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Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: NUM-ORC |
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ORATORIO , the name given to a form of religious music with chorus, solo voices and instruments, independent or at least separable from the liturgy, and on a larger scale than the cantata (q.v.). Its early history is involved in that of opera (see ARIA and OPERA), though there is a more definite interest
scheme that concerned composers was the responsa turbae, to which it was optional to add polyphonic settings of the Seven Last Words or other special utterances of the Saviour. The narrative and the parts of single speakers were sung in the Gregorian tones appointed in the liturgy. Thus the settings of the Passion by Victoria and Soriano represent, in a very simple form, a perfect solution of the art-problem of oratorio, as that problem presented itself to an age in which " dramatic music," or even " epic music," would have been a contradiction in terms. It has been aptly said that the object of the composer in setting such words as " Crucify Him " was not to express the feelings of an infuriated crowd, but rather to express the contrition of devout Christians telling the story; though this view must be admitted to be,xx. 6RATORIO I 6 I: like the 16th-century music itself, decidedly more modern than the quaintly. dramatic traditional methods of performance. As an art-form this early Passion-music owes its perfection primarily to the church. The liturgy gives body to all the art-forms of 16th-century church music, and it is for the composer to spiritualize or debase them by his style. With the monodic revolution at the beginning of the 17th century the history of oratorio as an art-form controlled by composers has its, real beginning. There is nothing but its religious subject to distinguish the first oratorio from the first opera; and so Emilio del Cavaliere's Rappresentazione di anima e di corpo (1600) is in no respect outside the line of early attempts at dramatic music. In the course of the 17th century the differentiation between opera and oratorio increased, but not systematically. The gradual revival of choral art found its best opportunity in the treatment of sacred subjects; not only because it was with such subjects that the greatest 6th century choral art was associated, but also because these subjects tended to discourage such vestiges of. dramatic realism as had not been already suppressed by the aria form. This form arose as a concession to dire musical necessity and to the growing vanity of singers, and it speedily became almost the only possibility of keeping music alive, or at least embalmed, until the , advent of Bach and Handel: The efforts of Carissimi (d. 1674) in oratorio clearly show the limited rise from the , musical standards of opera . that was then possible where music was emancipated from the stage. Yet in his art the corruption of church music by secular ideas is far more evident than any tendency to elevate Biblical music-drama to the dignity of church music. Normal Italian oratorio remains indistinguishable from serious Italian opera until as late as the boyhood of Mozart, Handel's La Resurrezzione and Il Trionfo del Tempo contain many pieces almost simultaneously Used in his operas, and they show not the slightest tendency to indulge in choral writing. Nor did Il Trionfo del Tempo become radically different from the musical masques of Acis and Galatea and Semete, when Handel at the close of his life dictated an adaptation of it to an English translation with several choral and other numbers interpolated from other works. Yet between these two versions of the same work lies more than half the history of classical oratorio. The rest lies in that specialized German art of which the text centres round the Passion and the music culminates in Bach; after which there is no very dignified connected history of the form, until the two streams, sadly silted up, and never afterwards quite pure, united in Mendelssohn. One feature of the Reformation in Germany was that Luther was very musical. This had the curious result that, though the German Reformation was far from conservative in its attitude towards ancient liturgy, it retained almost everything which makes for musical coherence . in a church service; while the English, church, with all its insistence on historic continuity, so rearranged the liturgy that no possible music for an English church service can ever form a coherent whole. We are accustomed, to think of German Passion-music as typically Protestant; yet the four Passions and the Historia der Auferstehung Christi of H. Schutz (who was born in 1585, exactly a century before Bach) are as truly the descendants of Victoria's Passions , as they are the ancestors of Bach's. The difference between them and the Roman Catholic Passions is, of course, eminently characteristic of the Reformation: the language is German (so that it may be "understanded of the people "), and the. narrative and dialogue is set to free composition instead of to forms of Gregorian chant, though it is written in a sort of Gregorian notation. Schiitz's preface to the Historia der Auferstehung Christi shows that he writes his recitative for solo voices, though he calls it Cher des Evengelisten and Cher der Personen Colloquenten. The Marcus Passion is, on internal evidence, of doubtful authenticity, being later in style and quite stereotyped in its recitative. But in the other Passions, and most of all in the Auferstehung, the recitative is wonderfully expressive. It was probably accompanied by the organ, though the Passions contain no hint of accompaniment at all. In the II Auferstehung the Evangelist is accompanied by four viole da gamba in preference to the organ. In any case, Schutz tells us, the players are to " execute appropriate runs or passages " during the sustained chords. Apart from their remarkable dramatic force, Schutz's oratorios show another approximation to the Passion oratorio of Bach's time in ending with a non-scriptural hymn-chorus, more or less clearly based on a chorale-tune. But in the course of the work