"Oratorio" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... analogy that undoubtedly exists between the arts of painting, poetry, music, and acting, it should be remembered that the first three are opposed to the last, in at least the one quality of permanence. The picture, oratorio, or book must bear the test of calculating criticism, whereas the work of an actor is fleeting: it not only dies with him, but, through his different moods, may vary from night to night. If the performance be indifferent it is no consolation for the audience ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles
... of summary of what we all said, and no one in particular is responsible for it; and in this it is like public opinion. The Parson, however, whose only experience of the theatre was the endurance of an oratorio once, was very cordial in his ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... of unconquerable confidence in the Just and Holy One, who was ordering alike the embattled armies of earth and the starry hosts of the skies, and through history, as in nature, was sweeping on resistlessly to fulfill the good pleasure of His Will. No wonder the matchless oratorio of the Messiah opens with this aria, abruptly as the original words are spoken in Isaiah. They sound the key-note of the good tidings of great joy which, growing as a hope in men's souls through the centuries, became a faith, an assured conviction, in the life of the Christus ...
— The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible • R. Heber Newton
... in America the great event of the season has been the performance of Mr. Paine's oratorio, "St. Peter," at Portland, June 3. This event is important, not only as the first appearance of an American oratorio, but also as the first direct proof we have had of the existence of creative musical genius in this country. For Mr. Paine's ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... five thousand five hundred years, this grand harbour of Rio lay hid in the hills, unknown by the Catholic Portuguese? Centuries ere Haydn performed before emperors and kings, these Organ Mountains played his Oratorio of the Creation, before the Creator himself. But nervous Haydn could not have endured that cannonading choir, since this composer of thunderbolts himself died at last through the crashing commotion ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... for a music teacher. He absorbed a great deal of information, but he had a hard life of persecution until he became a barber in Vienna. Here he blacked boots for an influential man, who became a friend to him. In 1798 this poor boy's oratorio, "The Creation," came upon the musical world like the rising of a new sun which never set. He was courted by princes and dined with kings and queens; his reputation was made; there was no more barbering, no more poverty. But of his eight hundred compositions, "The Creation" ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... oratorio nunquam sedere sibi complacuit super sedile, aut huc illuc ve, ut moris est mundanorum, deambulare: sed nudato semper capite, dum divina saltem celebrarentur officia, rarissime regios erigens artus, quasi ...
— Henry the Sixth - A Reprint of John Blacman's Memoir with Translation and Notes • John Blacman
... other lines of oratorio and chamber music, show a clear personality, quite apart from a prevailing modern spirit. A certain charm of settled melancholy seems to inhere in his wonted style. A mystic is Franck in his dominant moods, with a special sense and power for subtle harmonic process, ever groping in a spiritual ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... staircase and ample accommodations of vestibule and hall, the latter opening on a balcony, where we could hear the chanting of priests in a church close by. Browning told us that this was the first church where an oratorio had ever been performed. He came into the anteroom to greet us, as did his little boy, Robert, whom they call Pennini for fondness. The latter cognomen is a diminutive of Apennino, which was bestowed upon him at his first advent ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Sims Reeves, the famous tenor, was a perfect master of all varieties and shades of vocal colour, and displayed his mastery with certainty and unfailing effect in the different fields of Oratorio and Opera. In the recitative "Deeper and deeper still," with its subsequent aria "Waft her, angels, through the skies" [Handel], he ranged through the entire gamut of tone-colour. As Edgardo in Donizetti's ...
— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam
... fun it would be to go, for everybody would be there, and it would be the greatest loss to us if we were absent. I thought I had lost my childish fondness for circuses, but it came back redoubled; and Kate may contradict me if she chooses, but I am sure she never looked forward to the Easter Oratorio with half the pleasure she did to this "caravan," as most ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... perpetually talking of our Oratorios, and they were perpetually talking of their Symphonies. Did we forget and did they forget his immortal friend and countryman, Rossini? What was Moses in Egypt but a sublime oratorio, which was acted on the stage instead of being coldly sung in a concert-room? What was the overture to Guillaume Tell but a symphony under another name? Had I heard Moses in Egypt? Would I listen to this, and this, and this, ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... undertaken in Carlsruhe. If the Tonkunstler-Versammlung takes place not out of the theater season, then one or more theatrical performances can be given in conjunction with it, especially of Gluck's Operas; as also an ultra-classical Oratorio of Handel's might well be given over to the ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... blessed, beautiful something, that just because she is at all, shall be for her; that she shall have a part, somehow, even in the showing of His good; that into the beautiful miracle-play she shall be called, and a new song be given her, also, to sing in the grand, long, perfect oratorio; she begins to pray quietly, that, "loving the Lord, always above all things, she may obtain His promises, which exceed all ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... composer's name. Some years later, in 1784, he had another touch of the ways of men in the busy world, sent, perhaps, to reconcile him to his habitual seclusion. As far back as 1771 he had written his first oratorio—which I am not ashamed to say I have never looked at—Il Ritorno di Tobia. It was performed, apparently with eclat, by the Vienna Tonkuenstler Societaet, of which body Haydn wished to become a member. He put down his name, and paid his subscription, and was not a little surprised to learn ...
