An oratorio () is a musical composition with dramatic or narrative text for choir, soloists and orchestra or other ensemble.

Similar to opera, an oratorio includes the use of a choir, soloists, an instrumental ensemble, various distinguishable characters (e.g. soloists), and arias. However, opera is musical theatre, and typically involves significant theatrical spectacle, including sets, props, and costuming, as well as staged interactions between characters. In an oratorio, there is generally minimal staging, with the chorus often assuming a more central dramatic role, and the work is typically presented as a concert piece – though oratorios are sometimes staged as operas, and operas are not infrequently presented in concert form.

A particularly important difference between opera and oratorio is in the typical subject matter of the text. An opera libretto may deal with any conceivable dramatic subject (e.g. history, mythology, Richard Nixon (Nixon in China), Anna Nicole Smith (Anna Nicole) and the Bible); the text of an oratorio often deals with sacred subjects, making it appropriate for performance in the church, which remains an important performance context for the genre. Catholic composers looked to the lives of saints and stories from the Bible. Protestant composers also often looked to biblical topics, but sometimes looked to the lives of notable religious figures, such as Carl Loewe's Jan Hus, an oratorio about the early reformer of the same name. Oratorios became extremely popular in early 17th-century Italy partly because of the success of opera and the Catholic Church's prohibition of spectacles during Lent. Oratorios became the main choice of music during that annual period for opera audiences.

Conventionally, oratorios imply the sincere religious treatment of sacred subjects, such that non-sacred oratorios are generally qualified as 'secular oratorios': a piece of terminology that would, in some historical contexts, have been regarded as oxymoronic, or at least paradoxical, and viewed with a degree of scare-quoted skepticism. Despite this enduring and implicit context, oratorios on secular subjects have been written from the genre's origins.

History

Etymology

The word oratorio comes from the Latin verb ōrō (present infinitive ōrāre), meaning to orate or speak publicly, to pray, or to beg or plead, related to the Attic Greek noun ἀρά (ará, 'prayer'). (See the disambiguation entry for 'oratory', including oratory (worship).) The musical composition was named for the musical services held in the Oratory church in Rome in the latter half of the 16th century. The word oratorio is only attested in English from 1727, with the equivalent oratory in prior use from 1640.

John Stainer's The Crucifixion (1887) became the stereotypical battlehorse of massed amateur choral societies. Edward Elgar tried to revive the genre around the turn of century with the composition of The Light of Life (Lux Christi), The Dream of Gerontius, The Apostles and The Kingdom.

20th century

Oratorio returned haltingly to public attention with Igor Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex in Paris (1927), William Walton's Belshazzar's Feast in Leeds (1931), Paul Hindemith's Das Unaufhörliche in Berlin (1931), Arthur Honegger's Le Roi David and Jeanne d'Arc au bûcher in Basel (1938), and Franz Schmidt's The Book with Seven Seals (Das Buch mit sieben Siegeln) in Vienna (1938). Michael Tippett's oratorio A Child of Our Time (first performance, 1944) engages with events surrounding the Second World War. Postwar oratorios include Dmitri Shostakovich's Song of the Forests (1949), Sergei Prokofiev's On Guard for Peace (1950), Vadim Salmanov's Twelve (1957), Alfred Schnittke's Nagasaki (1958), Bohuslav Martinů's The Epic of Gilgamesh (1958), Krzysztof Penderecki's St. Luke Passion (1966), Hans Werner Henze's Das Floß der Medusa (1968), René Clemencic's Kabbala (1992), and Osvaldo Golijov's La Pasión según San Marcos (2000). Mauricio Kagel composed Sankt-Bach-Passion, an oratorio about Bach's life, for the tercentenary of his birth in 1985.

Oratorios by popular musicians include Léo Ferré's La Chanson du mal-aimé (1954 and 1972), based on Guillaume Apollinaire's poem of the same name, Paul McCartney's Liverpool Oratorio (1991), and Mikis Theodorakis's Canto General and Axion Esti, based on poems of Pablo Neruda and Odisseas Elytis.

21st century

When Dudley Buck composed his oratorio The Light of Asia in 1886, it became the first in the history of the genre to be based on the life of Buddha. Several late 20th and early 21st-century oratorios have since been based on Buddha's life or have incorporated Buddhist texts. These include Somei Satoh's 1987 Stabat Mater, Dinesh Subasinghe's 2010 Karuna Nadee, and Jonathan Harvey's 2011 Weltethos. The 21st century also saw a continuation of Christianity-based oratorios with John Adams's El Niño and The Gospel According to the Other Mary. Other religions represented include Ilaiyaraaja's Thiruvasakam (based on the texts of Hindu hymns to Shiva). Secular oratorios composed in the 21st century include Nathan Currier's Gaian Variations (based on the Gaia hypothesis), Richard Einhorn's The Origin (based on the writings of Charles Darwin), Jonathan Mills' Sandakan Threnody (based on the Sandakan Death Marches), Neil Hannon's To Our Fathers in Distress, and David Lang's The Little Match Girl Passion (2008). Because of My Name (2016) is based on the assassination of Father Jerzy Popiełuszko on 19 October 1984, including the song dedicated to him, Błogosławiony ksiądz Jerzy Popiełuszko", composed by Piotr Rubik. The oratorio Laudato si, composed in 2016 by Peter Reulein on a libretto by Helmut Schlegel, includes the full Latin text of the Magnificat, expanded by writings of Clare of Assisi, Francis of Assisi and Pope Francis. Bruder Martin was composed by Thomas Gabriel, setting a text by Eugen Eckert about scenes from the life of Martin Luther, for the 500th anniversary of the Reformation in 2017. In 2017, Jörg Widmann's oratorio ARCHE premiered. A transfer of sacrality to secular contexts takes place.

See also

  • List of oratorios
  • Mass (liturgy)
  • Mass (music)
  • Music for the Requiem Mass
  • Oratorio Society (disambiguation)
  • Passion

References

  • Bukofzer, Manfred F. Music in the Baroque Era. New York, NY: W.W. Norton and Co., Inc, 1947.
  • Deedy, John. The Catholic Fact Book. Chicago, IL: Thomas Moore Press, 1986.
  • Gilman, Todd S. "Handel's Hercules and Its Semiosis." The Musical Quarterly, Oxford University Press, Vol. 81, No. 3 (Autumn 1997): pp. 449-481. JSTOR
  • Hardon, John A. Modern Catholic Dictionary. Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Co. Inc., 1980.
  • Macy, L., ed. Grove Music Online,grovemusic.com (subscription access).
  • Randel, Don. "Oratorio". The Harvard Dictionary of Music. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press, 1986.
  • Smither, Howard. The History of the Oratorio vol. 1–4, Chapel Hill, NC: Univ. of N.C. Press, 1977–2000.
  • New Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967.
  • McGuire, Charles Edward (Spring 2000). "Elgar, Judas, and the Theology of Betrayal." In 19th-Century Music, vol. XXIII, no. 3, pp. 236–272.
  • McGuire, Charles Edward (2002). Elgar's Oratorios: The Creation of an Epic Narrative. Aldershot: Ashgate Press.
  • Upton, George P. The Standard Oratorios, Chicago, 1893