"Oratorio" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... t'fine art line, bud t'music aw think licks t'lump, especially abaght Haworth an' Keighley. Nah Haworth wunce hed a famous singer; he wor considered one o' t'best i' Yorkshire in his time. It is said 'at he once walked fra Haworth to York i' one day, an' sung at an Oratorio at neet. He hed one fault, an' that wor just same as all t'other Haworth celebrities; he wod talk owd fashioned, an' that willant dew up i' London. Bud we hed monny a good singer beside him i' t'neighbourhood. Nah what is thur grander ner ...
— Revised Edition of Poems • William Wright
... late 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. He was the son of a miller at ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... 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 ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... violoncello, 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 his magnificence, ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... need 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 upon ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... of music. We were 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, and say if ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... unapproachable in their perfection. For many reasons the English public refused to hear them in his own time, and Handel, as a general whose business was to win the battle, not in this or that way, but in any possible way, turned his attention to oratorio, and in this found success and a fortune. In this lies also our great gain, for in addition to the Italian opera songs we have the oratorio choruses. But when we come to think of it, might not Buononcini and Cuzzoni laugh to see how time has avenged them ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... her, and she made her first appearance in a new oratorio. Her songs proved a principal feature ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... 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
... forgotten; we know of the other because of the 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 ...
— Haydn • John F. Runciman
... 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 ...
— Getting Acquainted with the Trees • J. Horace McFarland
... ignorant I am, to have had eyes and ears so long! There is music, now, which lifts the hair 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, and nearest to the true poet, of ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... best artists are content to servilely copy—the sculptor who would sign works that now make the cities that possess them famous—the lapicido ("stone-cutter"), like that Agostino Fiorentino whose inimitable chisel produced the front of the oratorio of Saint Bernardino in this same Perugia—the goldsmith, the delicate fancy of whose handiwork puts to shame the coarser and heavier work of our time—the painter for whose presence at their courts princes were bidding against each other,—all ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... Eve they went, by her desire, to a church in Soho, where the Christmas Oratorio was being given; and coming away passed, by chance of a wrong turning, down Borrow Street. Ugh! How that startled moment, when the girl had pressed herself against him in the dark, and her terror-stricken whisper: "Oh! Who is ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... 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 ...
— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith
... 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, with scenery representing ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, No. - 361, Supplementary Issue (1829) • 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 feeling towards the ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 355, October 16, 1886 • Various
... her 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 without ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... colossal 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 ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... fiction, and the drama, and to some extent music, painting, and sculpture, arouse the emotions and direct them-if the art is good-into proper channels. Meunier's sculptured figures, Millet's Angelus or Man with the Hoe, the oratorio of the Messiah or a national song like the Marseillaise, have a stirring and ennobling effect upon the soul; while such a poem as Moody's Ode in Time of Hesitation, a story like Dickens's Christmas Carol, or a ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... earliest biographer of Handel, and, on his authority, a host of subsequent writers, took upon them to assert, without any apparent foundation, that the oratorio of the Messiah was performed in London in the year 1741, previously to Handel's visit to Ireland; but that it met with a cold reception, and this was one cause of his leaving England. Dr Burney, when composing his History of Music, examined all the London newspapers where public ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 455 - Volume 18, New Series, September 18, 1852 • Various
... was very 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 ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... 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." He boasts that "he has an universal ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... 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 got home he repeated these ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... years. It was true congregational singing, in which all took part; simple and religious as the songs of Methodists, both to drive away fear and ennui, and fortify the soul by inspiring melodies,—not artistic music borrowed from the opera and oratorio, and sung by four people, in a distant loft, for the amusement of the rich pew-holders of a fashionable congregation, and calculated to make it forget the truths which the preacher has declared; but more ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord
... Henry 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