— Haydn • John F. Runciman
... gentlemen accompanied the ladies back to the drawing-room. There was a grand piano in the front room, and to this Adela Branston went at Mr. Saltram's request, and began to play some of Handel's oratorio music, while he stood beside the piano, talking to her as she played. Mrs. Pallinson and Gilbert were thus left alone in the back room, and the lady did her best to improve the occasion by extorting what information she could from Mr. Fenton about ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... to the Palazzo Tittoni lives a delightful family—the Count and Countess Gigliucci, with a son and two daughters. The Countess is the celebrated Clara Novello of oratorio fame. The three ladies are perfectly charming. I love to go to see them, and often drop in about tea-hour, when I get an excellent cup of English tea and delicious muffins, and enjoy them in ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... particular summer in Wells. The whole population of Somersetshire, save those who had crops requiring rain, were in a heaven of delight from morning till night. Miss Tommy Tucker was very busy with some girl pupils, and as accompanist for oratorio practice; but there were blissful hours when she "studied" the cathedral with Fergus Appleton, watching him sketch the stately Central Tower, or the Lady Chapel, or the Chain Gate. There were afternoon walks to Tor Hill, winding up almost daily with tea at the palace, ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... outriders, and the immense quantity of gorgeous equipages—numbers with four horses—formed a scene which you can only witness in the mighty and aristocratic county of York. It beat a Drawing Room hollow, as much as an oratorio in York Minster does a concert in the Opera House. This delightful stay at York quite refreshed me, and I am not the least fatigued ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... hear, whether in the boxes, pit, or galleries. The arrangement was, to have oratorios kept distinct on certain mornings, and miscellaneous concerts on the evenings of other days. The concerts were crushers, but the first oratorio was decidedly a break down. The committee became alarmed; the expenses were enormous, and heavy liabilities stared them in the face. There was no time to be lost, and at the second oratorio, duly announced, there stood Paganini, ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... only send me there. I rather think, however, that St. Sylvester's will suit me better for a little while. His Reverence is going to look me up some pupils, and I have bought a Churchman's almanac, and am thinking about starting an oratorio instead of my opera. Wasn't it strange that when your letter came from Brenthill we should remember that an old friend of my mother's lived there? Judith and she have been writing to each other ever since. Clifton is evidently undergoing tortures with the man he has got now, so ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... Americans, at any rate. There is a sort of queer, absurd tradition. One begins to think of oratorio." ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... something very grand in the accumulation of titles, each greater than the preceding, and all culminating in that final 'Lord.' Handel has gloriously given the spirit of it in the crash of triumph with which that last word is pealed out in his oratorio. 'Saviour' means far more than the shepherds knew; for it declares the Child to be the deliverer from all evil, both of sin and sorrow, and the endower with all good, both of righteousness and blessedness. The 'Christ' claims that He is the fulfiller ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... was the second cavalier, when they went to an oratorio, and Meta's letter overflowed with the descriptions she had heard from him of Italian church music. He always went to Rome for Easter, and had been going as usual, this spring, but he lingered, and, for once, remained in England, where he had only intended to spend ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... oboe, and bassoon, the latter instrument giving the deep organ tones. There have been three services, and at one Sergeant Graves played an exquisite solo on the violin, "There is a green hill far away," from the oratorio of St. Paul. At another, Matijicek played Gounod's "Ave Maria" on the oboe, and last Sunday he gave us, on the clarinet, "Every valley shall be exalted." The choir proper consists of three sergeants and one corporal, and our tenor is ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... of artillery thundered their message in an Oratorio of Death. The earth shook. Hills and rocks danced and reeled before the excited vision of the onrushing men. For two hours the guns roared and thundered without pause. The shriek of shell, the crash of falling trees, the showers of flying rocks ripped from cliffs by solid ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... Her movement across the room had a union of conscious stateliness and virgin grace which became her style of beauty; it was in itself the introduction to fine music. Mrs. Rossall went to accompany. Choice was made of a solo from an oratorio; Beatrice never sang trivialities of the day, a noteworthy variance from her habits in other things. In a little while, Wilfrid stirred to enable himself to see Emily's face; it showed deep feeling. And indeed it was impossible to hear that ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... vocal, instrumental, and mixed; and their subdivisions into music for different voices and different instruments—if we observe the many forms of sacred music, from the simple hymn, the chant, the canon, motet, anthem, &c., up to the oratorio; and the still more numerous forms of secular music, from the ballad up to the serenata, from the instrumental solo up to the symphony. Again, the same truth is seen on comparing any one sample of aboriginal music with a sample of modern music—even ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... odes!—music and metre, which must have surely been as noble as their poetry, their sculpture, their architecture, possessed by the same exquisite sense of form and of proportion. One thing we can understand—how this musical form of the drama, which still remains to us in lower shapes, in the oratorio, in the opera, must have helped to raise their tragedies into that ideal sphere in which they all, like the "Antigone," live and move. So ideal and yet so human; nay rather, truly ideal, because truly human. The ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... Caesar autem rationem adhibens, consuetudinem vitiosam et corruptam pura et incorrupta consuetudine emendat. Itaque cum ad hanc elegantiam verborum Latinorum, quae etiam si orator non sis, et sis ingenuus civis Romanus, tamen necessaria est, adjungit illa oratorio, ornamenta dicendi; tum videtur tanquam tabulas bene pictas collocare in bono lumine. Hanc cum habeat praecipuam laudem in communibus, non video cui debeat cedere. Splendidam quamdam, minimeque veteratoriam rationem dicendi tenet, voce, motu: forma etiam magnifica, et generosa quodammodo. ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus
... Coda! If the art of today has made no progress in fugue, song, sonata, symphony, quartet, oratorio, opera [who has improved on Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert? Name! name! I say], what is the use of talking about "the average of today being higher"? How higher? You mean more people go to concerts, more people enjoy music ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... theatrical band and as conductor of the orchestra which performs on fiestas at the cathedral. He also gives lessons in pianoforte and violin playing, and composes songs and 'zarzuelas.' Once this accomplished gentleman wrote an entire oratorio of some five hundred pages, which after being printed and gorgeously bound, was presented to Her Catholic Majesty the Queen ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... is the village of Edgeware, with Whitchurch, famous for its association with the musician Handel. He was organist here for several years, and on the small pipe-organ, still in the church though not in use, composed his oratorio, "Esther," and a less important work, "The Harmonious Blacksmith." The idea of the latter came from an odd character, the village blacksmith, who lived in Edgeware in Handel's day and who acquired some fame as a ...
— British Highways And Byways From A Motor Car - Being A Record Of A Five Thousand Mile Tour In England, - Wales And Scotland • Thomas D. Murphy
... 'generalissimo', 'gondola', 'gonfalon', 'grotto', ('grotta' is the earliest form in which we have it in English), 'gusto', 'harlequin'{18}, 'imbroglio', 'inamorato', 'influenza', 'lava', 'malaria', 'manifesto', 'masquerade' ('mascarata' in Hacket), 'motto', 'nuncio', 'opera', 'oratorio', 'pantaloon', 'parapet', 'pedantry', 'pianoforte', 'piazza', 'portico', 'proviso', 'regatta', 'ruffian', 'scaramouch', 'sequin', 'seraglio', 'sirocco', 'sonnet', 'stanza', 'stiletto', 'stucco', 'studio', 'terra-cotta', 'umbrella', 'virtuoso', 'vista', ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... the impassable gulf which, as I again perceived, yawned between my own vivid and imaginative conception of this work and the only living presentations of it which I had ever heard. But for the present my tormented spirits were cheered and calmed by hearing the classical Schneider's oratorio Absalom rendered ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... artistic when he designs on paper the edifice he purposes to construct, or in the painter's mind when he chooses the subject and details of his picture, or in the sculptor's mind when he arranges his group of statuary, or in the musician's mind when he conjures up his opera or oratorio. Balzac's plan was one of numbers or logic merely. The block of his Comedy was composed on the dictionary principle of leaving nothing out which could be put in; and his genius, great as it was, wrestled achingly and in vain ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... more real contests; Handel has set up an Oratorio against the Operas, and succeeds. He has hired all the goddesses from farces and the singers of Roast Beef[1] from between the acts at both theatres, with a man with one note in his voice, and a girl without ever an one; and so they ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... great oratorio are the tributes of women voicing their love and gratitude. They come from those in all the walks of life, and a distinguishing feature is that they who have known her longest and best are most loyal and devoted. The secret of this is perfectly expressed ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... country will remember how common it is to hear the people practising sacred music in their lonely cottages. It is not uncommon to meet working men wandering over the wild hills, "where whip and heather grow," with their musical instruments, to take part in some village oratorio many miles away. "That reminds me," as tale-tellers say, of an incident among the hills, which was interesting, though far from ...
