more interesting by affording the
congregation a practical place in the exercises. Mattheson is best
known at the present time by his "Complete Orchestral Director," a
compilation of musical knowledge and notions, intended for the
instruction of those intending to act in this capacity.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XX.

THE PROGRESS OF ORATORIO.

I.

As already noticed in the previous chapter, the oratorio had its
origin at the same time as opera, both being phases of the _stilo
rappresentativo_, or the effort to afford musical utterance to
dramatic poetry--at first merely a solemn and impressive utterance,
later, as the possibilities of the new phase of art unfolded
themselves, a descriptive utterance, in which the music colored and
emphasized the moods of the text and the situation. The idea of
oratorio was not new. All through the Middle Ages they seem to have
had miracle plays in the Church, as accessories of the less solemn
services, and as means of instruction in biblical history. The
mediaeval plays had very plain music, which followed entirely the
cadences of the plain song, and made no attempt at representing the
dramatic situation or the feelings growing out of it. All that the
music sought to do was to afford a decorous utterance, having in it,
from association with the cadence of the music of the Church,
something impressive, yet not in any manner growing out of the drama
to which it was set. The Florentine music drama was something entirely
different from this, or soon became so, and in oratorio this was just
as apparent as in opera, although the opportunities of vocal display
were not made so much of.

The modern oratorio exists in two types: The dramatic cantata, of
which the form and general idea were established by Carissimi; and the
church cantata, which differed from the Italian type chiefly in being
of a more exclusively religious character, and of having occasional
opportunities for the congregation to join in a chorale. The former of
these types was established by Giacomo Carissimi (1604-1674), who was
born near Rome, and held his first musical position as director at
Assisi, but presently obtained the directorship at the Church of St.
Apollinaris in Rome, where he served all the remainder of his long and
active life. Without having been a genius of the first order, it was
Carissimi's good fortune to exercise an important influence upon the
course of musical progress, particularly in t