... should be paternal and nothing more. He would bid adieu to all that folly, and his life should not be a whit the emptier for the loss. He would fill it with interests—all kinds of interests, and his music should be the first. He would take up again, and carry out to the end, that oratorio which he had turned over in his mind for years—the "Absalom." He had several numbers at his fingers' ends; he would work out the bass solo, "Oh, Absalom, my son, my son!" and the double chorus that followed it, "Make ready, ye mighty; up and bare ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... weeks that they would swear to my fitness for heaven if it would 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 ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... and a 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 ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... husband. She passed "long mornings" with them—the most dreary and serious of forenoons. She drove out solemnly in their great family coach with them, and Miss Wirt their governess, that raw-boned Vestal. They took her to the ancient concerts by way of a treat, and to the oratorio, and to St. Paul's to see the charity children, where in such terror was she of her friends, she almost did not dare be affected by the hymn the children sang. Their house was comfortable; their papa's table rich and handsome; their society solemn and genteel; ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Marmaduke laughed. "Your father objects to public amusements. Where does he want to go to?" Felicia took up the newspaper. "There is an oratorio at Exeter Hall," she said; "my father likes music." He turned to me. "You don't object to oratorios, sir?" "I don't object to music," I answered, "so long as I am not required to enter a theater." Felicia handed the newspaper to me. "Speaking of theaters, father, have you read ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... to hold a beautiful girl in your arms, when you never had one there? You put words of temptation into the mouth of your villain which no real scamp would think of using, for their only effect would be to alarm your heroine. You talk of a planned seduction as if it were part of an oratorio. And you make your hero so superlatively pure and sweet that no woman formed of flesh and blood could endure ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... 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 of Heaven; the gloom of the ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 6, June 1810 • Various
... 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 Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... Meeting, the Dinner, and all other Engagements for a Week to come, but Jim would not Listen to it. As a Compromise the Head of the Concern said he would ask their Mr. Byrd to take charge of the Country Customer. They could surely find some Way of putting in the Evening. He said the Oratorio Club war going to sing at Music Hall, and also there was a Stereopticon Lecture on India. Jim said he would prefer the Stereopticon Show, because he loved to look ...
— More Fables • George Ade
... talent lest it should run away with them, and they neglect the rubrics, Dr. Newman was sensitive over musicians of the day setting to work upon liturgy. Of sorts of liberty taken we have modern examples in Gounod's Mors et Vita Oratorio, where O felix culpa, &c., is planted in the middle of the Dies Irae, and in his Messe Solennelle, where Domine, non sum dignus, &c., figures as a solo in the Agnus Dei (a less objectionable case, the treatment being fortunately devotional). Berlioz, too, in ...
— Cardinal Newman as a Musician • Edward Bellasis
... declares, from the zealous Al 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 aerial ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... 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 some ...
— A Little Girl in Old New York • Amanda Millie Douglas
... 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, ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... 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 voice and remain unmoved; ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... 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 Carlsruhe Vocal ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... 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
... nature. All 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 ...
— Songs of the Ridings • F. W. Moorman
... 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. ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... showed me, at Paris, in 1835, a picture of "The Oratorio,"—a subject well known from Hogarth's etching. He told me that he bought it at a broker's shop in the Rue St. Denis; that, on examination, he found the frame to be English; and that, as the price was small—thirty francs, if I remember rightly—he bought the piece, without supposing ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 185, May 14, 1853 • Various
... 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 ...
— St. Bernard of Clairvaux's Life of St. Malachy of Armagh • H. J. Lawlor
... my 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
... met the storm. From grim, black lips on the hill crest came the answer to their yell—three hundred and forty mighty guns were singing an oratorio of Death and Hell in chorus now from those heights. Half the men seemed to fall at a single crash and still the line closed up and rushed steadily on, firing and loading, firing and loading,—running and staggering, then rallying and pressing ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... 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 in Germany and Vienna, when ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... misunderstood her 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
... then persuaded him to have tea. Lord De Vayne played well on 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 ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... heard the minister pray at Mrs. Blake's funeral, and once since at the Larkums. I have longed to hear him again. I never heard anything like it in my life. It reminded me of a beautiful poem or oratorio." ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter
... 24th of December, 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. Josephine, with Hortense and other friends, followed ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... one; but on entering the palace, we found a spacious 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 ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... this 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
... 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 ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... tell something that makes 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 places with his pen, his drums, ...
— The Elect Lady • George MacDonald
... of having spent an evening 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, ...
— Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, • Sherwin Cody
... rare composition of the Jew, the gentleman, and the angel; yet all these elements mixed up so kindly in him that you could not tell which preponderated." In this essay Lamb refers to Braham's singing in Handel's oratorio "Israel in Egypt." Concerning Braham's abandonment of the Jewish faith see Lamb's sarcastic essay "The Religion of Actors," Vol. ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... 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 ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... 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), ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller
... attempts to explain 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 as ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... even Americans, at any rate. There is a sort of queer, absurd tradition. One begins to think of oratorio." ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... hear Neukomm's Oratorio of David. It is to music what Barry Cornwall's verses and Talfourd's Ion are to poetry. It is completely modern, and befits an age of consciousness. Nothing can be better arranged as a drama; the parts are in excellent ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... 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 that ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... that the staging would be too difficult, and that the second act especially would entail insurmountable obstacles for the ballet, which had to be given each time. In place of this Dessauer wished me to compose him an oratorio on 'Mary Magdalene.' As on the day that he expressed this wish he appeared to be suffering from acute melancholia, so much so that he declared he had that morning seen his own head lying beside his bed, I thought well not to refuse his request. I asked him, therefore, to give me time, ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... Besides, by craning her neck a 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 centre of ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... that name (for the name itself conveys nothing, for which reason Wagner coined the term "music drama") broke away from the church in the guise of Mysteries, as they were called in mediaeval times. A Mystery (of which our modern oratorio is the direct descendant) was a kind of drama illustrating some sacred subject, and the earliest specimens laid the foundation for the Greek tragedy and comedy. We still see a relic of this primitive art form in ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... 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 ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... new shape in which its 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, with ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... Handel and Haydn Society, of which we were all members. The soloists were many of the best on this continent. What magnificent music we gave. I lived just in a world of song and associated with the best of them and was accepted and acknowledged by them all. I remember well when we gave the oratorio, David, April 3, 1859, the forty-third season. I never had sung with so many singers before and I was in a maze of excitement. I was ready also to enjoy every note, for it was the largest aggregation of solo singers I had ever heard. ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson
... man were not his own poet as truly as he is his own priest and governor, as though each 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 life ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... 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 of the ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams
... 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 ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... draw from all the sources of his art, and put forth all his power, to make an eloquent exposition of his faith in music, and interpret the Bible thus to the hearts of all men." And yet, hitherto, have not the sublime fragments he culled from the Bible served as expositors of the Oratorio? The Messiah is the celebration, in Handel's way, of the great things of his life, which, more or less, are the remarkable experience of all men, and which receive the grandest verbal expression in the Bible. Having this same ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke
... Music was from the first a regular feature of the Encaenia, and compositions were written for it. The most famous occasion of this kind was in July, 1733, when Handel came to Oxford, at the invitation of the Vice-Chancellor, to conduct the performance of some of his works; among these was the Oratorio Athaliah, especially written for the occasion. Handel was offered the degree of Doctor of Music, but (unlike Haydn) declined it, because he disliked 'throwing away his money for dat ...
— The Oxford Degree Ceremony • Joseph Wells
... offensive to the 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, ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... 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 ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... passionate scene in which the conscience-stricken Assur pours forth his soul in tempest. More thoroughly Italian in type is 'Mose in Egitto,' a curious though effective version of the Biblical story, which is still occasionally performed as an oratorio in this country, a proceeding which naturally gives little idea of its real merits. In 1833 it was actually given under the proper conditions, as a sacred opera, strengthened by a generous infusion of Handel's 'Israel in Egypt,' under the direction of Mr. Rophino ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... 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 continue coram libro genua flectens, oculis ac manibus erectis, ...
— Henry the Sixth - A Reprint of John Blacman's Memoir with Translation and Notes • John Blacman
... with Hugh; and he placed himself so as to see the singer without being seen himself, and to lose no slightest modulation of her voice. But what was his disappointment to find that oratorio-music was just what Euphra was incapable of! No doubt she sang it quite correctly; but there was no religion in it. Not a single tone worshipped or rejoiced. The quality of sound necessary to express the feeling ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... the theater. You have seen pantomimes and Peter 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 ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... Voltaire and Rameau, Duprez and Joachim Raff, History of Saint-Saens's opera, et seq.—Henri Regnault, First performances, As oratorio and opera in New York, An inquiry into the story of Samson, Samson and Herakles, The Hebrew hero in legend, A true type for tragedy, Mythological interpretations, Saint-Saens's opera described, et seq.—A choral prologue, Local color, The character of Dalila, ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... with my 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 ...
— Vocal Mastery - Talks with Master Singers and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... of such things, miss, but I've never heard them." He had never been to concert or oratorio, ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... musical education conceivable to near one hundred young women. You may imagine how admirably those of the Mendicanti in particular are taught, since their establishment is under Bertoni's direction, who breathes around him the very soul of grace and harmony. The chapel in which we sat to hear the oratorio was dark and solemn; a screen of lofty pillars, formed of black marble and highly polished, excluded the glow of the western sky, and reflected the lamps which burn perpetually before the altar. Every tribune was thronged with people, whose profound silence showed ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... members of 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 ...
