Castil-Blaze, speaking of the accidental invention of opera near the close of the Sixteenth Century, observes: " Thus Christopher Columbus endeavoring to discover Cathay by Cipango found America." His comparison is pertinent, for investigation has more than a tendency to indicate that opera sprang full-armored from the front of a desire characteristic of the time to return to the practices of the ancient Greeks and in this case to their musical plays. Plato and Aristotle were the Koran of the Medievalists and those who came a little later, but they had said tantalizingly little on the subject of music, and a company of Florentine gentlemen with leisure and the inclination to work for the artistic betterment of a naturally unclassical world, set for themselves the task of looking into the matter. The result, which they called opera, was the direct ancestor of the modern musical drama, and not as they fondly imagined, a revival of the ancient Hellenic entertainment.
Now, by a strange chance, at this very time in Rome, following the natural paths of evolution from the mystery and miracle plays of the Middle Ages, almost the same idea was taking definite form, but under the name of Oratorio. In truth, the more we look into the matter the more difficult becomes the task of pointing out any radical difference in form at least in the two new institutions whose establishment lends such luster to the year 1600. Both employed the chorus and the newly invented aria and recitative, and in the plan of both were included acting, costume, scenery and the ballet. The only apparent distinction lay in the character of the subject matter, that of opera dealing with the loves and lives of the heroes of mythology, while oratorio concerned itself with the pointing of moral truth.
The youthful oratorio and opera for a time flourished side by side, composed by the same men, sharing the same processes of development. But gradually their ways diverged, opera tending more and more to the realistically dramatic, and oratorio farther and farther away from the stage, such adjuncts as the ballet being speedily dropped. The history of oratorio is indeed an affair of a few periods, in contrast to the opera with its many epochs and revolutions.
To attempt to trace the genealogy of oratorio from the beginning would be to grope after the first manifestation of the dramatic instinct which is innate in man and leads children to take such pleasure in pretending what is not — all of which is obviously unnecessary.
Burney, in his famous Eighteenth Century History of Music, remarks : " Every nation in Europe seems, in the first attempts at dramatic expression, to have had recourse to religious subjects," and during the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries the rude representations of sacred subjects were common all over Europe, the first recorded spiritual comedy in Italy having been played in Padua in 1243. In the most natural fashion, the custom of associating music with them gradually came into being. Burney makes a lucid distinction in this wise: "An oratorio, in which the dialogue was spoken, and songs and choruses merely incidental, would be only a mystery, morality, or sacred tragedy ; and an opera, declaimed, with occasional songs, a masque, or play with singing in it," and elsewhere he says, "An oratorio, or sacred drama, is but a mystery or morality in music."
St. Philip of Neri (1515-1595), founder of the congregation of the Priests of the Oratory, seems unconsciously to have assisted the development of the form. Evidently the successful inculcation of the moral principle in the youthful mind was in the Sixteenth Century, as today, a matter calling for the exercise of diplomacy. The secular plays of Rome had become so degraded as to be a menace to public morals and this good man, wise in his day and generation, realized that the surest way to lure the straying feet of the Roman youths into safer paths was to provide a counter attraction. This at first consisted of songs and psalms in the oratory, but soon a plan was devised whereby the Scriptures were presented in such sugar-coated form that their identity was scarcely suspected. Taking his idea from the ancient plays, St. Philip had some of the most entertaining of the stories of. Holy Writ put into verse and set to music by good composers. Favorite subjects were the Good Samaritan, Job and his Friends, the Prodigal Son, and Tobit and the Angels. The plan was thoroughly successful, and to quote from the chronicle, " Such curiosity was excited by the performance of the first part that there was no danger during the sermon that any of the hearers would retire before they had heard the second." It is a tradition, more or less contradicted, that these, because they were presented in the chapel or oratory, were called oratorios, which appelation is thus in itself no more enlightening than " opera."
The first of them were given about 'the middle of the Sixteenth Century, and as the years went by they grew in plan and effectiveness. A few years after the death of St. Philip, Emilio del Cavalieri, with the noble lady Laura Giudiccioni for his collaborator, composed an ambitious work called La Rappresentazione di Animo e di Corpo (The Body and the Soul), destined because of the use of the new forms, among them the very dramatic recitative, to go down in history as the first true oratorio.
Cavalieri, who was one of the most talented of the composers of his day, and who, during his residence in Florence in the service of the Medici, rejoiced in the title of " Inspector General of Artists," probably never had the satisfaction of witnessing a performance of his greatest work, as he is believed to have died a short time previously. This, like its predecessors, was presented in the oratory of the Church of Santa Maria della Vallicella.
Let us glance at the first of the oratorios. The principal characters of Donna Giudiccioni's allegory were Time, Human Life, the World, Pleasure, the Intellect, the Soul, the Body, and the two youths who recited the prologue. The orchestra was composed of a double lyre, a harpsichord, a large or double guitar, and two flutes. There were ninety numbers. We are enabled to obtain a clear idea of the affair by the remarkably full and sometimes rather startling instructions left by the composer :
" 1. The words should be printed, with the verses correctly arranged, the scenes numbered, and characters of the interlocutors specified.