— Home-Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine • Edwin Waugh
... were not entitled to see whatever is to be seen. The masters of thought may teach us better. They address their loftiest power in us, and never sing to oxen or dogs. The painting, poem, statue, oratorio, calls to me by name; the morning is an eye that solicits mine. Shall I take only the husks, and leave to another, contented, always, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... government? But now with clearer vision we reread the record of the past. True, we find no Raphael or Beethoven, no Phidias or Michael Angelo among women. No woman has painted the greatest picture, carved the finest statue, composed the noblest oratorio or opera. Not many women's names appear after Joan of Arc's in the long list of warriors; but, as a ruler, woman stands to-day the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... Mozart Society at Fisk treated us to an excellent rendering of Haydn's great oratorio, 'The Creation.' Many came over from the city (Nashville),—whites from the "best families," all crowding in, listening, wondering, enjoying! How the music of those well-tuned instruments and voices caught us up and carried us away! Color-line melted and faded out. How we wished ...
— American Missionary, Volume 44, No. 6, June, 1890 • Various
... spring of 1883 he began to compose music, and in 1885 we published together an album of minuets, gavottes, and fugues. This led to our writing Narcissus, which is an Oratorio Buffo in the Handelian manner—that is as nearly so as we could make it. It is a mistake to suppose that all Handel's oratorios are upon sacred subjects; some of them are secular. And not only so, but, whatever the subject, Handel was never at a loss ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler
... The first oratorio performed in London, was at the Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre, in 1732. On June 10, in the same year, the serenata of Acis and Galatea was performed at the Italian Opera House, in English, by Italian performers, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, No. - 361, Supplementary Issue (1829) • Various
... to pay for a new piano, and as the proceeds did not quite fill the bill, we all gave up butter, selling the entire product of the dairy for three months to make up the deficit. That was just like Brook Farm. The most ambitious performance in my time was the rendition of the Oratorio of Saint Paul, which was given twice by request, but this was in the summer when we had ample room and verge enough ...
— My Friends at Brook Farm • John Van Der Zee Sears
... connection that there was a conflict among singers for many years as to whether the straight tone as cultivated by the English oratorio singers, or the vibrated tone of the Italians were correct. As usual, Nature won out. The correctly vibrated voice outlasted the other form of production, thus proving its lawful basis. But to-day the vibrato ...
— Violin Mastery - Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers • Frederick H. Martens
... great overture to Isaiah's great oratorio are here sounded. These first chapters give out the themes which run through all the rest of his prophecies. Like most introductions, they were probably written last, when the prophet collected and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... music; Pinafore instead of an Oratorio. I like Scott, Burns, Byron, Longfellow, especially Shakespeare, etc., etc. Of songs, the Star-Spangled Banner, America, Marseillaise, and all moral and soul-stirring songs, but wishy-washy hymns are my detestation. ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... at the house of a friend "where Maria is making sunshine just now," and he declared that he had been exceedingly funny. He had in the course of the evening recited "near upon five hundred extempore macaronic verses; composed and executed an oratorio and opera" upon a piano without strings, namely the center-table; drawn "an entirely original view of Nantasket Beach"; made a temperance address; and given vent to "innumerable jests, jokes, puns, oddities, quiddities and nothings," ...
— Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, • Sherwin Cody
... delighted with Liszt—and no one could judge him better than he—gave a soiree in honour of him. About 400 people were invited—I among the rest, being one of the tenors who sang in the Oratorio that Hiller was then rehearsing for the first performance. I think it was the Destruction of Babylon. There was a complete orchestra at Mendelssohn's party, and we heard a symphony of Schubert (posthumous), Mendelssohn's psalm "As the hart pants," and his overture Meeresstille ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller
... their instincts') The Haunch of Venison Epitaph on Thomas Parnell The Clown's Reply Epitaph on Edward Purdon Epilogue for Lee Lewes Epilogue written for 'She Stoops to Conquer' (1) Epilogue written for 'She Stoops to Conquer' (2) The Captivity. An Oratorio Verses in Reply to an Invitation to Dinner Letter in Prose and Verse to Mrs. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... not tell any lover of Handel that his oratorio of "Israel in Egypt" contains a chorus familiarly known by this name. The words are—"And he gave them hailstones for rain; fire, mingled with the hail, ran along ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... Tramp-chorus from Wagner, all delightful to me, on the Pier: how much better than all the dreary oratorios going on all the week at Norwich; Elijah, St. Peter, St. Paul, Eli, etc. There will be an Oratorio for every Saint and Prophet; which reminds me of my last Story. Voltaire had an especial grudge against Habakkuk. Some one proved to him that he had misrepresented facts in Habakkuk's history. 'C'est egal,' says V., 'Habakkuk etait capable de tout.' Cornewall Lewis, who (like most other Whigs) ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald
... treatise on the Latin language has in part come down to us; Cicero himself, from whose rhetorical works one can gather many valuable facts; and M. Fabius Quintilianus, the author of the treatise Institutio Oratorio, in twelve books. It is not merely when these authors speak of definite points of language and pronunciation that they are valuable; sometimes a casual remark, an anecdote, or a pun, may be of very great importance, as will be seen from time to ...
— Latin Pronunciation - A Short Exposition of the Roman Method • Harry Thurston Peck
... content to ravish the angels of their harps. And as for Johann Sebastian, "there was more real musical feeling, uplifting and sincerity in the old Thomas-kirche in Leipzig ... than in all your modern symphony and oratorio ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... well to the harmonies of an oratorio as Abel, or Jephtha, Moses, or St. Paul—nay, as the Messiah, or the last dread Judgment. Remember, our Alfred was a proficient himself, and spied the Danish forces in the character of a harper. What scope were here for gentle airs, and stirring Saxon songs! He harangues his patriot band, and ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... to say "imaginary meals," and hoped that next time she came, Hadria would not have an oratorio in course of composition. Miss Du Prel expressed a fiery interest ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... on my head, I feel it so much, ... yet all I know of it as art, all I have heard of the works of the masters in it, has been the mere sign and suggestion, such as the private piano may give. I never heard an oratorio, for instance, in my life—judge by that! It is a guess, I make, at all the greatness and divinity ... feeling in it, though, distinctly and certainly, that a composer like Beethoven must stand above the divinest painter in soul-godhead, ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... honour of Queen Christina of Sweden (1679), is specially noted; or, according to Mendel, he wrote two successful operas, one for the opening of the Teatro Capranica, and a second for the festivals. He also wrote an oratorio: La Sete di Christo. Pasquini died in the ...
