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Oratorio

Introduction

Within the baroque era, concerning the genre of vocal music, religious music cannot be overlooked as well as the opera. In this age, not only liturgical music which   is from the Middle Ages such as the Mass music and Magnificat, but peculiar music of baroques such oratorio and the church cantata were also invented, while there was antagonism between Catholic and Protestant. Even in the music for liturgical of the church, it tended to opera or a dramatic style. It was the feature of the Catholic Church music of the baroque period in Italy.   During the Baroque period, people saw the invention of a new music form: the oratorio in the 17th century in Europe. The oratorio has a long and profound history since Italian Renaissance.   In this essay, I will be answering question number two: Explain briefly the meaning of this musical term oratorio and give an account of the most popular and arguably greatest oratorio of the first half of the eighteenth century.

Oratorio

Oratorio was born in Italy at about the same time as opera. This word ¡®oratorio¡¯ originally comes from the Latin word for oratory or prayer room which were many in the Rome of that time.   It is originally religious music of the Roman Catholic Church. However, by using so many words from the Bible and fitting various music, the rich description was loved by people. The first oratorios were performed at St. Philip Neri¡¯s Oratory in Rome in February 1600.   St. Philip Neri used to stage scenes from the scriptures in the Oratory of his church in Florence, the Santa Maria in Vallicella. These productions came to be known as ¡®oratorios¡¯.
At first, oratorios were very similar to operas. They have their roots deep in the middle ages. ¡®Their forbears were the mystery and passion plays and portrayals of the legends of the saints. In these plays, in addition to the more or less historical figures, there were symbolic ones such as death, beauty, good works, faith, mammon, pride, jealousy,...