" 2. Instead of the overture, or symphony, to modern musical dramas, a madrigal is recommended as a full piece, with all the voice parts doubled, and a great number of instruments.
" 3. When the curtain rises, two youths, who recite the prologue, appear on the stage, and when they have done, Time, one of the characters in this morality, comes on, and has the note with which he is to begin given him by the instrumental performers behind the scenes.
" 4. The chorus is to have a place alotted them on the stage, part sitting and part standing, in sight of the principal characters. And when they sing, they are to rise and be in motion, with proper gestures.
" 5. Pleasure, another imaginary character, with two companions, are to have instruments in their hands, on which they are to play while they sing, and perform the ritornels.
" 6. Il Corpo (the Body), when these words are uttered : 'Si che hormai alma mia ' (' If therefore ever my soul '), etc., may throw away some of his ornaments : as his gold collar, feathers from his hat, etc.
" 7. The World, and Human Life in particular, are to be very gaily and richly dressed; and when they are divested of their trappings, to appear very poor and wretched; and at length dead carcasses.
" 8. The symphonies and ritornels may be played by a great number of instruments; and if a violin should play the principal part it would have a very good effect.
" 9. The performance may be finished with or without a dance. If without, the last chorus is to be doubled in all its parts, vocal and instrumental. These shall succeed other grave steps and figures of the solemn kind. During the ritornels the four principal dancers are to perform a ballet, ` enlivened with capers or enterchats,' without singing. And this, after each stanza, always varying the steps of the dance; and the four principal dancers may sometimes use the galiard, sometimes the canary, and sometimes the courant step, which will do very well in the ritornels.
" 10. The stanzas of the ballet are to be sung and played by all the performers within and without."
The destiny of the opera inaugurated by Peri and Caccini fell into the capable hands of Claudio Monteverde, and in the enthusiasm engendered by the brilliant and pleasing lyrical dramas which came from his fertile pen, oratorio was pretty well forgotten for a number of years, the mantle of Cavalieri having seemingly fallen upon no waiting shoulders.
But shining out of the middle of the century we find the " Querimonia di S. Maria Maddaléna " (" The lament of Mary Magdalene "), by Domenico Mazzocchi (1590-1650), an oratorio said to have been so beautiful that it left all who heard it in tears.
Giacomo Carissimi (1604-1674) is the next important name connected with the history of oratorio. In addition to his unique distinction of writing quite the last of L'Homme Armé masses, he was one of the most graceful and elegant of the composers of his time. He did his most successful work in this field, and many of his oratorios are extant, such as " The Plaint of the Lost," " The Story of Job," " Belshazzar," " David and Jonathan," "Abraham and Isaac," " Jephthah " (possibly his masterpiece), " The Last Judgment," " Job and Jonas," these works for many years serving as models for lesser men. Carissimi had a glimpse of the hitherto undiscovered possibility of the chorus, but his chief contribution to progress was his development of the recitative. Even in his day the spectacular aspect of the oratorio began to lose importance, and to take the place of scenery and action, a personage called the Narrator or Historius was devised to relate certain explanatory portions their absence made necessary.
The most distinguished of all those who preceded Bach was Alessandro Scarlatti (1659-1725), the first of a musical family recalling, though by no means rivaling, the Bachs as exponents of the power of heredity. Scarlatti was versatile, working with equal distinction in opera, oratorio and cantata.
The sacrifice of Abraham " and " The Martyrdom of Saint Theodosia " are the titles of two of the most famous of his sacred works. Though they may have failed to achieve the religious spirit, being sometimes indeed disfigured by rather flippant devices, Scarlatti released the aria from the shackles of conventionality and sent it to take its place beside the purified recitative of Carissimi as an important and expressive factor in oratorio.
Contemporary with him was Alessandro Stradella (1645-?), of melodramatic memory, whose choral ideas were even broader than Carissimi's and whose " Saint John the Baptist " is beautiful enough to have overcome the hardened assassins sent by his rival in love to destroy him, even if a skeptical world is inclined to doubt the tale.
It is now that the native home of oratorio ceases to be the scene of its growth and development, this shifting to other lands. In Italy the skirts of Progress, rustling by, scarcely touch it as she passes.
Meantime, in Germany, from that certain class of the old plays which chose for its text incidents in the life of Christ, and of which the present Passion Play at Oberammergau is an idealized survival, there was developing the Passion music which was destined to change the very fiber and being of oratorio. The custom of presenting the Passion in dramatic guise can be traced almost to the beginning of the Christian era, an early instance being that of St. Gregory Nazianzen (330-390), who gave the story of our Lord's last hours in the form of a Greek tragedy with commenting choruses such as were associated with the plays of Sophocles. During the Middle Ages, when the Scriptures were still in Latin and Hebrew and the common people utterly unlearned, in order to make the story of the sacrifice plain to them, the priests brought about the custom of saying with dramatic action, and in course of time singing, the four different versions of the Passion on four days of Holy Week. Those ecclesiastics who figured prominently in the presentation were called the Deacons of the Passion. Spitta, Bach's biographer, explains that " one priest sang the narrative portion, a second the words of Christ, a third those of the other individuals, while the utterances of the populace (the crowd or turba), were repeated by the choir." He also describes an interesting phase of the custom in the following paragraph : " The Passion plays were so conducted, in many parts of Germany, that only a preliminary portion was performed in the church, while the principal action was played in a procession, arranged to go to a raised spot outside the church, called the Calvary or Hill of the Cross. This procession was planned on the biblical narrative of the progress to the Cross, the different personages, distinguished by their clothes or by emblems, among them a representative of Christ with the Cross, marched in traditional order, chanting hymns of lamentation. At certain spots the procession halted and performed the more dramatic scenes."
