English oratorio

Edward Elgar’s The Apostles (1903) stands apart from the oratorio genre in its presentation of the mission of Christ viewed primarily through the eyes of Mary Magdalene and Judas Iscariot, two relatively minor characters who are given few words of their own in the bible. The title of the oratorio itself is belied by featuring a woman who was not one of “The Twelve” and a man who was the one apostle to defect from the rest. There may be biographical resonances in Elgar’s highly unusual choice to make these two ‘outsiders’ the main subject of an oratorio ostensibly concerned with the life of Christ and his inner circle of disciples.  Many biographers have suggested that Elgar perceived his own origins as a working-class Catholic outside the more aristocratic Anglican cultural environment he needed to impress as a composer. Some of his letters and quoted remarks also suggest that he struggled with his own faith more than it may have seemed from his public persona.
 
Elgar’s distinctive use of Wagnerian leitmotif technique permeates the expansive form of the work, resulting in an exceptional example of the late Romantic juxtaposition of the cosmic and the personal in a multi-layered texture. Though The Apostles has been widely recognized as one of Elgar’s most important works, it has rarely been performed in the United States.  While its inspired prologue is still sung as an anthem in some churches (a choral setting of Luke 4:18, where Jesus quotes Isaiah to proclaim his mission to the poor) the remainder of the work is seldom heard in American concert halls or churches.

The genre of oratorio was properly founded in Italy in the mid-16th century by Carissimi and then expanded to Protestant audiences in Germany by composers like Schütz and Bach, and it reached peak commercial success through Handel in England by the mid 18th century. Over this period of time, the musical, theological, and social aspects of oratorio shifted and developed, and they prove that even today, worship style often reflects the culture it exists in.

The traditional view of Handel as a master of late Baroque music has largely kept out of sight his claims to modernity. Since the early 1730s, the composer developed a growing independence from the institutions of aristocratic patronage and gradually aligned himself with the concerns of the first modern society, Georgian Britain. Ruth Smith has masterfully explored the links between his oratorios and contemporary political and religious debates; and the role of his legacy in the formation of a music canon is now better understood thanks to William Weber. Perhaps more crucial, Handel is the first composer to mold a social profile out of his philanthropy. For an emerging discourse on social responsibility and music, he makes a fascinating point of origin.

John Baillie, the obscure author of "An Essay on the Sublime" (1747), was the first to apply this aesthetic category to music. However elementary and simplistic his remarks on this art may be, they could be of potential use in addressing the Handelian sublime in the years preceding Burke's celebrated "Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful". Indeed, two of Baillie's suggested sources of the sublime, lasting fame and philanthropy, touch directly on the reception of Handel and his oratorios.

"The transformation of Handel's oratorios from commercial entertainment to national heritage in 18th-century Britain is an extraordinary cultural phenomenon and the earliest of its kind in music history.  A genre that was single-handedly established by Handel turned in the space of half-a-century into a musical affirmation of the British people.  Describing and evaluating this process forms the subject of the present dissertation.

This is the first detailed study of the early reception of Handelian oratorio in Britain.  Drawing entirely on primary sources, the dissertation has three objectives: to offer a collection of hitherto unpublished references on Handel and English oratorio; to provide a continuous narrative on the reception of the genre in the 1732-1784 period; and to initiate a critical response to its cultural evolution within this half-a-century.

The Narrative part, structured around theatrical seasons, provides a detailed survey of oratorio performances in London, from the première of Esther to the Handel Commemoration Festival.  A number of exceptional moments in the history of the genre receive individual discussions in part two as Studies.  These culminate in a comprehensive account of factors that facilitated the cultural mutation of the oratorio.  The 870-page collection of contemporary sources provides documentary support to the other two parts and supplements Otto Erich Deutsch's documentary biography of the composer from 1955."

The tendency of today’s historiography to portray early 18th-century Italian opera as a dichotomy between opera seria and opera buffa takes too little account of the existence of genera mixta. However, contemporary composers and authors sometimes referred to a tripartiton. In his treatise Der vollkommene Capellmeister (1739), Johann Mattheson distinguishes between tragedy, comedy and satire. His description of the melodies from a satirical opera is limited to the statement that they are “ridiculous, poseuristic and prickly”. This definition can be applied to the analysis of dramatic vocal works with the help of Gérard Genette’s category of “burlesque travesty” which describes the stylistic degradation of a tragic-heroic subject as a
satirical function. This stylistic mixture is achieved by the use of specific musical devices, which are shown in this article on the basis of case studies on music by Francesco Bartolomeo Conti, Johann Sebastian Bach and Georg Friedrich Händel.

While most English texts set by Handel are metrical poetry, a few anthem and oratorio librettos, including Messiah, comprise direct quotations from  English versions  of the Bible devoid of metre. Such texts are traditionally viewed as prose, but I argue that they are poems, organised by the systematic use of rhetorical parallelism. This paper explores the impact of parallelism on Handel's vocal writing and examines the ways in which he realised or subverted it. Since parallelism is a type of repetition, I argue that the repeating of words and textual phrases is an expressive and rhetorical device and that parallelism is a lens through which to understand the word-patterns that emerge from Handelian song. And since parallelism often involves sameness of meaning, I suggest that its treatment represents an interpretative decision,  making the study of that treatment a useful hermeneutic tool for musicologists.