— The American Missionary, Vol. 44, No. 5, May 1890 • Various
... 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 the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., Nov. 22, 1890 • Various
... were produced, with the one unvarying tale of fiasco, and at last, in 1737, having lost the whole of his hardly earned money, Handel was compelled to close the theatre, and, worse than all, to suspend payment for a time. Happily he now turned his thoughts to oratorio. "Saul" and "Israel in Egypt" were composed in quick succession; the last gigantic work being written in the almost incredibly short space of twenty-seven days. How great it is everyone now knows, but, at the time the colossal choruses were actually considered a great deal too heavy and monotonous; ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... music; Mozart was 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 machine-made concerts put together." ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... Dean Street, Soho.—The Oratorio of Judas Maccabeus was performed here in great splendour in 1760. It was afterwards the auction room of the elder Christie; and is now "Caldwell's Dancing Academy." George III. frequently honoured this "musick-room" with ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 25. Saturday, April 20, 1850 • Various
... a heart full of hope this sweet 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 Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... in palace and hut confronted, In battleship and iron steed defying space, In flaring furnace of the smelted ore, In haunts of coal and steam below the whirling wheels, Life laughs and sings and thunders An oratorio merging all the powers of harmony, And hails the high-born Thief, As ...
— Mastery of Self • Frank Channing Haddock
... 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 performers. ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... the age of seven, and afterwards 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
... came 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 ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... was infinitely struck with the Carrara, who is the prettiest creature upon earth. Mrs. Hartley I find still handsomer, and Miss Linley is to be the superlative degree. The king admires the last, and ogles her as much as he dares in so holy a place as an oratorio, and at so devout a service ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... did not like to say he positively objected. He wished they had chosen an oratorio, or lecture, or anything more in keeping with the necessity ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... 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 ...
— Massimilla Doni • Honore de Balzac
... addresses, and visited the manufacturing establishments in the city, and the French ships-of-war in the harbor. On the twenty-seventh he had a busy day. In his diary he recorded: "At ten o'clock in the morning received the visits of the clergy of the town. At eleven, went to an oratorio; and between that and three o'clock received the addresses of the governor and council of the town of Boston[22]—of the president, et cetera, of Harvard college, and of the Cincinnati of the state; after which, ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... poor, defenceless mucous membrane, whose function was perverted as shown in the constantly congested appearance of the respiratory tract. I have seen this artist with congested vocal cords rehearse an oratorio in the afternoon at a public rehearsal and sing the same work in the evening at the regular concert performance, when, to use his own words, "I feel as if every note will be my last. I have no grip on my voice." It was a clear case of ...
— The Voice - Its Production, Care and Preservation • Frank E. Miller
... 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, to make the blow. The performance was now begun, and these men had nothing ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... paid promptly and Mrs. De Graf wore a silk dress on Sundays and held her chin a little higher than any other of the Cloverton ladies dared do. The Professor, no longer harrassed by debts, devoted less time to the drudgery of teaching and began the composition of an oratorio that he firmly believed would render his name famous. So, there being less to quarrel about, Beth's parents indulged more moderately in that pastime; but their natures were discordant, and harmony in the ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... 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
... study. In less than a year the young scholar had mastered the most difficult problems of counterpoint, and was dismissed by his teacher as perfectly competent in his art. How highly Wagner esteemed him is shown by the fact that his "Liebesmahl der Apostel," his only work in the nature of an oratorio, is dedicated to "Frau Charlotte Weinlig, the widow of my never-to-be-forgotten teacher." During this time he also composed a sonata and a polonaise, both of which were free from bombast and simple and natural in their musical form. More important than ...
— Life of Wagner - Biographies of Musicians • Louis Nohl
... the inner nature of our great musical artists. Of Meyerbeer the world knows that he was vain, 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 ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... was more wit, in 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
... 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
... Rome, during the festivities in 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
... 3d Nivose (24th December 1800) the first performance of Haydn's magnificent oratorio of the "Creation" took place at the opera, and the First Consul had expressed his intention of being present. I did not dine with him that day, but as he left me he said, "Bourrienne, you know I am going ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... 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
... 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 ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... 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. "Josephine," he calmly said, ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... savages, the 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 ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... down happily to eat and drink, while Thora served him, and Conall smoked and watched them with a now-and-then smile or word or two, while Rahal and Barbara talked, and Ian played charmingly—with soft pedal down—quotations from Beethoven's "Pastoral Symphony" and "Hark, 'Tis the Linnet!" from the oratorio, "Joshua." ...
