An operatic work without staging, sets, or elaborate costumes Usually performed in a more relaxed setting than a formal opera, and usually having a religious theme
to be sung with an orchestral accompaniment, but without action, scenery, or costume, although the oratorio grew out of the Mysteries and the Miracle and Passion plays, which were acted
an extended work for voices and orchestra which is on a dramatic, Biblical, or religious theme but performed unstaged Like opera, oratorio includes recitatives, arias, choruses, and orchestra Unlike opera, oratorio does not use scenery, costumes, or acting Oratorios often have narrators
A more or less dramatic text or poem, founded on some Scripture nerrative, or great divine event, elaborately set to music, in recitative, arias, grand choruses, etc
A genre of choral music with sacred words, but a non-liturgical function Oratorios can be quite long, with dozens of movements, but have remained among the most popular genres of choral music for more than two and half centuries The lyrics of oratorios are written in the language of the intended audience, based around an Old Testament text Even though oratorios are heard in concert, not in the church service, there is a clear religious message sent, and they have remained most popular in predominately Protestant countries Oratorios usually feature a large chorus, a full orchestra, and four or more soloists Some oratorios sound a lot like operas, with dramatic stories and singers taking on the role of specific characters--but oratorios are not acted out on a stage like operas are Perhaps the most popular oratorio is Handel's Messiah
An oratorio is a long piece of music with a religious theme which is written for singers and an orchestra. oratorios a long piece of music in which a large group of people sing. Large-scale musical composition on a sacred subject for solo voices, chorus, and orchestra. The term derives from the oratories, community prayer halls set up by St. Philip Neri in the mid 16th century in a Counter-Reformation attempt to provide locales for religious edification outside the church itself, and the oratorio remained a nonliturgical (and non-Latin) form for moral musical entertainment. The first oratorio, really a religious opera, was written in 1600 by Emilio del Cavaliere, and the oratorio's development closely followed that of opera. Giacomo Carissimi produced an important body of Italian oratorios, and Marc-Antoine Charpentier transferred the oratorio to France in the later 17th century. In Germany the works of Heinrich Schütz anticipate the oratorio-like Passions of Johann Sebastian Bach. The most celebrated oratorio composer was George Frideric Handel; his great English works include the incomparable Messiah (1742). Handel inspired Franz Joseph Haydn's great Creation (1798) and exerted great influence on the 19th-century oratorio, whose composers include Hector Berlioz, Felix Mendelssohn, and Franz Liszt. Though the oratorio thereafter declined, 20th-century oratorio composers included Edward Elgar, Igor Stravinsky, Arthur Honegger, and Krzysztof Penderecki