Kross: ‘Zu Boris Blachers Oratorium Der Grossinquisitor’, Beiträge zur Geschichte des Oratoriums seit Händel: Festschrift Günther Massenkeil zum 60. Geburtstag, ed. R. Cadenbach and H. Loos (Bonn, 1986), 493-512
S. Gmeinwieser and G. Weiss: ‘Zur Entstehungsgeschichte der Volksoratorien von Joseph Haas’, ibid., 463-91
D. Launay: ‘André Caplet (1878-1925), Le miroir de Jesus, Mystères du rosaire: poèmes d´Henri Ghéon’, ibid., 407-37
S. Mauser: ‘Schönbergs Moses und Aron: zum Konzept eines Oratoriums als Oper’, ibid., 455-61
K.J. Müller: ‘«Weh dem, der allein ist!»: zum letzten Werk von Bernd Alois Zimmermann’, ibid., 541-55
E. Platen: ‘Oedipus Rex im Zeichen der Drei: triadische Strukturen in Strawinskys Opern-Oratorium’, ibid.
Oratorio. , 439-53
S. Popp: ‘Die ungeschriebenen Oratorien Max Regers’, ibid., 379-406
G. Schubert: ‘Frederick Delius, Eine Messe des Lebens: Kommentare und analytische Hinweise’, ibid., 357-77
S. Shigihara: ‘In terra pax: Anmerkungen zu Frank Martins Oratorium’, ibid., 513-32
W. Siegmund-Schultze: ‘Das Mansfelder Oratorium von Ernst Hermann Meyer’, ibid., 533-9
M. Zenck: ‘Oratorien nach Auschwitz: zu Bernd Alois Zimmermans «ecclesiastischer Aktion» Ich wandte mich und sah an alles Unrecht, das geschah unter der Sonne’, ibid., 557-86
T. Cornfield: Franz Schmidt, 1874-1939: a Discussion of his Style with Special Reference to the Four Symphonies and ‘Das Buch mit sieben Siegeln’ (New York, 1989)
R. Schuhenn: Franz Schmidts oratorische Werke: zur Enstehungsgeschichte des ‘Buches mit sieben Siegeln’ und der ‘Deutschen Auferstehung’: Erinnerungen, zeitgenössische Presseberichte, Nachrufe (Vienna, 1990)
M. Stegemann: ‘Style Chromatique und freie Tonalität: Frank Martins Kammeroratorium Le vin herbé’, Frank Martin: Das Kompositorische Werk, 13 Studien, ed. D. Kämper (Mainz, 1990), 21-36
M. Wheeler: ‘The Dream of Gerontius: from Verse Drama to Music Drama’, Critical Essays on John Henry Newman, ed. E. Block (Victoria, BC, 1992), 89-103
S. Walsh: Stravinsky» ‘Oedipus Rex’ (Cambridge, 1993)
A. Friesenhagen: ‘The Dream of Gerontius’ von Edward Elgar: Das englische Oratorium an der Wende zum 20. Jahrhundert (Köln-Rheinkassel, 1994)
C.E. McGuire: Epic Narration: The Oratorios of Edward Elgar (diss., Harvard U., 1998)
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