Page:A Dictionary of Music and Musicians vol 2.djvu/551

ORATORIO. We can scarcely find a stronger proof than this of Handel's wonderful power of adapting himself to surrounding circumstances. He had already, as we shall presently see, composed a German Oratorio, full of earnest thought and devotional expression: yet here, in Italy, he gives his entire attention to dramatic effect; and so far lays aside his contrapuntal accomplishments as to introduce two little choruses only, both conceived on the smallest possible scale, and the concluding one neither more nor less than a simple Gavotte, of the kind then generally used at the close of an Opera.

Up to this point the development of the Oratorio corresponded, step for step, with that of the Opera. Both were treated, by the same Composers, in very nearly the same manner; the only difference being, that the more superficial writers were incapable of rising to the sublimity of scriptural language, while the men of real genius strove to surround their several subjects with a dignity which would have been quite out of place if used to illustrate a mere mythological fable. Earnestly endeavouring to accommodate the sentiment of their Music to that of the words to which it was adapted, this latter class of writers succeeded, as we have seen, in striking out for themselves a style which was generally recognised as peculiar to the Sacred Music of Italy. But it was in Italy alone that this style prevailed. In Germany, the Oratorio started, indeed, from the Miracle Play, as its primary basis: but it travelled on quite another road to perfection; and, in treating of our, we shall have to take entirely new elements into consideration.

The Oratorio proper, as distinguished from the earlier Mystery, made its first appearance in Germany not long after the beginning of the 17th century. It had, indeed, been foreshadowed, even before that time, in the 'Passio secundum Matthæum,' printed at Nuremberg, in 1570, by Clemens Stephani; but this can scarcely be called an Oratorio, in the strict sense of the word. The oldest example of the true German Oratorio that has been preserved to us is 'Die Auferstehung Christi' of Heinrich Schütz, produced at Dresden in 1623; a very singular work, in which the conduct of the Sacred Narrative is committed almost entirely to a Chor des Evangelisten, and a Chor der Personen Colloquenten, the Accompaniments consisting of four Viole df gamba and Organ, concerning the arrangement of which the Composer gives very minute directions in the printed copy of the Music. This remarkable piece, though it was accompanied by no dramatic action, occupies a place in the history of German Sacred Music very nearly analogous to that which we have accorded to Emilio del Cavaliere's 'Anima e Corpo' in the annals of the Italian Oratorio. It was the first of a long line of works which all carried out, more or less closely, the leading idea it set forth for imitation. Schütz followed it up with another Oratorio, called 'Die sieben Worte Christi,' and four settings of the Passion of our Lord. To the illustration of this last-named subject the Teutonic Composers of this century dedicated the noblest efforts of their skill; presenting it sometimes in a dramatic and sometimes in an epic form, but always setting it to Music, throughout, for Solo Voices and Chorus, without the introduction of spoken dialogue, and without scenic action of any kind. A very fine example was published at Königsberg in 1672 by Johann Sebastiani; and in the following year Theile produced a 'Deutsche Passion' at Lübeck. But these tentative productions were all completely eclipsed in the year 1704 by the appearance at Hamburg of two works which at once stamped the German Oratorio as one of the grandest Art-forms then in existence. These were the 'Passions-Dichtung des blutigen und sterbenden Jesu,' written by Hunold Menantes, and set to music by Reinhard Keiser; and the 'Passion nach Cap. 19 S. Johannis,' written by Postel, and composed by Handel, in a manner so different from that which he adopted four years later in his Italian Oratorio, that, without