This essay explores the first attempt to reform Handelian oratorio, by the Reverend John Brown, in 1763. Concerned about the waning popularity and literary flaws of Handel’s works, Brown launched a reform campaign through his own oratorio The Cure of Saul, performed at Covent Garden Theatre, and the publication of A Dissertation ... on the Union of Poetry and Music. He also produced the first monograph of oratorio criticism, An Examination of the Oratorios which have been performed this Season, at Covent-Garden Theatre (1763). Published within weeks from one another, the three works shaped an intellectual offensive with aesthetic and moral goals mounted on an educational platform. Although a failure, Brown’s attempt reflected Britain’s national anxiety in the wake of the Seven Years’ War.

Was Händel da im Herbst 1738 in nur einem Monat zu Papier brachte, war ein Oratorium, wie es die Welt noch nicht gehört hatte. Vertraute Elemente wie der Wechsel zwischen Rezitativen und virtuosen Da-Capo-Arien fehlten völlig; nicht die Solisten, sondern der Chor ergriff ständig das Wort. Fülle und Vielfalt der Klangmittel legen dabei nahe, dass Händel hier wie in einem musikalischen Labor mit Formen und Techniken für das Oratorium experimentierte.

Oratorios in Britain, 1732-1784" Ilias Chrissochoidis I am grateful to Carolyn Brown and the Scholar's Council for granting me this unique opportunity to work in a real temple of knowledge. After many months of continuous residence at the Kluge Center, I begin to feel like a Library of Congressman. My working life here has been smooth and productive thanks to excellent administrative support from

Like most eighteenth-century composers, George Frideric Handel did not write his own lyrics. For church anthems, he or his patron usually selected excerpts from the Bible; for odes and English-language theatre pieces, he generally chose or was pointed to the work of recently-deceased authors of renown (in other words, modern classics). In the case of oratorio, however, poets seem mostly to have approached Handel with an idea for a music-drama, sometimes with a libretto already partially written, enquiring whether he would like to set it to music. If he said yes, the poet would work on completing the libretto while he set what they had already given him.

This paper focusses on two of Handel’s most frequent oratorio librettists, Thomas Morell and Charles Jennens, a focus justified not only by the frequency of his collaboration with these men, but also by their respective attitudes to the composer (which could scarcely be more different), and their thorough documentation of their working relationship with him (Morell was a prolific memoirist, and Jennens exchanged many letters with Handel, several of which still exist). Although an oratorio’s plot outline usually came from its librettist, the question of ‘which comes first, the words or the music’ rarely admits of an easy answer with Handel, whether we take ‘first’ in the chronological or value-related sense. The importance and history of text varies from poet to poet, even from work to work, and proves an interesting lens through which to understand the composer’s creative process.

While most of the English texts that Handel set are metrical poetry, a few anthems and oratorio librettos, including Messiah, comprise direct quotations from English versions of the Bible devoid of metre. Such texts are traditionally viewed as prose, but in my doctoral thesis, as well as in a recent paper and article, I argue that they are, in fact, poems, organised not by metre but by the systematic (predictable and ubiquitous) use of rhetorical parallelism (‘sameness between stretches of text’).

In this paper I explore the stylistic impact of parallelism on the composer’s vocal writing, an under-researched area in the already neglected field of Handelian word-setting. I examine the various ways in which Handel realised or subverted the parallelism of the poetry he set, much as he did with the metre of metrical poems. Since parallelism is a type of repetition, I also argue that the repeating of words and textual phrases is an expressive and rhetorical device, not a mere Baroque mannerism or means to stretch short texts over long musical movements. As such, I advocate parallelism (even non-systematic parallelism, such as sometimes is present in the texts and settings of metrical poetry) as a valuable lens through which to understand the word-patterns that emerge from Handelian song. And I suggest that, since parallelism often involves sameness of meaning, its treatment constitutes a profound interpretative decision, making the study of that treatment a useful hermeneutic, as well as formal-analytical, tool for musicologists.

In eighteenth-century England, actresses and singers possessed similarly authored professional and personal identities. British theatre historians have demonstrated that actresses experienced a certain consistency onstage, ‘owning’ roles for decades and maintaining fictional identities through sequels. Offstage self-authorship was vital to the actress, too; the line between performer and role was frequently blurred, and (as Lisa Freeman particularly has shown) the dual valence of the word ‘character’ reflected growing recognition of this conflation. Singers also needed to manage their on- and offstage selves. Musicologists have thoroughly explored, particularly in the case of Handel’s operas, how the abilities and demands of virtuosi and prima donnas could determine the fates of musical spectacles. Less attention has been paid to how singers’ offstage personae often stepped across the proscenium arch to influence their dramatic identities and the music written for them, particularly in the English oratorios.