— The Pianoforte Sonata - Its Origin and Development • J.S. Shedlock
... Marangoni: Istoria dell' oratorio appellato Sancta Sanctorum. Roma, 1747.—Gaspare Bambi: Memorie sacre della cappella di Sancta Sanctorum. Roma, 1775.—Giuseppe Soresini: Dell' immagine del SS. Salvatore ad Sancta Sanctorum. Roma, 1675.—Benedetto Millini: Oratorio di S. Lorenzo ad Sancta Sanctorum. ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani
... fond of music and reveled in the morning hour during which the organ was being played at Skibo. He was attracted by the oratorios as also Arthur Balfour. I remember they got tickets together for an oratorio at the Crystal Palace. Both are sane but philosophic, and not very far apart as philosophers, I understand; but some recent productions of Balfour send him far afield speculatively—a field which Morley never attempts. He keeps his foot on the firm ground and only treads where ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... convey the full power of these hymns. They should be heard sung to the old chorales, massive, yet sweet, by the lusty voices of a German congregation. To English people they are probably best known through the verses introduced into the "Christmas Oratorio," where the old airs are given new beauty by Bach's marvellous harmonies. The tone of devotion, one feels, in Gerhardt and Bach is the same, immeasurably greater as is the genius of the composer; in both there is a profound joy in the Redemption begun by the Nativity, a robust faith joined ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles
... his compositions were performed, and when Chopin arrived there twenty-five years afterwards, Elsner was still remembered by Lesueur, who said: "Et que fait notre bon Elsner? Racontez-moi de ses nouvelles." Elsner was a very productive composer: besides symphonies, quartets, cantatas, masses, an oratorio, &c., he composed twenty-seven Polish operas. Many of these works were published, some in Warsaw, some in various German towns, some even in Paris. But his activity as a teacher, conductor, and organiser was perhaps even more beneficial to the development of the musical ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... achievements, such as the Passion according to St Matthew and the B Minor Mass (for discussion of which see ORATORIO and MASS), date from his cantorship at Leipzig. But, important and congenial as was his position there, and smooth as the course of his life seems to have been until his death in 1750, he must have had quite as much experience as can have been good for him. He was often ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... versions of biblical stories. Palestrina and harmonies of celestial Jerusalem. Religious dramas of Roswitha. Laura Guidiccioni's first oratorio text. Music by Cavalieri. At Santa Maria della Vallicella. Orchestra behind the scene. Description. Carissimi, "father of oratorio and cantata." Alessandro Scarlatti. Another Alessandro. Dr. Parry's opinion. "San Giovanni Battista" ...
— For Every Music Lover - A Series of Practical Essays on Music • Aubertine Woodward Moore
... admitting the excellence of this profit, we can't forget our loss in the absence of Mr. SANTLEY. BEN MIO DAVIES sang the tenor music, but apologised for having unfortunately got a pony on the event,—that is, he had got a little hoarse during the day. "BEN MIO" is—um—rather troppo operatico for the oratorio. Mr. BARNBY bravely batoned, as usual. Bravo, BARNBY! He goes on with the work because he likes it. Did he not, he would say with ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., Nov. 22, 1890 • Various
... used to indicate anything else than earth, is used phonetically or ikonomatically. The figure shown in LXVII, 20, from Dres. 30a, which Seler calls a serpent, is merely the representation of a clay image and the seat or oratorio in which it is placed. It is probably from something of comparatively small size, burnt in one piece. The mark of the earth symbol, to distinguish the substance of which it is made, is certainly appropriate. In Tro. 6b we see another on which is quite a different symbol, indicating, as ...
— Day Symbols of the Maya Year • Cyrus Thomas
... on at the Oratorio? And what did Miss Wooler say to the proposal of being at the wedding? I have many points to discuss when I see you. I hope your mother and all are well. With kind remembrances to them, and true love to you,—I am, dear ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... avocations, it is impossible for me to give an opinion, especially with regard to the Indian Operetta; as soon as time permits, I will call on you for the purpose of discussing this subject, and also the Oratorio of "The Deluge." Pray always include me among the warm ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826, Volume 1 of 2 • Lady Wallace
... express admiration for Wagner music than he would offer to show that all the good things in the works of the famous German were merely so many paraphrased plagiarisms from the compositions of other men. He possessed a phenomenal memory. He seemed to remember every note in every opera, symphony, oratorio, or concerto that anybody ever mentioned, and there was not a piece of music by a celebrated man but he was ready to "prove" that it had been stolen from some ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... never touch but what can be beautified." In a critique of Alfred de Musset he speaks of the youthful poems of Milton: "'Il Penseroso' is the masterpiece of meditative and contemplative poetry; it is like a magnificent oratorio in which prayer ascends slowly toward the Eternal. I make no comparison; let us never take august names from their sphere. All that is beautiful in Milton stands by itself; one feels the tranquil habit of the upper regions, ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... seruo eius Malachiae, parce et tibi ipsi." Non destitit ille, furiis agitatus iniquis.[1203] Et ecce (quod horribile dictu est) uenenatum et tumidum animal quod bufonem uocant uisum est reptans exire de inter femora mulieris. Quid plura? Terrefactus resiliit homo, et datis saltibus festinus oratorio exsilit. Ille confusus abscessit, et illa intacta remansit, magno quidem et Dei miraculo et merito Malachiae. Et pulchre operi foedo et abominando foedum interuenit et abominabile monstrum. Non prorsus aliter decuit bestialem extingui libidinem quam per frigidissimum uermem, nec ...
— St. Bernard of Clairvaux's Life of St. Malachy of Armagh • H. J. Lawlor
... "Blessing and honor, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb forever and ever." A few gifted voices of earth may possess such power and sweetness as almost to entrance us with their melody of song; but what an oratorio will it be, my brethren, when, released from the narrow limits of mortality, that sublime strain sung by the redeemed of all ages and ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands of angels, bursts in upon our ransomed ...
— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith
... See especially his fourth sermon on 'The Messiah' in the series suggested by Handel's Oratorio. There is not a taint of irreverence, but no one but a man who had an exquisite sense of humour could have written the first two ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... for her, and she made her first appearance in a new oratorio. Her songs proved a principal feature in ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... eye; others who, having seen Macready in Macbeth, find the tragedy stale in others' hands. Now I don't believe this ensues where the love of the art itself is genuine; and I rejoice to say that having once listened to an oratorio at the Handel Festival with four thousand selected performers, that oratorio becomes forever a source of exquisite enjoyment, performed where or how it may be. If poorly done, the mind floats up toward the region, if it does not attain quite the same ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... this evening carried to a well-known conservatory called the Mendicanti, who performed an oratorio in the church with great, and I dare say deserved applause. It was difficult for me to persuade myself that all the performers were women, till, watching carefully, our eyes convinced us, as they were but slightly grated. The sight of girls, however, handling ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... that time on the committee, and agent for the "Friends to Music" who commissioned Beethoven to write an Oratorio in 1815. Schindler is of opinion that the repeated performance of the Abbe Stadler's heroic Oratorio, Die Befreiung von Jerusalem, was the cause of the Society in 1818 bespeaking, through Hauschka, "An oratorio of the ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 Vol. 2 • Lady Wallace
... all ring out with brazen tongues, caught up and re-echoed from spire to spire in what Victor Hugo describes as:—"Mingling and blending in the air like a rich embroidery of all sorts of melodious sounds"—America can furnish no greater oratorio. ...
— Famous Firesides of French Canada • Mary Wilson Alloway
... of fury Baroni informed him that he was exactly suited to be a third-rate music-hall artiste—the young man, be it said, was making a special study of oratorio—and that it was profanation, for any one with so incalculably little idea of the very first principles of art to attempt to interpret the works of the great masters, together with much more of a like explosive ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... eternity, when the stars were young, her first grand oratorio burst upon raptured Deity, and thrilled the wondering angels; all heaven shouted; ten thousand times ten thousand jeweled harps, ten thousand times ten thousand angel tongues caught up the song; and ever since, ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... receipt of letters for this purpose, the assassins made the best of their way toward Rome; and being arrived there, they learned that on the morrow, at five in the evening, Stradella was to give an oratorio in the church of San Giovanni Laterano. They failed not to be present at the performance, and had concerted to follow Stradella and his mistress out of the church, and, seizing a convenient opportunity, ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... back with the whisky-an'-soda, he was told off to swing the 'ammick in slow time, an' that massacritin' small-arm party went on with their oratorio. The Sergeant had been kindly excused from participating an' he was jumpin' round on the poop-ladder, stretchin' 'is leather neck to see the disgustin' exhibition an' cluckin' like a ash- hoist. A lot of us went on the fore an' aft bridge an' watched 'em like 'Listen to the Band ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... head. "Oh, no! He is out of favor there. They have never forgiven him his description of the Kaiser's oratorio as 'Moses Among the Crocodiles.' That is why I thought he might not be averse to looking in our direction. He used to be a nice boy; he is handsome according to his portraits, and Charlotte is not ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... studied in the United States, Paris and Italy. In 1870 she made her first appearanceatmessina, and after two successful seasons appeared in London in 1872 with the Royal Italian Opera. Later she abandoned opera for oratorio. and sang at all the principal festivals. She has made several tours of Canada and of the United States, and in 1886 sang at the opening of the Colonial and Indian Exhibition in London the ode written by Tennyson for the occasion. She frequently sang before Queen Victoria, the German emperor ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... be more disgusting than an oratorio. How absurd to see five hundred people fiddling like madmen about the Israelites in the ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... 1800, Napoleon, Josephine, and Hortense were going to the opera, to hear Haydn's Oratorio of the Creation. It was then to be performed for the first time. Napoleon, busily engaged in business, went reluctantly at the earnest solicitation of Josephine. Three gentlemen rode with Napoleon in his carriage. ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... 22 to 24. President: Lord Dudley and Ward. Following after the celebrated Handel Commemoration the programme was filled almost solely with selections from Handel's works, the only novelty being the oratorio of "Goliath," composed by Mr. Atterbury, which according to one modern musical critic, has never been heard of since. Master Bartleman, who afterwards became the leading bass singer of the day, was the novelty among the ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... all hotel expenses for board and lodging during the same period; to place at her disposal in each city a carriage and horses with their necessary attendants, and to give her in addition the sum of two hundred pounds sterling, or one thousand dollars, for each concert or oratorio in which the ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... setting of Rantin' Roarin' Robbie's poem, came The Dream of Jubal. This, as I take it, was a work produced in the Jubalee Year. I don't know who JUBAL was, at least I've only a vague idea. Rather think he was a partner of TUBAL. TUBAL, JUBAL & CO., Instrument Makers. From this Oratorio I gather that JUBAL was an enthusiastic amateur, but that the only musical instrument he possessed was a tortoise-shell,—whether comb or simple shell I couldn't quite make out. However, comb or shell, he worked hard at it, until one morning, when he ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, March 15, 1890 • Various
... oratorio, "St. Peter," was first produced at Portland in 1873, and in Boston a year later. It is a work of great power and much dramatic strength. Upton, in his valuable work, "Standard Oratorios," calls it "from the highest standpoint the only oratorio yet ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes
... little to avoid the hat of the rather strikingly dressed young woman in front of her, she could, at least, see the stage. The programme which she held in one hand announced that Miss Agatha Ismay would sing a certain aria from a great composer's oratorio, and she leaned further forward in her chair when a girl of about her own age, which was twenty-four, slowly advanced to the ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... inauguration, Mr. Carnegie has been President of the New York Oratorio, and for many years President ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... of this sort—I shouldn't have stared at it if there had been danger. It is only sheet-lightning now. Now, will you have another piece? Something from an oratorio ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... Pan, perhaps; perhaps, too, a play of Shakespeare, - a comedy, it may be, which made you laugh, or even a tragedy which made you want to cry, or at least left you sad. Some of you, too, have been to "Pageants," and some may even have been to an oratorio, which last may have been sung ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... with a short biography of the composer and such historical matter connected with the various works as is of special interest. The compiler has also included in his scheme a sketch of the origin and development of the Oratorio as illustrated in its three principal evolutionary stages, together with descriptions of several works which are not oratorios in the strict sense, but at the same time are sacred compositions written upon a large scale and usually performed by oratorio societies, ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... Ulysses, an Oratorio: Words and music by Samuel Butler and Henry Festing Jones: MS. of the piano score in the British Museum, MS. of the orchestral ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... equalled Henry Smart as a writer of music for female voices. His cantatas have been greatly admired, and his hymn tunes are unsurpassed for their purity and sweetness, while his anthems, his oratorio of "Jacob," and indeed all that he wrote, show the hand and the inventive gift of a great ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... Jannabi, that to deny this journey, is to disbelieve the Koran. Yet the Koran without naming either heaven, or Jerusalem, or Mecca, has only dropped a mysterious hint: Laus illi qui transtulit servum suum ab oratorio Haram ad oratorium remotissimum, (Koran, c. 17, v. 1; in Maracci, tom. ii. p. 407; for Sale's version is more licentious.) A slender basis for the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... window closed. Christopher had almost held his breath lest Ethelberta should discover him at the critical moment to be other than Sol, and mar her deliverance by her alarm. The still silence was anything but silence to him; he felt as if he were listening to the clanging chorus of an oratorio. And then he could fancy he heard words between Ethelberta and the viscount within the room; they were evidently at very close quarters, and dexterity must have been required of her. He went on tiptoe across the gravel to the grass, and once on that he strode in the direction ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... comic opera "Le Medecin malgre lui" in 1858, and a year later his famous setting of "Faust," which placed him in the front rank of composers; other operas followed, with various masses, anthems, hymns, &c.; his oratorio "Redemption," perhaps his ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... live the wild mountain folk—sun-worshipers and the Mohammedans) the padre has prepared a treat of nuts and raisins for the boys and girls—somewhat of a Christmas cheer even so far across the sea. They have been practicing their Christmas songs, Ave Maria and the "Oratorio," which they will sing around the streets on Christmas eve. The schoolboys have received their presents—dictionaries, sugared crackers, and perfumed soap—and now that their vacation has begun, their little brown heads can be ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... since the landing of the English, have, among other dramas, called mysteries, frequently represented one entitled Las profecias des Daniel (prophecies of Daniel). No subject can be better adapted than this, for combining a splendid variety of pageantry in one oratorio, or sacred opera. The jubilee of adoration to the golden colossus of Bel, the flaming auto-de-fe for the refractory holy children; the voluptuous dance exhibited during the meal of Belshazzar; the sacrilegious use of the chalices of Jerusalem; the sudden wrath ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 6, June 1810 • Various
... dazzling to enter this interior, all gold and color, with the most resplendent decorative effects. They followed in the footsteps of Saint Catherine, as do all pilgrims to Siena, and climbed the hill to the Oratorio di Santa Caterina in Fontebranda, and read that inscription: "Here she stood and touched that precious vessel and gift of God, blessed Catherine, who in her life did so many miracles." They lingered, ...