the Scriptural narrative is as uninterrupted as it is in the Roman Catholic Passions. And there is one respect in which the Auferstehung, although perhaps the richest and most advanced of all Schutz's works, is less realistic than either the Roman Passions or those of later times; namely, that single persons, other than the Evangelist, are frequently represented by more than one voice. In the case of the part of the Saviour, this might, to modern minds, seem natural as showing a reverent avoidance of impersonation; and it was not without an occasional analogy in Roman Catholic Passion-music (in the polyphonic settings of special words). But Schiitz's Passions show no such convention; this feature is peculiar to the Auferstehung; and, while the three holy women and the two angels in the scene at the tomb are represented realistically by three and two imitative voices, it is curious to see Mary Magdalene elsewhere always represented by two sopranos, even though Schutz remarks in his preface that " one of the two voices may be sung and the other done instrumentaliter, or, si placet, simply left out." Shortly before Bach, Passion oratorios, not always so entitled, were represented by several remarkable and mature works of art, most notably by R. Keiser (1673-1739). Chorale-tunes, mostly in plain harmony, were freely interspersed in order that the congregation might take part in what was, after all, a musical church service for Holy Week. The feelings of devout contemplative Christians on each incident of the story were expressed in accompanied recitatives (arioso) leading to arias; and the Scriptural narrative was sung to dramatic recitative and ejaculatory chorus on the ancient Roman plan, exactly followed, even in the detail that the Evangelist was a tenor. The difference between Bach's Passions and those of his predecessors and contemporaries is simply the difference between his music and theirs. Where his chorus represents the whole body of Christendom it has as peculiar an epic power as it is dramatic where it represents with brevity and rapid climax the responsa turbae of the Scriptural narrative. Take, for example, the double chorus at the beginning of the Passion according to St Matthew, where one chorus calls to the other to " come and behold " what has come to pass, and the other chorus asks " whom?" " what?" " whither?" to each exhortation, until at last the two choruses join, while above all is heard, phrase by phrase, the hymn " O Lamm Gottes unschuldig." Still more powerful, indeed unapproached even in external effect by anything else in classical or modern oratorio, is the duet with chorus that follows the narrative of the betrayal. Its tremendous final outbreak in the brief indignant appeal to heaven for the vengeance of damnation on the traitor is met by the calm conclusion of the Evangelist's interrupted narrative and the overpowering tenderness of the great figured chorale (" O Mensch bewein' dein' Sunde gross '), which ends the first part with a call to repentance. Such contrasts might seem to be but the natural use of fine opportunities furnished by the librettist; but the composer appears to owe less to the librettist when we find that this chorale originally belonged to the Passion according to St John, where it was to follow Peter's denial of Christ. To modern ears the most striking device in the Matthew Passion is that by which the part of Christ is separated from all the rest by being accompanied with the string
In his amazing power of declamation Bach was not altogether unanticipated by Keiser; but no one before or since approached him in sustained elevation
Handel discovered and matured every possibility of oratorio as an art-form, except such as may now be brought to light by those composers with whom the influence of Wagner is not too overwhelming for them to consider how far his principles are applicable to an art unconnected with the stage. Handel shows us that a definite oratorio style may exist in many different degrees. He was evidently impressed by the German forms of Passion-music as combining the utmost dramatic interest
drawn
Israel in Egypt and the Messiah. Between these types there is every gradation of organization; and it may be added, every gradation between sacred and secular subjects and treatment. The very name of Handel's first English oratorio, Esther, with the facts of its production as a masque and the origin of its libretto in Racine, show the transition from the stage to the church; and a really scandalous example of the converse transition may be found by any one rash enough to look for the source of some of Haman's music in the Brockes-Passion. Roughly speaking we may reduce the types of Handelian oratorio to a convenient three; not divisible among works as wholes, but always evident here and there. Firstly, there is the semi-operatic method, in which the arias are the utterances of characters in the story, while the conception of the chorus rarely diverges from that of multitudes of actors (e.g. Athalia, Belshazzar, Soul, &c.). The second method is a more or less recognizable application of the forms of the Passion-music to other subjects, without, however, the conception of a special role of narrator, but (as, for instance, in " Envy, eldest born of Hell " in Saul) with the definite conception of the choruses as descriptive of the feelings of spectators rather than of actors. Handel's' It is possible that a false etymology may by Bach's time have given this colour to the word oratorio. Schatz inscribes a monodic sacred piece" in stilo Oratorio," meaning " in the style of recitative." audience demanded an inconvenient number of arias, most of which are clumsily accounted for by a conventional assignment to dramatic roles with a futile attempt at love-interest; which makes many of the best solos in Saul and Joshua rather absurd. The third Handelian method is that which has since become embodied in the modern type of sacred or secular cantata; a series of choruses and numbers on a subject altogether beyond the scope of dramatic narrative (as, for instance, the greater part of Solomon), and, in the case of the Messiah and Israel in Egypt, treated entirely in the words of Scripture.After Bach and Handel the history of oratorio becomes disjointed. The rise of the sonata style, which brought life to the opera, was almost wholly bad for the oratorio; since not only did it cause a serious decline in choral art by distracting attention from that organization of texture which is essential even to mere euphony in choral writing (see COUNTERPOINT and CONTRAPUNTAL FORMS), but its dramatic power became more and more disturbing to the essentially epic treatment demanded by the conditions of oratorio. Bach and Handel (especially Handel) were as dramatic in characterization as the greatest epic poets, and were just as far removed from the theatre. Any doubt on this point is removed by the history of Handelian opera and the, reforms of Gluck. But the power of later composers to rise above the growing swarms of 18th-century and 19th-century oratorio-mongers depended largely on the balance between their theatrical and contemplative sensibilities. Academicism naturally mistrusted the theatre, but, in the absence of any contemplative depth beyond that of a tactful asceticism, it has then and ever since made spasmodic concessions to theatrical effect, with the intention of avoiding pedantry, and with the effect of encouraging vulgarity. Philipp Emanuel Bach's oratorios, though not permanently convincing works of art, achieved a remarkably true balance of style in the earlier days of the conflict; indeed, with judicious reduction to the size of a large cantata, Die Israeliten in der Waste (1769) would perhaps bear revival almost better than Haydn's Tobias (1774), in spite of the superior musical value of that ambitious forerunner of The Creation and The Seasons. These two great products of Haydn's old age owe their vitality not only to Haydn's combination of contrapuntal and choral mastery with his unsurpassable freedom of movement
From the moment when music became independent of the church, Roman Catholic religious music, liturgical or other, lost its high artistic position. Some of the technical hindrances to greatness in liturgical music after the Golden Age are mentioned in the article MASS; but the status of Roman Catholic non-liturgical religious music was from the outset lowered by the use of the vulgar tongue, since that implied a condescension to the laity, and composers could not but be affected by the assumption that oratorio belonged to a lower sphere than Latin church music. With this element of condescension came a reluctance to foster the fault of intellectual pride
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Schubert's wonderful fragment Lazarus (182o) suffers less from the sickliness of its text; for the music seizes on a certain genuine quality aimed at by all typical Roman Catholic religious verse-writers, and embodies it in a kind of romantic mysticism unexampled in Protestant oratorio. Modern literature shows this peculiar strain in Cardinal Newman's Dream of Gerontius, just as Sir Edward Elgar's setting of that poem to music of Wagnerian continuity and texture presents the only parallel discoverable later or earlier to the slightly oppressive aroma of Schubert's unique experiment.'. Lazarus also surprises us by a rather invertebrate continuity of flow, anticipating early Wagnerian opera; indeed, in almost every respect it is two generations ahead of its time; and, if only Schubert had finished it and allowed it to see publicity, the history of 19th-century oratorio might have become a more interesting subject than it is. The ascendancy of Mendelssohn, as things happened, is really its main redeeming feature. Mendelssohn applied an unprecedented care and a wide general culture to the structure and criticism of his libretto (see his correspondence with Schubring, his principal helper with the texts of St Paul and Elijah), and was able to bear witness of his new-found gospel according to Bach by introducing chorales into St Paul as well as by disinterring and performing Bach's works. But he had not the strength to rescue oratorio from the slough into which it had now fallen, no less in Protestant than in Roman Catholic forms. As the interest in Biblical themes becomes more independent of church and dogma, oratorio once more tends to become con-fused with Biblical opera. The singular fragrance and tenderness of the best parts of Berlioz's little masterpiece L'Enfance du Christ (put together from sections composed between 1847 and 1854) give it high artistic value; but if " oratorio " means " sacred music " Berlioz was incapable of anything of the sort; for the Christianity of his Grande Messe des morts and his Te Deum is the Christianity of Napoleon; and, if oratorio means a consistent treatment of a legend or subject in terms of musical epic, Berlioz can never fix his attention long enough to remember how he began by the time he has got half way through. Though Berlioz's essay in oratorio is not quite so irresponsible a vocalsymphonic-dramatic medley as his Romeo et Juliette and Damnation de Faust, it unmistakably marks a transition towards the complete secularizing of the Bible for musical purposes. But the long-continued prejudice in England against the representation of religious subjects on the stage has wrought peculiar confusion in the theory of their romantic treatment in music. It may be noted as a curiosity that Saint-Saens's Biblical opera, Samson et Dalila (written in 1877), after being known in England for many quiet years as an oratorio, suddenly, in 1910, was permitted by the censor of plays, under royal command, to be produced at Covent Garden for what it was intended. It may 1 Schubert's well-known cantata, Miriam's Siegesgesang, has been discussed as a small oratorio; but it is of slight artistic and no historic importance. even be suggested that this occurred just early enough to prevent Strauss's Salome from being regarded by the British public as an oratorio. The earnest efforts of Cesar Franck prevented French oratorio from drifting entirely towards the stage; and meanwhile year by year Brahms's Deutsches Requiem (completed, except for one movement
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