In the nature of things passions, oratorios, and their secular cousins, cantatas, imply scenes and actions, and therefore have a remote kinship with the lyric drama.  The literary analogy which they suggest is the epic poem as contra-distinguished from the drama.  While the drama presents incident, the oratorio relates, expounds, and celebrates, presenting it to the fancy through the ear instead of representing it to the eye.  A great deal of looseness has crept into this department of music as into every other, and the various forms have been approaching each other until in some cases it is become difficult to say which term, opera or oratorio, ought to be applied.  Rubinstein’s “sacred operas” are oratorios profusely interspersed with stage directions, many of which are impossible of scenic realization.  Their whole purpose is to work upon the imagination of the listeners and thus open gate-ways for the music.  Ever since its composition, Saint-Saens’s “Samson and Delilah” has held a place in both theatre and concert-room.  Liszt’s “St. Elizabeth” has been found more effective when provided with pictorial accessories than without.  The greater part of “Elijah” might be presented in dramatic form.

[Sidenote:  Influence of the Church plays.]

[Sidenote:  Origin of the oratorio.]

[Sidenote:  The choral element extended.]

[Sidenote:  Narrative and descriptive choruses.]

[Sidenote:  Dramatization.]

Confusing and anomalous as these things are, they find their explanation in the circumstance that the oratorio never quite freed itself from the influence of the people’s Church plays in which it had its beginning.  As a distinct art-form it began in a mixture of artistic entertainment and religious worship provided in the early part of the sixteenth century by Filippo Neri (now a saint) for those who came for pious instruction to his oratory (whence the name).  The purpose of these entertainments being religious, the subjects were Biblical, and though the musical progress from the beginning was along the line of the lyric drama, contemporaneous in origin with it, the music naturally developed into broader forms on the choral side, because music had to make up for the lack of pantomime, costumes, and scenery.  Hence we have not only the preponderance of choruses in the oratorio over recitative, arias, duets, trios, and so forth, but also the adherence in the choral part to the old manner of writing which made the expansion of the choruses possible.  Where the choruses left the field of pure reflection and became narrative, as in “Israel in Egypt,” or assumed a dramatic character, as in the “Elijah,” the composer found in them vehicles for descriptive and characteristic music, and so local color came into use.  Characterization of the solo parts followed as a matter of course, an early illustration being found in the manner in which Bach lifted the words of Christ into prominence by surrounding them with the radiant halo which streams from the violin accompaniment.  In consequence the singer to whom was assigned the task of singing the part of Jesus presented himself to the fancy of the listeners as a representative of the historical personage—­as the Christ of the drama.