— The Brownings - Their Life and Art • Lilian Whiting
... William Jackson, author of 'The Deliverance of Israel,' an oratorio which has been successfully performed in the principal towns of his native county of York, furnishes an interesting illustration of the triumph of perseverance over difficulties in the pursuit of musical science. ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... spectacle—seemed almost to share in the devout contemplation and trancelike worship of the holy knights. Every thought of the stage had vanished—nothing was further from my own thoughts than play-acting. I was sitting as I should sit at an oratorio, in devout and rapt contemplation. Before my eyes had passed a symbolic vision of prayer and ecstasy, flooding the soul with overpowering thoughts of the divine sacrifice and the ...
— Parsifal - Story and Analysis of Wagner's Great Opera • H. R. Haweis
... this is clear gain, and the time may not be far distant when England will again become what it was in Elizabethan days—a nest of singing birds, where the minor poets will be able to take their share in the chorus of song, leaving the chief parts in the oratorio to the Shakespeares and ...
— Songs of the Ridings • F. W. Moorman
... fellow to meet, I set out with Papa, to see Louis DIX-HUIT Make his bow to some half-dozen women and boys, Who get up a small concert of shrill Vive le Rois- And how vastly genteeler, my dear, even this is, Than vulgar Pall-Mall's oratorio of hisses! The gardens seemed full—so, of Course, we walkt o'er 'em, 'Mong orange-trees, clipt into town-bred decorum, And daphnes and vases and many a statue There staring, with not even a stitch on them, at you! The ponds, too, we viewed—stood awhile on the brink To contemplate the play ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... of St. Thome from one of the party, and placed it by the side of Nossa Senhora in his own oratorio, a little decorated box in which every family keeps its household gods, finally lighting a couple of wax candles before it. Shortly afterwards a cloth was laid on a mat, and all the guests were invited to supper. The fare was very scanty— a boiled fowl with rice, ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... a musician, or, as he called himself, a Handelian, and in imitation of the style of Handel he wrote in collaboration with H. Festing Jones a secular oratorio, Narcissus (1888), and had completed his share of another, Ulysses, at the time of his death on the 18th of June 1902. His other works include: Life and Letters (1896) of Dr Samuel Butler, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... brought me a second letter. He assured me that the prince was most unhappy lest I should be offended at his conduct, and that he conjured me to go that night to the Oratorio, [38] where he would by some signal convince me that he was the writer of the letters, supposing I was still ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... things, miss, but I've never heard them." He had never been to concert or oratorio, any ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... library, being kindly-disposed towards all boy-kind. While he was questioning his young visitor, the organ of Grace Church, which was next to the bishop's house, pealed forth, and a man's voice began to chant a selection from an oratorio Bud had learned at St. Mark's. A high, childish soprano voice was essaying to carry the sustained note an octave above the man's voice; once ...
— Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley • Belle K. Maniates
... George Sand touched up this work, altering much of it and spoiling, what she altered. It is a pity that her new version, which is longer, heavier and more obscure, should have taken the place of the former one. In its first form Lelia is a work of rare beauty, but with the beauty of a poem or an oratorio. It is made of the stuff of which dreams are composed. It is a series of reveries, adapted to the soul of 1830. At every different epoch there is a certain frame of mind, and certain ideas are diffused in the air which we find alike in the works of the writers of that time, although they did ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic
... and Schumann-Heink. He may not be able to rise above the plane of ragtime, or he may attain to the sublime plane of "The Dead March in Saul." He has access to all the music from the discordant hand organ to the oratorio and grand opera. In his introduction of a concert company, the chairman said: "Ladies and gentlemen, the artists who are to favor us this evening will render nothing but high-grade selections. If any of you are inclined to be critical and to say that their music is above your heads, I beg to remind ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... to an oratorio with Dr. Hoffman. The boys were to attend the Christmas celebration at Allen Street church with the Deans. Hanny had not cared to go. Her mother kept watching her with a curious feeling as if she saw or suspected ...
— A Little Girl in Old New York • Amanda Millie Douglas
... Not to prove any position, but to check obstructive criticism, we refer to the divine who is said to have witnessed in magnificent apocalypse some closing scenes of the human drama. If he also heard in sublime oratorio a prelude of this widely extended glory, our vision may not be a "baseless fabric." After the quartettes of earth, and the interludes of angels, came the grand finale, when every creature which is in heaven, as well as on the earth, was heard ascribing "Blessing and ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... that he did not like to say he positively objected. He wished they had chosen an oratorio, or lecture, or anything more in keeping with the ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... music hummed perversely through his head, mixing themselves up with all things and rippling the air about him into their own large waves, bearing now and then upon them, like the insistent iteration of an oratorio chorus, fantastic fragments—"If Thou hadst been here!—If Thou hadst been here!" His fingers ached towards the responsive strings, and pulling out his watch, he made a hasty calculation. There should be good fifteen minutes, he decided—toilet allowed for—and he hurried ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... and made no objection when the Venerable Archdeacon Trumper asked for a game of whist. What pangs must have been those of Lady Southdown, and what an utter castaway she must have thought her son-in-law for permitting such a godless diversion! And when, on the return of the family from an oratorio at Winchester, the Baronet announced to the young ladies that he should next year very probably take them to the "county balls," they worshipped him for his kindness. Lady Jane was only too obedient, and perhaps glad herself to go. The ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... oratorio season of 1771,' writes Mrs. Piozzi (Anec. 72), 'Mr. Johnson went with me to Covent Garden theatre. He sat surprisingly quiet, and I flattered myself that he was listening to the music. When we were ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... voice. I have discovered people go to hear music when they want to be soothed and uplifted. If they desire to be amused and enjoy a good laugh, they go to light opera or vaudeville; if they want a soothing, quieting mental refreshment, they attend a concert, opera or oratorio. Therefore I want to give them, when I sing, what they are in need of, what they are longing for. I want to have such control of myself that I shall be fitted to help and benefit every person in the audience who listens to me. Until I have thus prepared myself, ...