At the close of the Reformation, the practice was kept up in the Protestant Church with which it came to be associated. During the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries these Passion settings were turned out in great numbers. All of them at first in plain-song, they at no time differed greatly from each other, and no composer thought of departing from the conventional plan which decreed among other things that the narrator or evangelist should take the tenor part, the bass that of Christ, and the other characters be assigned to the alto.
One of the most prolific of the early German writers of Passion music was Heinrich Schütz (1585-1672), sometimes called the " Father of German music," who in 1615 became chapelmaster at the court of the Elector of Saxony in Dresden. His first Passion music was not written until thirty years after this date. Schütz had a divided heart, and although he endeavored to be loyal to immemorial custom, he was by no means unaware of the forward movement and experimented discreetly with the vocal solo, the instrumental accompaniment, and the dramatic chorus, still clinging, how-ever, for the most part, to plain-song.
An innovation of great importance introduced at this time and one which was used by Schütz was the addition of the chorale or hymn, a thoroughly German growth which had its root in the very folk-song itself. These were intended to be sung by the people, the effect of congregational singing at once being observed to be wholesome and inspiriting. Sometimes more than thirty chorales were used in one Passion setting.
In truth, all the Germans contemporary or following wrote Passion music, even the young Handel before he left for his Italian visit giving his energies to such an effort. Important among the number were Mattheson and Sebastiani, who was the first to eschew the Gregorian setting ; and even Reinhard Keiser, with his record of one hundred and sixteen operas, found time to contribute numerous sacred works of this kind to the output, even appearing with an innovation in his hands, the introduction of " certain pious reflections upon the progress of the sacred narrative," which had the honor to be adopted by everybody who followed.
It is not difficult to believe that the boundary line between opera and oratorio during Keiser's musical régime in Hamburg was not very distinct, and shocking as it may seem, it was not unknown to introduce the comic element, this being usually supplied by a peddler of ointment (for whom there is no authority in the Scriptures), and Malthus, the servant, whose ear Peter cut off.
During this preliminary development the Italian melody in the form of aria and recitative had wafted across the German frontier where organ music and the chorale in its simplest form were flourishing. The history of oratorio is now dignified by the influence of one who was to effect a reconciliation between those alien elements, and wed them in the perfection of the Passion setting. This is Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), of whose works Rubinstein has since predicted with no danger of being considered extravagant, "A time will come when it will be said of him, as of Homer, ` this was not written by one but by many.' "
Some one has said that the idea of writing a Passion setting was first suggested to Bach by Dr. Salomo Deyling, superintendent of the diocese at Leipsic, though it seems scarcely credible that such an idea did not occur naturally to any young composer of that day. In Leipsic, by the way, it had been the custom for many years to sing the " Passion according to St. Matthew " on Palm Sunday. It was divided into two portions with the sermon intermediate, and the interest of the congregation was increased by the general singing of chorales.
The illustrious cantor of Leipsic is said to have written five Passion settings in the course of his lifetime, but all trace of two of them has been lost. His " Passion according to St. John " would be the greatest work of the kind in existence had he not written another, but even it is dwarfed by comparison with that according to St. Matthew, which out-tops in spirituality, nobility and beauty all other Passions ever written. It is a sublime masterpiece rarely near perfection. The narrative is delivered by the evangelist, the parts of the chief characters are given as solos, and there are arias, choruses, double choruses, and chorales. Bach is unmatched in the use of chorales; as he employs them they are usually written in four parts, harmonized simply, but with exquisite variety. And as to the choruses, there is nothing comparable in church music.
The effect of this majestic work upon other composers was fairly paralyzing, and since the production of the " Passion according to St. Matthew " no one, with the single exception of Karl Heinrich Graun (1701-1759), whose " Der Tod Jesu " (" The death of Jesus ") has been performed annually in Berlin on Passion Week since 1755, has had the temerity to attempt this kind of work.
In addition to the five Passions, Bach wrote the famous Christmas Oratorio, the Ascension Oratorio, and two hundred and ninety-seven cantatas, which are virtually short oratorios.
In Germany the Passion finishes its career, and the oratorio ever moving westward for its growth is taken to England, where, under George Frederick Handel (1685-1759), it finds the form which we know today. Bach and Handel — the lives of the two present at once so many striking similarities and contrasts that it is a strong test of character to refrain from enumerating the list. Both were born in the spring of the year 1685. Both were German by birth and ancestry; both of them were notoriously hasty in temper, and both of them endured blindness before they died. Bach at eighteen became organist at the Church of Arnstadt at a salary of $45 a year. Handel at the same age proved his superior financial acumen by commanding five dollars more per annum for similar services at the cathedral at Halle. Bach's family took it as a matter of course that he should follow music as a vocation. Handel was strenuously opposed by a disgusted father. Handel was a bachelor; Bach had two wives and twenty children. Handel was a thorough man of the world, and his life was full of incident. Bach's life was spent in obscurity and was so eventless that his disappointment over his failure to meet Handel, apparently owing to the latter's indifference, almost assumes the importance of an episode. Handel was lionized during his lifetime and counted the foremost composer of the world, his contemporary, Gluck, voicing public opinion when he said, " I look upon Handel with reverential awe, as the inspired master of our art." But there is a growing inclination to name before him a great triad of immortals of whom Bach is one. Bach's contemporaries had no suspicion of the breadth of his genius, but each year gives his name new luster.
Handel's first love was not oratorio. He wrote over forty operas of the conventional pattern before he began his real career. For years he ruled the lyric stage in London, looked to by fashionable society for its smartest amusement, managing the finances of the Royal Academy of Music as well as composing for it, selecting his singers from the best in Europe and merrily sending to Naples for a voice if he wished to write an aria with an especially high note in it. Probably no one, least of all the Great Expatriate, suspected that he would one day turn to oratorio, and gain his surest title to immortality therefrom. In truth, Providence worked in mysterious ways for the making of the greatest of the oratorio writers. One method employed was the rather unpleasant one of causing him to fall out with the aristocracy, and as may be deduced from his attitude in the Buononcini feud, he was not the man to take extra measures to placate his enemies. A rival opera company with aristocratic patronage was formed, but both failed, and Handel found himself not only bankrupt but broken in health. Probably it was not so much that the public was incensed at Handel as that it was becoming, without knowing it, thoroughly tired of the emptiness and inanity of the opera. Jaded senses refused to thrill even though the soprano might trill on one small syllable for fifteen bars at a time. Handel was snubbed and persecuted; still, when leaders of fashion pointedly give large tea parties and get up sets at cards whenever a man's entertainments are advertised, he should not despair, for he is not for-gotten, and the flattery is the sincerest in the world. Even in his least prosperous days Handel was recognized as a man of genius, and appreciated by great men, such as Pope, Gay, Fielding, Hogarth, Smollett, Arbuthnot and others. He was himself one of the goodly fellowship who make the piquant story of English society in the days of the first two Georges well worth the reading.
Handel was no dreamer, and he was not above putting his ear to the ground when it came to public opinion. He had his first inkling of the fact that England was by nature predisposed to oratorio during a certain Lenten season when, opera being tabooed as belonging to "the world, the flesh and the devil," a sacred work was presented and favorably received. Handel's first oratorio, "Esther," had been written in 1720 when he was in the- service of the Duke of Chandos, but this was not produced publicly until 1733 (with scenery, dresses and action), and one may safely refer to it as quite the first work of the kind to be produced in the Island which now numbers among its sobriquets, " The Land of the Oratorio."
Not until 1739 did Handel abdicate his one-time kingdom, the stage (with some regret, it is true), and begin that magnificent series of choral works with whose fame the world is still ringing. First came " Saul " (1739) and "Israel in Egypt" (1739), and following in stately procession until almost the end of his life, the " Messiah" (1742), " Samson" (1743), "Hercules" (1745), " Belshazzar (1745), the Occasional Oratorio (1746), " Judas Maccabaeus " (1747), "Alexander Balus " (1748), " Judas" (1748), "Solomon" (1749), "Susanna" (1749), "Theodore" (1750), "Jephtha" (1752), " The Triumph of Time and Truth" (1757). England at first endured very politely, forthwith pitied herself for not having known oratorio before, and then embraced the new idol with all her heart and soul and evidently for all time. An item in Faulkner's Journal (Dublin) for March 12, 1743, indicates the trend affairs were taking. "The new oratorio (called Samson) which he composed since he left the Island, has been performed four times to more crowded audiences than ever were seen; more people being turned away for want of room each night than hath been at the Italian opera." And Horace Walpole, writing that same season, announces " Handel has set up an oratorio against the opera, and succeeds."
One of the strangest features of the case is that in the twenty years in which Handel was producing his oratorios, he maintained a monopoly of the field, there being no record of a single formidable rival to enter the lists against him. And quite as remarkable is the fact that since that time not a single oratorio has been written which has been able to find the public heart as the " Messiah," and in truth a full half dozen of these mighty works retain their pristine freshness after one hundred and fifty years.
