This article will give a description of what an Oratorio and Art-Song are. It will also inform you on the stylistic characteristics, a summary on the historial background and a brief outline on the composers who helped develop and excelled in these styles of fantastic vocal music.
Oratorio is based upon a substantial story of a religious or spiritual character. It is written for solo voices, chorus and orchestra and is often performed in churches or concert halls. Oratorio resembles an opera but costumes, acting and scenery are absent. However early examples of oratorio, one being by Emilio del’ Cavalier’s ‘Representation of soul and body’ written in 1600, were staged with costume and scenery.
The plot in oratorio is less dramatically described than in opera and there is a strong emphasis on the chorus than on solo voices. The word ‘oratorio’ is historically derived from its original place of performance the oratory or oratorio of the church of Santa Maria in Vallicella in Rome.
Filipo Neri began services of a popular nature, including sacred plays, readings from scriptures and the performance of Laudi or Hymns of praise and devotion. St Filipo Neri founded the order of priests called congregation of the oratory or oratorians.
A significant contributor to the literature of the oratorio was Giacomo Carissimi (1605-74), with his compositions of Jeptha, Judicium, Salomon, Jonas and Balthazar. Others were Alessandro Scarlatti, Alessandro Stradella, Frenchmen Marc Antoine Charqoentier (1636-1704) student of Carissimi, and German Heinrich Schutz (1585-1672).
The Essay on Handel And The Politics Of The Messiah
... (renamed Esther) led to the establishment of the English oratorio-a large musical composition for solo voices, chorus, and ... impression. Handel's works of the next three years included the oratorios Joseph and His Brethren (first performed 1744) and Belshazzar ... (1745), the secular oratorios Semele (1743) and Hercules (1745), and the Dettingen Te ...
Handel was the master of the late Baroque period, whose dramatic treatment of the oratorio’s content and subject matter has never surpassed.
Although Handel is German by birth his oratorios may be considered English creations. The list of oratorios by Handel is truly impressive; Esther (1720), Deborah (1733), Saul (1739), Israel in Egypt (1739), Messiah (1742), Samson (1743), Semele (1743), Joseph and his Brethren (1741), Belshazzar (1744), Judas Maccabaeus (1746) Joshua (1747), Solomon (1748), Theodora (1749) and Jephtha (1751) to only mention the best known.
The Romantic era was a period of great change and emancipation. While the Classical era had strict laws of balance and restraint, the Romantic era moved away from that by allowing artistic freedom, experimentation, and creativity. The music of this time period was very expressive, and melody became the dominant feature. Composers even used this expressive means to display nationalism. This became a driving force in the late Romantic period, as composers used elements of folk music to express their cultural identity.
As in any time of change, new musical techniques came about to fit in with the current trends. Composers began to experiment with length of compositions, new harmonies, and tonal relationships. Additionally, there was the increased use of dissonance and extended use of chromaticism. Another important feature of Romantic music was the use of colour. While new instruments were constantly being added to the orchestra, composers also tried to get new or different sounds out of the instruments already in use.
The Romantic Era also brought further changes in the world of vocal music. Oratorio and choral music were semi-important vocal forms of the time, while the art song was by far the most important.
The art song became its own special category of vocal music – separate from folk song, operatic aria, and popular song. It was very lyrical. Composers made great strides during this time period to closely associate the text or words of a piece with its musical counterpart.
The Essay on Form In Art
The object in question is marked as a Syrian, Bronze Age, stone label seal (c. 3rd- 2nd millennium). Most of the seals I have viewed have much more representational forms on them than this object has. I have not been able to find any books which have pictures of items with this name, which leads me to believe that it has been marked wrong. The object resembles a small, oval shaped bead with ...
The art song was poetic in nature, and its tones were more lyrical than the dramatic tones of an opera. An art song would turn written poetry into something tangible that could be emotionalized through its music. Its goal was to turn specific words or phrases into a musical scene.
The piano helped to add more emotion into the Romantic art song. The accompaniment enhanced the mood and meaning of the text by harmonic, rhythmic, and melodic material independent of the voice part. It also provided harmonic and melodic support to the voice. It also served to punctuate the poetic form by interludes between stanzas and lines of the poem.
Poetic structure is responsible for the musical form of a song. Two basic forms are through composed form and strophic form. Through-composed form is different for each stanza and the music closely follows changing ideas and moods in the poem. In strophic form, each stanza of the poem is set to the same music, whereas modified strophic form involves consecutive stanzas playing modified versions of the same music. There are other musical forms that are partly strophic, where some stanzas have the same music, while others have different music.
Except for variations in stylistic effects, few basic innovations in the technique of art-song writing have appeared in the 20th century. Perhaps the most important development has been that of the Sprechstimme (German for “speech voice”), or Sprechgesang (speech song), introduced by German composer Arnold Schoenberg, in which a new variety of voice production, midway between speaking and singing, is used by the performer. The sprechstimme is well illustrated in the vocal line of Schoenberg’s series of songs collectively titled Pierrot Lunaire (1912).
Other new developments in the composition of art songs are the creation, by such composers as Russian pianist Sergey Rachmaninoff, of vocal melodies called vocalises, which are set to a series of vowels rather than to the words of a text; and the revival, by a few composers, of unaccompanied songs.