— Vocal Mastery - Talks with Master Singers and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... not without probability, that it was in order to be nearer to the places of public entertainment, to which his employment as a writer for ephemeral publications, obliged him to resort. On the 20th of July, he acquaints his sister that he is engaged in writing an Oratorio, which when finished would purchase her a gown, and that she might depend on seeing him before the first of January, 1771. "Almost all the next Town and Country Magazine," he tells her, "is his." ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... to follow. On the 3rd day of Nivose (December 24th, 1800), as the First Consul was driving to the opera to hear Haydn's oratorio, "The Creation," his carriage was shaken by a terrific explosion. A bomb had burst between his carriage and that of Josephine, which was following. Neither was injured, though many spectators were killed or wounded. ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... proper impression of the sense that is conveyed by it; how the sons and daughters of the world may, with their every affection devoted to its perishable vanities, inhale all the delights of enthusiasm, as they sit in crowded assemblage, around the deep and solemn oratorio." "It is a very possible thing, that the moral and the rational and the active man, may have given no entrance into his bosom for any of the sentiments, and yet so overpowered may he be by the charm of vocal conveyance through which they are addressed ...
— On Singing and Music • Society of Friends
... be at church this afternoon, and the oratorio this evening. I must be off early in the morning, so let me make the most of precious time and come home with you tonight as I did before," answered Archie, making his best bow, and quite ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... by this visitor from Paris is in oratorio form and titled, appropriately, "The Promised Land." A huge choir of 400 voices, directed by Wallace Sabin and named in honor of the visitor, the "Saint-Saens Choir," rendered a good account of the ensemble sections of ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... are on the air. The murmur always present where multitudes are assembled runs as an undertone; the sharp notes of frightened women and terrified children rise as the tones of an oratorio; steady, full, vibrant are the sounds ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams
... me glad and strong. I want to say it, and so try to say it. Things come to me in gleams and flashes, sometimes in words themselves, and I want to weave them into a melodious, harmonious whole. I was once at an oratorio, and that taught me the shape of a poem. In a pause of the music, I seemed all at once to see Handel's heavy countenance looking out of his great wig, as he sat putting together his notes, ordering about in his mind, and fixing in their ...
— The Elect Lady • George MacDonald
... Vienna, then Hamburg, and afterward became Kapellmeister at Gotha. He composed all kinds of music, instrumental and vocal, symphonies, operas, etc. His setting of Schiller's "Song of the Bell" is well known at the present day, as well as the oratorio, "The Transient and the Eternal." He was made Doctor of Music by Kiel University. Bernhard Romberg was a distinguished violoncellist. When his connection with the Elector's orchestra ceased, he made a professional tour to Italy and Spain with his more famous ...
— Beethoven • George Alexander Fischer
... latter day upon the earth; and though worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God." Handel's "Messiah" had invested this passage with resistless grandeur, and, leaving the cold, dreary garden, she sat down before the melodeon and sang a portion of the Oratorio. The sublime strains seemed to bear her worshiping soul up to the presence-chamber of Deity, and exultingly she repeated ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... there are any final touches to put to your oratorio, you'd better do them to-day. The piano won't be there to-morrow. I've made up my mind to ...
— General John Regan - 1913 • George A. Birmingham
... and oratorio,—all sublime. "Last named, though first written, is the drama of Job, in which all things conspire to lift the argument into sublimity. Are seas in tempests sublime? What are they, matched with Job's stormy soul? Are thunders reverberating ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... stun of the surge on your right ear, the hiss of the surf, the saturnalia of the elements; while overpowering all other sounds are the orchestral harmonics of the sea, which roll on through the ages, all shells, all winds, all caverns, all billows heard in "the oratorio of the creation." ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... in oratorio was something to be long remembered. The Handel and Haydn Society brought out "Elijah" and "The Creation" before immense audiences at the Music Hall. For the first time we heard "Elijah" represented by a great artist, and not by a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... The Christian's Armour. Oratorio. By Joseph L. Roeckel; the text compiled by Mrs. Alexander Roberts from Ephesians vi.; interspersed with hymns from several sources.—A useful work for services of song or chapel festivities. There is a sameness about the work, and it suggests a weary ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 355, October 16, 1886 • Various
... compositions to a height unattained by any of his successors. He was one of the most extraordinary geniuses that ever appeared on earth. Handel, whose glorious melodies entranced the senses, produced the grand oratorio of the "Messiah," which is still performed in both Protestant and Catholic cathedrals; and Graun, with whom Frederick the Great played the flute, brought private singing into vogue by his musical compositions. ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... very fond of music, and when he could afford it went to hear an oratorio that came within his reach, returning from it with a profound reverence for this mighty structure of tones, which made him sit meditatively, looking on the floor and throwing much unutterable language ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... to more real contests; Handel has set up an oratorio against the opera @ind succeeds. He has hired all the goddesses from farces and the singers of Roast Beef(779) from between the acts at both theatres, with a man with one note in his voice, and a girl without ever an one; and so they sing, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... applicabat amorem eorum filio transcribens: Adeo vt iam inde longo tempore fuerint imperatorum illorum satellites, Inglini Bipenniferi Niceta Choniata, Barangi Curopoata dicti. Qui vbique Imperatorem prosequebantur ferentes humeris secures, quas tollebant, cum Imperator ex oratorio spectandum se exhibebat Anglice vitam diuturnam secures suas collidentes vt ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, v5 - Central and Southern Europe • Richard Hakluyt