The oratorios of Handel were very different from the ecclesiastical works of Bach. As Handel conceived the oratorio it resembled its Italian forbears. At the same time it could not have been possible without the early German training he received in the same school as Bach. He had a foundation of unwavering technic upon which to build, and the magnificent choruses upon which his fame principally rests find no prototype in the works of Carissimi and Stradella. Handel added nothing really new, nothing which had originated in himself, but the form resulting from this fusion is the oratorio as we know it today, and it is a satisfaction to discern that in the progress from Cavalieri down through the Passion music nothing essential has been lost.
Not until thirty-five years after the death of Handel was there any important contribution to oratorio. It came then in two German works, composed by that singularly simple and amiable man, Joseph Haydn (1732-1809), which were inspired by a production of the " Messiah." Haydn was an old man at the time he wrote his greatest work, the "Creation" (1796), but he was well supported by his own earnest piety and the memory of Handel's choruses. To a second work the " Seasons" (1801), almost equally fine in its way, he was urged by Baron Van Swieten, his librettist, of whom he seems to have been half afraid as a school-boy of an exacting master, and there would have been three instead of two of these works had not death interfered. The Haydn oratorios have a sprightly and light-hearted character which has not escaped criticism, but some innate good has kept them new and delightful for over a century. They contain some very modern touches, such as the imitation of the grasshopper in " Summer" in the " Seasons." Bombet, a contemporary Frenchman, remarks with some irritation : " The critics objected to ` The Four Seasons,' that it contained even fewer airs than ` The Creation,' and said that it was a piece of instrumental music with a vocal accompaniment. The author was growing old. He is also accused, ridiculously enough in my opinion, of having introduced a little gaiety into a serious subject. And why is it serious? Because it is called an oratorio."
It may be mentioned in passing that there are several of the immortals to whom the oratorio did not appeal. It seems to be the one form which has missed the influence of Mozart. Beethoven wrote one oratorio, " Christ on the Mount of Olives," but his heart evidently was not in his work, and it is as near commonplace as it is possible for the mighty Ludwig to be. Wagner wrote a solitary work of this character. " Das Liebesmahl der Apostle" (" The love-feast of the Apostles"), which in no way added to his fame.
In the early Nineteenth Century all other musical forms were forced into the background by the rejuvenated but not reformed Italian opera. In Italy the opera engaged the affections of composers and public to the exclusion of everything else, and a merry quintet, consisting of Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, Mercadante and Pacini, turned out between them something like two hundred and fifty works of this class, which were in course of time exported and warmly received in all the European centers. It was a time when musical frivolity and show flourished side by side with the same kind of sentimentality which adored wax flowers and languishing ladies. " Il Bel Canto," crowned queen of the carnival, pirouetted with graceful abandon upon a shaky platform of bad instrumentation, careless technic, and an utter disregard of the relation between the sound and the sense, which was rather more likely than otherwise to paint despair in lilting measures, and joy as though "steeped to the lips in misery."
Merely to read the history of opera at this time sings in the ears like the measures of a mazurka. In Paris, Meyer-beer exploited grand opera and the world went mad over a more ambitious spectacle than it had ever before even dreamed of. Wagner was writing the " Flying Dutchman" in his garret in a city gaily oblivious of him. In Germany Weber and Spohr set in motion the far-reaching romantic movement in opera with such flesh and blood works as " Der Freischütz," " Oberon," " Euryanthe," and " Jessonda." It was distinctly the day of opera, and oratorio was well-nigh forgotten. There was no room for the sober, solid fugue beside the glittering aria, and the heroes of the Old Testament were dull and undiverting in comparison with the lively intriguing barbers, love-sick maidens who walked in their sleep, and mad brides who rushed from the nuptial chamber with dripping daggers in their hands. The old still reigned, but faint outlines of new ideals and nebulous reforms were visible on the horizon.
Almost the only oratorios of lasting value produced during this time were those of Ludwig Spohr (1784-1859). " The Last Judgment," written in 1826, is his masterpiece, and others of importance are " Des Heilands letzte Stunden (1835), called " Calvary" in England, and " The Fall of Babylon" in 1842. These were of excellent workmanship and contained numerous fine choruses of the type of " Destroyed is Babylon the Mighty." They have always been popular in oratorio-singing countries.
It remained for Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (1809-1847) to write the most thoroughly satisfactory oratorios after Haydn's " Creation," and through them to accomplish a general revival of chorus writing and chorus singing. This young man, in many respects the most captivating personality which has entered into the history of oratorio, introduced himself to the world at seventeen with a marvelously fine " Overture to the Midsummer Night's Dream," which has been called "the happiest piece of descriptive music of our time," and at twenty brought forth from the dusty archives of the Thomaskirche at Leipsic, Bach's " Passion according to St. Matthew," which had lain there forgotten for over a century. It seems to have been the especial province of Mendelssohn always to be charming, and not the least pleasing of the roles in which we find him is this — a fairy prince, "the Magic Music in his heart," breaking through the enchanted hedge of forgetfulness and prejudice to awaken with the kiss of appreciation this sublime masterpiece sleeping
"Till the hundred summers die,
<and thought and time be born again
Mendelssohn before his untimely death added several fine choral works to the number truly loved and understood by the people. " St. Paul " and " Elijah" are oratorios of the typical sort, and he was engaged upon a most promising third entitled " Christus" at the time of his demise. " The Hymn of Praise" is a choral work of more reflective character than the other.