My paper argues that close attention to the lives and careers of two female singers of the 1740s shows the influence of not only singing ability but persona over Handel’s compositional and revision processes. Both actress-singer Susanna Cibber (1714–1766) and soprano Giulia Frasi (fl. 1740–c.1772) specialized in the theatrical line of the sentimental heroine, moral centres of troubled worlds. Cibber’s status as such was challenged by a publicized sexual scandal that shaped her work both as stage actress and as Handel’s oratorio alto, evidenced by revisions he made to parts with her in mind. Frasi carved out her role as singer of sentiment in the years preceding her collaboration with Handel; both her repeated casting as endangered heroine and the continuity of musical language that Handel provided her show awareness of her public image. These women’s lives offstage intersected with their performances, and their shared status as ‘women of feeling’ was reflected in music, drama, and public persona, raising questions about the extent to which they authored these identities or were in fact authored by their successes and challenges before the London public.

Most of the English texts set to music by George Frideric Handel are in metrical verse, long stretches of which rhyme. The exception is the anthem texts, and a small number of oratorio libretti (including Messiah); these comprise direct quotations from English versions of the Bible devoid of rhyme or metre. Traditionally, scholarship has viewed such texts as prose, but this paper argues that they are actually verse, organized by a feature that rarely sees systematic use in English: rhetorical parallelism.

Rhetorical parallelism refers to ‘sameness between two or more stretches of text’, a large-scale echo of form or meaning, and is the main organizational principle of biblical verse. When compiling libretti from biblical quotations, Handel’s collaborators carefully selected extracts that formed a parallel scheme, either by lifting whole couplets and tercets intact or by combining originally unrelated lines in orders that made their content complementary. The results were complex and allusive quasi-anthologies, new poems made entirely from pieces of old ones, which fit together jigsaw-like in an unexpectedly coherent way.

This paper explores the stylistic impact of parallelism on Handel’s vocal writing, an under-researched area in the already neglected field of Handelian word-setting. It argues for a practical, if not theoretical, sensitivity to parallelism on the part of the composer and his literary collaborators. And it sheds light on a seemingly tacit, perhaps even unconscious eighteenth-century conviction: that, metrical or not, only poetry could be set to music. Handel never set a word of English prose.

Most of the English texts set to music by George Frideric Handel are in metrical verse, long stretches of which rhyme. The exception is the anthem texts, and a small number of oratorio libretti (including Messiah); these comprise direct quotations from English versions of the Bible devoid of rhyme or metre. Scholars have traditionally viewed such texts as prose, but this paper argues that they are actually poetry, organised by a principle that rarely sees systematic use in English verse: rhetorical parallelism.

Rhetorical parallelism, definable as ‘similarity between two or more stretches of text’, is the main organising element of biblical poetry. When tasked with compiling a libretto from biblical quotations, librettists carefully selected extracts that formed a parallel scheme, either by lifting whole couplets and tercets intact or by combining originally unrelated lines in orders that made their content complementary. The results were complex and allusive quasi-anthologies, new poems made entirely from pieces of old ones, which fit together jigsaw-like in an unexpectedly coherent way.

This paper explores the stylistic impact of rhetorical parallelism on Handel’s vocal writing, an under-researched area in the already neglected field of Handelian word-setting. It argues for a practical, if not theoretical, sensitivity to rhetorical parallelism on the part of the composer and his literary collaborators. And it sheds light on a seemingly tacit, perhaps even unconscious eighteenth-century conviction: that, metrical or not, only poetry could be set to music. Handel never set a word of English prose.

The transformation of Handel's oratorios from commercial entertainment to national heritage in 18th-c. Britain is an extraordinary cultural phenomenon and the earliest of its kind in music history. A genre that was single-handedly established by Handel turned in the space of half a century into a musical affirmation of the British people. Hitherto unpublished references to Handel and English oratorio give a continuous narrative on the reception of the genre in the 1732-1784 period and reveal the critical response to its cultural evolution within this ...

In the middle decades of the eighteenth century, British playwrights produced works that are now generally referred to as “sentimental dramas.”  At the heart of these plays stood new types of heroes and heroines; rarely militaristic, grandiose, or exotic, these so-called Men and Women of Feeling distinguished themselves by their passivity, their deep pathos, and, most importantly, their unerring virtue.

Handelian oratorio was developed in this theatrical climate, and its audiences were quite familiar with the standards of this new type of protagonist.  By the end of Handel’s oratorio period, he and librettist Thomas Morell produced several works that utilized central sentimental heroines of emotional depth and staunch goodness: Susanna, Theodora, and Jephtha, all written between 1749 and 1752.  Soprano Giulia Frasi (fl. 1742-72) was the singer who portrayed the patient, suffering women of these works.  She was called into service, as scholars like David Hurley have observed, in part because of her skillful renditions of languorous, affecting music.

However, Frasi’s association with a pathetic musical style began before her work with Handel.  Moreover, her onstage identity as a sentimental heroine also predated this period.  My paper examines how Frasi’s London career was founded on these types of dramatic roles and their accompanying affetuoso music.  It also draws connections between the British theatrical tradition of typecasting (or “lines of business,” in the language of the day) and gendered notions of goodness and virtue, which transcended the theatrical fourth wall to affect thespians, audience members, and social critics alike.