An oratorio is a sacred musical composition of an extended nature, the words generally taken from Scripture. The term 'oratorio' comes from the Oratory in which Saint Philip Neri assembled his congregation to listen to tentative experiments of the kind.
The first oratorios dealt almost exclusively with Christ's sufferings, and consisted chiefly of antiphonies and short choruses. Italian composers, such as Scarlatti and Carissimi, subsequently selected other Biblical subjects for treatment, but it was not until Handel operated on the form that oratorio assumed its highest power and interest. Handel's Messiah still remains the most popular of all oratorios, the leader in a series, which includes Israel in Egypt, Samson, and Judas Maccabceus. After Handel, as a master of oratorio, came Felix Mendelssohn, whose Elijah and Saint Paul which are both highly regarded. Haydn's Creation stands in a manner by itself, the style being somewhat light and the text a hybrid recast of Scripture and Milton's Paradise Lost. Research Oratorio
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Matt and Leela Probert
Abbreviations
Music
Research Oratorio