For all his worship of Bach and Handel, Mendelssohn was keenly alive to the tendencies of the time. Appearing very clearly in his works is a closer relation between the words and the music, a disposition to write with the concert hall rather than the church in mind, and the granting of far greater importance to the orchestration than his predecessors had done. From Bach he adopted with much success the use of the German chorale. Though he emulates Handel in the massing of his choral forces, he displays a whole century's gain over his predecessor in his management of the orchestra. Much of the success which has attended the Mendelssohn oratorios is due to their attractive dramatic quality. Some critics are fond of declaring them nothing more or less than religious operas given without theatrical accessories, and " Elijah" is in very truth probably the most dramatic oratorio ever written. Mendelssohn's works were given at the great English festivals, and he effected almost as complete a conquest of that country as Handel had done before him. But all proverbs to the contrary, he was idolized as completely in his own country, and Berlioz, who had met him while visiting in Germany and with whom he had exchanged batons, inquires whimsically in a letter home, " Is it not true that their creed is, ` There is one Bach and Mendelssohn is his prophet?' " Mendelssohn was by nature well-endowed for the composition of works of the character under consideration, and his earnestness and sincerity are adorably manifest in a letter sent by him when in Italy to his friend Edouard Devrient. Devrient it seems had written to him, in jest quoting Schiller's line in " Don Carlos," " Two and twenty years and nothing done for immortality;" reminding him that composing psalms and chorales, even if they did recall Sebastian Bach, would bring him no fame and suggesting an opera.
Mendelssohn took it quite seriously and replied as follows : " You reproach me that I am twenty-two and not yet famous. To this I can answer nothing; but if it had been the will of God that at twenty-two I should be famous, then famous I most likely should be. I cannot help it, for I compose as little with a view to becoming famous, as of becoming a Kapellmeister. It would be delightful to be both, but as long as I am not positively starving, I look upon it as my duty to compose just how and what my heart indites, and to leave the effect it will make to him who takes heed of greater and better things. As time goes on I think more deeply and sincerely of that — to write only as I feel, to have less regard than ever to outward results, and when I have produced a piece that has flowed from my heart — whether it is afterward to bring me fame, honors, orders, or snuff-boxes does not concern me."
One of the best known of Mendelssohn's several disciples is Niels Gade (1817-1890), the Norwegian, a graceful and truly gifted writer whose works are exceedingly popular.
The chief choral works of Robert Schumann (1810-1856) are " Paradise and the Peri" (1843) and " Scenes from Goethe's " Faust" (1844-1853), and they contain some of his finest music. Franz Schubert (1797-1828) wrote several melodious works of this character.
For a good many years the oratorio enjoyed no unusual favor in France, possibly owing to a national predilection for the drama and the dance. Nevertheless, that master of the orchestra, Hector Berlioz (1803-1869) contributed one of the most famous of choral works, " The Damnation of Faust" (1846), which is a hybrid affair partaking of the qualities of the opera, the oratorio and the cantata, and one true oratorio, a sacred trilogy, entitled the " Infancy of Christ." The latter's second part, the " Flight into Egypt," was written some time before the rest, and began its career as a practical joke of the Thomas Chatter-ton variety. Berlioz with graphic descriptions of the sorry state of the parchment and his difficulty in deciphering the ancient notation, presented it to a much edified world as a Seventeenth Century composition unearthed during excavations at La Saint-Chapelle. The pith of the joke lies in the fact that the public was quite unsuspicious, notwithstanding that the music was utterly unlike any achievement of the Seventeenth Century.
Two works which are recommended to the public by their melodiousness, and which are in truth almost as famous in their way as the composer's operas, were produced by Charles Gounod (1818-1893) in his later years. These, the " Redemption" (1882) and " Mors et Vita" were in-spired by a residence in England and a frequent hearing of English oratorio. Gounod's works were produced at English festivals and the same generous appreciation bestowed upon this foreigner as Handel and Mendelssohn had enjoyed before him. It is by no means astonishing that the works of this man so eminently well fitted by nature for the writing of opera should not be entirely exempt from traces of the theatrical.
Latterly some of the most notable work in oratorio as in opera has been done by Frenchmen. The chorus writing of César Franck (1822-1890) is entitled to rank among the best of the last one hundred years. He has put numerous biblical scenes into short oratorios, such as the stories of Ruth and Rebecca, but the " Beatitudes" is by all odds his masterpiece. Massenet and Saint-Saëns are other French-men who have labored successfully in this field. Claude Debussy (1862), whose " Pelleas et Melisande" is one of the most discussed of the recent operas, is well represented in oratorio. His setting of Rosetti's " Blessed Damosel" gives the same respectful attention to the female chorus that Bruch in his works gives to the male. The last word in oratorio has indeed come from France in " The Children's Crusade" (1905), a " musical legend " composed by Gabriel Pierné (1863). The story of the strangest and most pathetic of the crusades has been told with charming grace and originality which are more than matched in the naďve and melodious score. It is frequently sung with the assistance of great choruses of children.