— An Orkney Maid • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... Ibsenism," which some regard as the finest of Bernard Shaw's works, and it is perhaps unnecessary to say that the effect on the packed audience was overwhelming. It was "briefly discussed" by a number of speakers, but they seemed as out of place as a debate after an oratorio. ...
— The History of the Fabian Society • Edward R. Pease
... 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 Lucia di Lammermoor, he launched the "Maladetta" phrase ...
— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam
... 'Cujus animam,' and a capital Sailors' 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
... 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 ...
— The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible • R. Heber Newton
... 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 this time?' ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... morning of 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, through all the golden cycles, its breathing melodies, old as eternity, ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... sciences, the story of music is that of a slow building up. Music "divinest of arts, exactest of sciences"—for music is both an art and a science—has developed from the crude two-or three-note scale melody, without semitones, to the elaborate, ornate lucubrations of the modern oratorio, opera, or symphony. From the beginning the "half-sister of Poetry" has been the handmaid of Religion. The ancients ascribed miraculous properties to music. Of the actual system of the Egyptians our information is very scant; but we learn from the monuments depicting the number and variety ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... when shall I marry me?') Translation ('Chaste are 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. Bunbury ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... Oratorio of Elijah were chosen for this occasion. At first the older students, upon whose hearty co-operation everything depended, expressed their fears as to the result. But courage and patience won the day with ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 52, No. 3, September, 1898 • Various
... freely given to us of God. It is no accident that all his letters close thus. This benediction is the last word of God's revelation to man, the brightness in the clear west, the last strain of the great oratorio. The last word or last book of Scripture is 'the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.' Let us take up the solemn Amen in our ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... Haydn, Beethoven. 5. A Choral and Organ Book,—"one of Marx's most interesting works." 6. "Nahib,"—a series of songs, the music of which "is gentle, tender, and full of Oriental feeling." 7. "John the Baptist," an oratorio,—twice performed by the University choir in one of the churches of Berlin. "A great charm is found in the peculiar sharpness of characterization which distinguishes this music. The solos and choruses, being held throughout in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... 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. ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... shining cloud of a witty abstraction when cornered. His prose is full of winged neologisms, his poetry heavy with the metaphysics of ennui. Remy de Gourmont speaks of his magnificent work as the prelude to an oratorio achieved in silence. Laforgue, himself, called it an intermezzo, and in truth it is little more. His intellectual sensibility and his elemental soul make for mystifications. As if he knew the frailness of his tenure on life, he sought azure and elliptical routes. ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... M. F. Quintiliani de institutione oratorio, liber primus (Paris, 1890). Introduction, xiv-xxxii. M. Fierville prints for the first time the complete texts of ...
— Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance - A Study of Rhetorical Terms in English Renaissance Literary Criticism • Donald Lemen Clark
... in the world, feel their respect for him sensibly decaying, and think it wise to trample him under foot, provided only in that act of trampling they can squeeze out of him their own individual debt. Like that terrific chorus in Spohr's oratorio of St. Paul, " Stone him to death " is the cry of the selfish and the illiberal amongst creditors, alike towards the just ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... of his time 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 ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... pretending all the time he didn't know there was anybody picking posies in the garden. I didn't know that she'd so much as noticed him until one night in the spring when we were rehearsing for a special oratorio. Some night!" The fat man sighed reminiscently. "All to the Romeo and Juliet! Choir forming on the outside, old Brownly having a tempermental fit as usual and Dud and I stationed over by the wall ready to split our epiglottises; on our ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... 'gazette', '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', ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... instrument to praise the life, death, and triumph of the Christ. No human composition ever voiced, in poetry or prose or music, such a masterly conception of the Virgin's Son as that uttered by this magnificent oratorio. ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth
... distance from Hadley 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 ...
— 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
... 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, ...
— Samuel Butler: A Sketch • Henry Festing Jones
... in the new oratorio, aided by Ashmead's exertions, launched her in a walk of art ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... 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 ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... to a Mr. Sheridan, a young man of great talents, and very well spoken of, whom it is expected she will speedily marry. She has performed this Lent at the Oratorio of Drury-lane, under Mr. Stanley's direction. The applause and admiration she has met with, can only be compared to what is given Mr. Garrick. The whole town seems distracted about her. Every other diversion is forsaken. Miss Linley alone engrosses ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... angel,' said Gambardella after a moment. 'I hear that he composes good music himself, and that his new oratorio will be performed before the Doge in Saint ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... 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 is frequently made to cover a ...
— Violin Mastery - Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers • Frederick H. Martens
... 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, ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani |
