Oratorio, a sacred story set to music, which, like opera, requires soloists, chorus, and full orchestra for its performance, but dispenses with the theatrical adjuncts of scenery, costumes, and acting. It is named from the oratory or mission-hall in Rome, where on feasts St Philip Neri (q.v.), prompted by the same spirit as had in the mediæval miracle and mystery plays sought to interest and educate the unlearned, arranged the sacred musical performances (1571–94), which developed into the modern oratorio.
The effort to find a more dramatic vehicle of expression which had proved in Florence the germ of Opera (q.v.) was also being made in Rome by Emilio del Cavaliere. And by a curious coincidence the first oratorio and the first opera (properly so called) were produced in the same year (1600) in these two cities. Cavaliere's oratorio, which was written throughout in recitative style, was called La Rappresentazione dell' Anima e del Corpo, and the directions for acting, dressing, and dancing, as well as singing, show how entirely the conception of oratorio has changed since its first rude beginning. During the 17th century Carissimi and Scarlatti wrote many works full of expression, but the Italians were, as a rule, more engrossed with the development of opera. Indeed, save in such expressive works as Carissimi's Jephtha, Stradella's John the Baptist, and the like, there is no difference between opera and oratorio composition, and it was among the graver nations of the North that the oratorio was to arrive at its maturity. There the first and almost universal subject was the Passion; and to illustrate the story and direct the meditations of the devout, Schütz, Graun, Handel, and Bach employed all their skill in musical construction, and all the resources which counterpoint, harmony, and orchestration could afford them. Solid part-writing for voices is absolutely necessary for such impressive and serious works as oratorios, and it is the neglect among the Italians of the art they had brought to such perfection during the 16th century which has caused the crown to pass from Italy to Germany. The greatest 'Passion Music' is the St Matthew, written for service on Good Friday, 1729, by Seb. Bach. It contains choruses, solos, and chorales (in which the congregation took part), all of surpassing interest and beauty, and showing when requisite great dramatic truth and force. And as this work is the climax, so it is the close of passion music development.
The next and most important phase of oratorio was the Epic, which became in Handel's giant hands such a powerful instrument. Before he wrote Saul and Israel in Egypt (1739) he had written an early oratorio in the Italian, and Passions, &c. in the German style. Between his arrival in England (1710) and his abandonment of the opera he had in no fewer than forty-four operas accustomed himself to all the possibilities of vocal expression; and his Italian training, his studies in Germany, and his varied experience eminently fitted him for his task. In twelve years he composed fifteen grand oratorios (Israel in Egypt, Messiah, Samson, Judas Maccabæus, Joshua, Solomon, Jephtha, &c.), besides several cantatas and anthems of almost oratorio dimensions. The greatest is Israel in Egypt, with its massive double chorus-writing and its grand effects; but the Messiah is a work which stands out not only among oratorios, but in all musical literature as a great inspiration. Pure inspiration it must indeed have been, for it was written in twenty-four days! The great admiration for Handel's compositions in England finds expression every three years in the Handel Festival, held in London, at which the Messiah, Israel in Egypt, and a 'selection' are performed on a gigantic scale (about three thousand singers and five hundred instrumentalists).
Haydn heard Handel's works when he visited England in 1791-92, and was incited to the composition of his great oratorio, the Creation (and also the charming pastoral the Seasons, which should scarcely be called an oratorio); in fact, Handel has been the inspiration and model of nearly all succeeding oratorios, as England, his adopted country, has been oratorio's peculiar home. There the unequalled choruses and the general custom of choral festivals on a large scale offer numerous opportunities for producing familiar masterpieces and inducements to compose new works. For the Birmingham Festival of 1846 Mendelssohn wrote his masterpiece, the Elijah, a work of great originality, which, however, owes more to the influence of Bach than of Handel. St Paul was produced at Düsseldorf ten years earlier.
Daring orchestral colour and original effects characterise Spohr's oratorios, Last Judgment (1826), Calvary (1835), and The Fall of Babylon (1842). Modern oratorios take advantage of the dramatic element which is so strong in the music of the 19th century, and in many works the name is modified (e.g. Dramatic Oratorio—Mackenzie's Rose of Sharon, Parry's Judith, &c.) or avoided (Sacred Trilogy—Gounod's Redemption, Berlioz's Childhood of Christ, &c.). Dvorák's St Ludmila and Liszt's St Elizabeth and Christus lean more and more to the form of dramatic cantata, of which Beethoven's Mount of Olives (miscalled an oratorio), Schumann's Paradise and the Peri, Sullivan's Golden Legend, and Mackenzie's Dream of Jubal and Sayid are fine examples.
To treat of the large field thus opened to modern composers in the dramatic cantata, sacred and secular, would lead us far beyond the limits of this article; reference must be made to musical dictionaries, as well as, more strictly for Oratorio, to Bitter's Geschichte des Oratoriums (1872), Wagemann's Geschichte des Oratoriums (1882), Rockstro's careful article in Grove's Dictionary, and Upton's Standard Oratorios (Chicago, 1887).