Anton Rubinstein (1830-1894) was a would-be re-former of oratorio, but the part he played in its history is almost pathetically futile. He was possessed with the conviction that the customary method of presenting oratorio without acting or stage accessories was cold and inadequate, not to say incongruous, and he spent much of his life trying to bring the rest of the world to his point of view. He wrote his oratorios, among which the " Tower of Babel " stands out conspicuously, with the idea of presenting them as sacred operas. Rubinstein himself said in a publication of his views on the subject: " Thinking of the stage I wrote my ` Paradise Lost,' then remodeled it for the concert hall as an oratorio, and finally, instigated by the idea which I have given up, I gave it the dramatic form of sacred opera. The same thing was done with the ` Tower of Babel,' and as I do not even now give up the hope that my plan will earlier or later be taken up, I am writing in this way my 'Cain and Abel,' ' Sulamith,' ' Moses,' ' Christus,' whether the day of representation comes or not is no matter."
It is indeed difficult to find in the affair a vital issue. The necessity of merging the two forms, opera and oratorio, when there is ample room in the world for both, and decided preference for both the spectacular and the reflective type, is not quite apparent.
Franz Liszt (1811-1886) contributed two works, the " Legend of the Holy Elizabeth," and " Christus," which differ a good deal in form, the latter consisting almost wholly of choruses and instrumental numbers, the aria and recitative being banished.
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) has been called " the greatest contrapuntist since Bach, and the greatest architectionist since Beethoven." He is an anomaly, for he has been able to outride the handicap of Schumann's cloying prophecy, made when Brahms was twenty, in the famous newspaper article " New Paths," and as we all know Pegasus is given to balking when his course is indicated for him too high in the heavens. Although Brahms contributed masterpieces to every field of composition, it is not unlikely that brightest glory will concentrate upon his choral works, of which the " German Requiem " (1868), the " Song of Destiny " (1872) and the " Song of Triumph" (1873) are notable instances, combining with flawless workmanship a remark-able intellectual and spiritual force.
Antonin Dvorák (1841-1904), greatest of Bohemian composers, appears with a number of fine choral works, original and glowing from the musician's viewpoint and simple and sincere from the spiritual.
Don Lorenzo Perosi (1872), a Roman priest and organist, has written a large number of sacred choral works under the especial patronage of the Church, but while owing to the singularly favorable circumstances under which they were presented, they made a sensation at that time, their value is open to serious question.
It must assuredly be gratifying to England to know that after tenderly fostering oratorio for nearly two centuries, and welcoming foreign oratorio composers with a cordiality which has become proverbial, she at last has come into her own, and that a native Englishman is widely considered to be the foremost composer of oratorio in the world. Sir Edward Elgar (1859) is the most gifted English musician since the days of Purcell and the madrigal, and his most distinguished service has been for oratorio. He is essentially original and he has forgotten to worship at the shrine of Handel and Mendelssohn. He has given a new lease of life to a species of music which seemed to be degenerating, for he has brought to it the invigorating tonic of all the modern ideas and enthusiasms. Conventions have fallen before his breezy progress. His oratorios are in the continuous music of the Wagnerian music-drama, without detachable numbers, and he holds the Wagnerian conviction that the text is the main thing and that its meaning must not be obscured. He fairly outdoes Wagner in his own especial field, there being, for instance, ninety-two leading motives in the "Apostles," which is more than the entire Nibelungen trilogy contains. Elgar's orchestration is especially fine, rich and eloquent. Enthusiasts call him the greatest master of expression since Beethoven and some one suggests that the compliment Erasmus paid to Albrecht Durer might very fittingly be transferred to him, " There is nothing he cannot express with his black and white — thunder and lightning, a gust of wind, God Almighty and the heavenly host." Elgar's scores present unusual difficulties, and require for their interpretation something more subtle than self-confidence. His first oratorio appeared in
1896. It was entitled " The Light of Life" and subtitled a " Meditation." His ideals had not yet taken form. He grew rapidly and " The Dream of Gerontius" (1900) was, as some one says, an advance over its predecessor, " perhaps as astonishing in its way as that of Beethoven from his second symphony (1802) to the ` Eroica ' (1804)." " The Apostles " followed in 1903 and the "Kingdom " in 1906. Both of these works were conducted by Elgar in this country, where he has many admirers. He was knighted in 1904.
An English choral writer of unusually picturesque interest as well as ability is Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, whose father was a full-blooded African and his mother an English woman, and whose most successful cantata is a setting of Longfellow's " Hiawatha."
In America brighter promise has been made in oratorio than in opera. John Knowles Paine (1839-1906), who for many years occupied the chair of music at Harvard, wrote several choral pieces of merit, among them the oratorio, " St. Peter," in 1873, and it is reason for deep regret that death cut short his work upon a symphonic poem upon Abraham Lincoln.
