[Sidenote:  The chorus in opera and oratorio.]

The growth of the instrumental art here came admirably into play, and so it came to pass that opera and oratorio now have their musical elements of expression in common, and differ only in their application of them—­opera foregoing the choral element to a great extent as being a hindrance to action, and oratorio elevating it to make good the absence of scenery and action.  While oratorios are biblical and legendary, cantatas deal with secular subjects and, in the form of dramatic ballads, find a delightful field in the world of romance and supernaturalism.

[Sidenote:  The Mass.]

[Sidenote:  Secularization of the Mass.]

Transferred from the Church to the concert-room, and considered as an art-form instead of the eucharistic office, the Mass has always made a strong appeal to composers, and half a dozen masterpieces of missal composition hold places in the concert lists of the singing societies.  Notable among these are the Requiems of Mozart, Berlioz, and Verdi, and the Solemn Mass in D by Beethoven.  These works represent at one and the same time the climax of accomplishment in the musical treatment and the secularization of the missal text.  They are the natural outcome of the expansion of the office by the introduction of the orchestra into the Church, the departure from the a capella style of writing, which could not be consorted with the orchestra, and the growth of a desire to enhance the pomp of great occasions in the Church by the production of masses specially composed for them.  Under such circumstances the devotional purpose of the mass was lost in the artistic, and composers gave free reign to their powers, for which they found an ample stimulus in the missal text.

[Sidenote:  Sentimental masses.]

[Sidenote:  Mozart and the Mass.]

[Sidenote:  The masses for the dead.]

[Sidenote:  Gossec’s Requiem.]

The first effect, and the one which largely justifies the adherents of the old ecclesiastical style in their crusade against the Catholic Church music of to-day, was to make the masses sentimental and operatic.  So little regard was had for the sentiment of the words, so little respect for the solemnity of the sacrament, that more than a century ago Mozart (whose masses are far from being models of religious expression) could say to Cantor Doles of a Gloria which the latter showed him, “S’ist ja alles nix,” and immediately sing the music to “Hol’s der Geier, das geht flink!” which words, he said, went better.  The liberty begotten by this license, though it tended to ruin the mass, considered strictly as a liturgical service, developed it musically.  The masses for the dead were among the earliest to feel the spirit of the time, for in the sequence, Dies irae, they contained the dramatic element which the solemn mass