... the piano, and knowing Julian's passion for music, was rewarded for his unselfish efforts by complete success in rousing his attention. He played some of the finest passages of a recent and beautiful oratorio, until Julian almost forgot his troubles, and was ready to talk with more freedom and in ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... New Bedford than there was in Boston. To be sure, we could not pretend to compare with Boston in culture and in high and fine conversation, least of all in music, which was at a very low ebb with us. I remember being at an Oratorio in one of our churches, where the trump of Judgment was represented by a horn not much louder than a penny-whistle, blown in an ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... experiment possible. We are by no means anxious to assume the Puritanical tone, or to lay down the doctrine that certain subjects are to be excluded from any department of art. The most sacred themes are worked into oratorio-books, and the most straitlaced portion of the community applauds their combination with music. But when a subject is in itself solemn, let it be solemnly treated. Opinions may be divided as to whether the story of the Prodigal Son can with propriety be represented in the form ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... proud, and fond of money,—but whether he had soul or not we do not know; the profound religiousness of Handel, who spent his best years on second-rate operas, and devoted his declining energies to oratorio, we have to guess at rather than reach by direct disclosure; and till Mr. Thayer shall take away the mantle which yet covers his Beethoven, we shall know but little of the interior nature of that wonderful man. But Mendelssohn now stands before ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... opus; sonata; rondo, rondeau[Fr]; pastorale, cavatina[obs3], roulade[obs3], fantasia, concerto, overture, symphony, variations, cadenza; cadence; fugue, canon, quodlibet, serenade, notturno [Italian], dithyramb; opera, operetta; oratorio; composition, movement; stave; passamezzo [obs3][Italian], toccata, Vorspiel [German]. instrumental music; full score; minstrelsy, tweedledum and tweedledee, band, orchestra; concerted piece[Fr], potpourri, capriccio. vocal music, vocalism[obs3]; chaunt, chant; psalm, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... task, and not without pride,—a very just one,—at the way it was performed. In the Ode (IV. 6), which seems to have been a kind of prelude to the "Secular Hymn," he anticipates that the virgins who chanted it will on their marriage-day be proud to recall the fact that they had taken part in this oratorio under ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... for his own interest. While those imperfectly sharped and flatted notes are sounding, he wonders if that peculiarly adjusted, harmonious Sense, quickening at scream of seagull or roar of ravenous beast, would not miss these poorly pitched tones more than Gabriel's highest or Creation's ever-echoing oratorio. ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... week no one could think or talk of anything else. Then the official accounts having been received from Washington, there were plans for a grand procession. An oratorio was given at the Stone Chapel in the morning. Madam Royall had managed to obtain seats for Mr. Winthrop and Doris with her party. The church was crowded. American and British officers in full uniform were side by side,—as happy to be at peace as the ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... inferior singers in making up a general chorus is not always appreciated. In an artificial musical composition, as in an oratorio or an anthem, though there is a leading part, which is commonly the air, that gives character to the whole, yet this principal part would often be a very indifferent piece of melody, if performed without its accompaniments. These accompaniments by themselves would seem still more unimportant ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... meaning can appear. If, therefore, poetry is to keep time with the slow movement of the music and conform to its mode of development, the verses have to be repeated again and again; but this destroys the poetic form—as in the oratorio, ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... book. Handel's Israel in Egypt—the wonder of the scientific musician in his closet—yet sways to and fro, like a mighty wind upon the waters, the hearts of assembled thousands at an Exeter Hall oratorio. To take an instance more striking still, Beethoven, the sublime, the rugged, the austere, is also, as even Mons. Jullien could tell us, fast becoming a popular favourite. Now why is this? Simply because these master ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... museum. He published in 1676 a pamphlet describing its contents. His name is associated with our subject in having adopted a new mode of stringing the Violono, or Double-Bass, by using four strings, and playing himself upon the instrument at oratorio performances in Rome. I have mentioned in Section I. that the Violono was originally used with several strings—five, six, or seven—and with frets. Todini is therefore credited with having introduced the ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... not so much an opera, monsieur," said she, "as an oratorio—a work which is in fact not unlike a most magnificent edifice, and I shall with pleasure be your guide. Believe me, it will not be too much to give all your mind to our great Rossini, for you need to be at ...
— Massimilla Doni • Honore de Balzac
... turn it to good account by preserving the difference of character between the two women Anah and Aholibamah and by keeping of course the Deluge as a purely instrumental piece for the denouement. If in your free moments you could think of cutting out of this an oratorio of moderate length, as in Byron, I should ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... drew the line of demarcation between permissible and forbidden evening amusements at the lecture-rooms of the Royal and Polytechnic Institutions, and the oratorio performances in Exeter Hall. All gates opening on the outer side of the boundary thus laid down, were gates of Vice—gates that no son of his should ever be allowed to pass. The domestic laws which obliged Zack to be home every night at eleven o'clock, and forbade the possession ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... the Association found themselves "complimented" with tickets, and crowded in the chapel of Livingstone Hall, where Prof. Spence and the Mozart Society, of Fisk, treated us to an excellent rendering of Haydn's great oratorio, "The Creation." Many came over from the city, whites from "best families," all crowding in—listening, wondering, enjoying! How the music of those well-tuned instruments and voices caught us up and carried us away! Color-line melted and faded out! ...
— The American Missionary, Vol. 44, No. 5, May 1890 • Various
... content in a quiet monotonous life, in an oyster- like way, till suddenly there was an unveiling and opening of unimagined capacities of enjoyment—as by a scene like this before us, by a great poem, an oratorio, or, as I supposed, by Niagara or the Alps. Ellen put it—'Oh! and by feelings for the great and good!' Dear girl, her colour deepened, and I am sure she meant her bliss in her connection with her hero. Presently, however, she passed on to saying how such revelations of unsuspected powers ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... right!" She listened wistfully a moment to the now slightly dulled oratorio, then: "Yes, Angus McDonald is his name; but there are two kinds of Scotch, and Angus is the other kind. Of course he's one of the big millionaires now, with money enough to blind any kind of a Scotchman, but he was the other kind even when he first come out to us, a good thirty years ago, without ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... abhorrence of musical warfare and his avoidance of the larger and more imposing forms of the opera, symphony, and oratorio, there were other causes which retarded the recognition of his transcendent genius. The unprecedented originality of his style, and the distinct national coloring of his compositions, did not meet with a sympathetic appreciation ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... numbers of the great Jeremy rolled forth like the notes of an oratorio played on the violoncello. Mary sat gloating in the new sensation of racking physical discomfort that the wooden chair brought her. Perhaps there is no happiness in life so perfect as the martyr's. Jeremy's minor chords soothed her like the music of a tom-tom. "Why, oh why," she said to herself, ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... The Oratorio of Judith, Mr. Ireland observes, was written by Esquire William Huggins, honoured by the music of William de Fesch, aided by new painted scenery and magnifique decoration, and in the year 1733 brought ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... the rain ceased, the clouds passed away, and the sun shone again, giving us a rainbow promise on the passing drops. Everything woke up! The birds were first to rejoice, and a veritable oratorio of praise and joyfulness sounded about our ears. The leaves quickly expanded, fresher than ever; the flowers uncurled and unfolded, the May-apple umbrellas raised again; and all seemed singing a song as joyous as that of the birds, though ...
— Getting Acquainted with the Trees • J. Horace McFarland |