Dudley Buck (1839) is a composer very popular within American boundaries. He appeals to the general taste and is the delight of the village choirmaster. His many short cantatas with organ accompaniment are practicable works, and have been the source of much pleasure. Buck is a loyal American and the majority of his more ambitious choral pieces are built upon the works of native writers, as " The Golden Legend " (1880), upon Longfellow's poem; the Centennial Meditation of Columbus (1876), upon Sydney Lanier's ode ; and "Don Munio" (1874), whose story is taken from Irving's "Alhambra." His most potent source of inspiration, however, has been Sir Edwin Arnold's poem, " The Light of Asia," by which he is best known.
The finest choral work ever done on American soil is without much doubt the " Hora Novissima " of Horatio Parker (1863-), which was produced in 1893 and afterwards repeated its home triumphs across the seas. The ancestry of Parker like that of Buck is thoroughly American, his forbears having landed on New England shores only a few ships behind the Mayflower.
The facts that oratorio was not originated for any purpose of worship, and that it is not always religious in character, preclude it from church music. It is rather concert music, and may be classed as a species of the dramatic. Oratorio's apparently easy distinction from opera — that it is given without action, costume, or scenery — is made in-valid because opera also is occasionally presented in this fashion. The difference is more radical, lying in the music itself, upon which devolves the whole duty of suggesting a scene or proper setting for the drama. This does not mean that more frankly imitative music, or other like expedient, is to be considered legitimate. Instead the whole is elevated to the higher plane of the ideal where the imagination expects little material aid. At the same time, a large portion of the text consists in commentary on the supposed action. Prominence is given to the lyric and epic elements. One oratorio, however, may be distinctly lyric, such as the " Messiah," another epic as " Israel in Egypt," and a third as " Elijah," so dramatic and so closely allied to the opera, that it might with propriety be given with the usual accessories of an opera. Another feature of oratorio is the important role the chorus plays in its scheme, this arising in part from the frequent didactic character of the text. Both chorus and aria are frequently employed in a way entirely inadmissible to the opera, viz., for the expression of sentiments that are in the nature of comments by imaginary observers upon the events or situations of the drama. The epic and lyric elements are, therefore, given prominent functions, often to the long arrest of the implied dramatic movement. There is in this a striking parallel between the oratorio and the ancient Greek tragedy.
The cantata as well as the oratorio and opera originated in Italy, and like them probably about the year 1600, although Burney, the indefatigable investigator, does not come across the term before 1638. It was evidently due to a desire to make use of the newly invented recitative in pieces designed for a single performer, and was at first an extremely simple affair, bearing little resemblance to the modern cantata save in terminology. A narrative in verse, consisting of a recitative and aria, or of several recitatives and arias, given by a single voice, and accompanied either by the singer or by another performer on the lute, violoncello or harpsichord, such was the cantata of the early Seventeenth Century.
The form was probably recommended by its very simplicity, for it rapidly became popular with the Italians, such of the elect as Carissimi, Stradella and Scarlatti cultivating it with enthusiasm. The latter, who was particularly fond of it, numbered his cantatas by the hundreds. One of the most distinguished of the oratorio writers was Carissimi's pupil, Fra Marc Antonio Cesti, who did much to improve the recitative. Despite his cloth, he did not confine himself to the cantata " morale " or " spirituale," showing greater devotion in truth to the cantata " amorosa." Evidently the composition of cantatas was almost as genteel a recreation as that of madrigals in the days of Purcell. The cantata at the beginning of the Eighteenth Century had become highly developed, having several movements, and an orchestra substituted for its one-time single supporting instrument. It afterwards partially lost its identity, being merged into the concert aria.
It was Carissimi who gave the cantata to the service of the Church, and in this capacity it received the most serious attention of the Teutonic composers. The story of the Passion, reaching its culmination in the works of Sebastian Bach, may be repeated of the church cantata. Two older members of this marvelous musical family, Johann Christoph and Johann Michael, had paid court to the cantata form, but neither of them with the assiduity of their greater nephew. He wrote something like three hundred in the course of his lifetime, one being a comic cantata on the use of coffee.
For five years during his residence at Leipsic, Bach wrote a cantata for each Sunday and festival in the year. As he employed the form it was in several movements and comprised arias, recitatives, duets and choruses with full orchestral accompaniment. It was frequently built upon a chorale whose melody and words were retained or at least reflected in some of and sometimes in all the numbers. The text consisted of passages from the Bible or religious verses or hymns. It was Bach's belief that it should be appropriate to the service and season and he was at great pains to bring this about. The Eighteenth Century church cantata evidently filled much the same place that the anthem does today, except that it was a good deal longer.
Nowadays the term cantata is one of the most elastic encountered in music, and it is well-night impossible to bring it within the confines of a definition. The usual cantata takes a middle ground between opera and oratorio, and it may be either a choral work of a sacred character only too short to be called an oratorio, or a dramatic piece set to music but not intended for acting. However, the words oratorio and cantata are frequently used interchangeably, the line of division being very indistinct.
Notable examples of works referred to as cantatas are Handel's "Acis and Galatea," Mendelssohn's " First Walpurgis Night," Gade's " Crusaders," and Bruch's " Odysseus."
