Musical Form
Oratorio
A large-scale sacred drama, told through music, without staging.
Vocal
An oratorio is, in almost every practical sense, an opera without the staging: it uses the same forces - chorus, vocal soloists, and orchestra - and often tells a dramatic story, usually on a religious or biblical subject, but it's performed in a concert setting, with no sets, costumes, or acting.
Where the name comes from
The word comes from the oratory - the prayer hall of a religious community in 16th-century Rome, the Congregation of the Oratory, where devotional music and sermons drew large crowds. The form developed in the Baroque era alongside opera, partly as a way to present dramatic religious narrative during periods (like Lent) when staged opera was considered inappropriate. Its earliest roots trace to 17th-century Italy, in the devotional dialogues of composers like Giacomo Carissimi, whose Jephte is one of the first masterpieces of the form.
How an oratorio works
Like a cantata or an opera, an oratorio alternates recitative (sung narration that advances the plot) with arias (reflective solo numbers) and choral movements, but on a larger scale and typically over a full evening rather than a single church service. Many oratorios use a narrator, and the chorus plays a far bigger role than in most operas - sometimes as a crowd, sometimes as commentators.
Handel and the English oratorio
It was George Frideric Handel, writing in England decades later, who turned the oratorio into the genre's most enduring achievement - shifting the English public's appetite away from staged Italian opera and toward large-scale English-language choral works instead. Most of his oratorios are dramas based on Old Testament stories: Saul, Israel in Egypt, Samson, Judas Maccabaeus. Messiah (1742) is unusual: rather than telling a story with characters, it meditates on the life of Christ through Bible texts. After his death, oratorio performances grew ever larger; a Handel commemoration in Westminster Abbey in 1784 used some 500 performers, and 19th-century festivals used thousands.
The tradition continues
The tradition continued well past Handel. Bach's Passions and Christmas Oratorio are close relatives. Haydn's The Creation, depicting the biblical story of creation with vivid orchestral tone-painting, and Mendelssohn's Elijah, modeled explicitly on Handel's example, are both cornerstones of the choral repertoire. Edward Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius (1900) follows a soul's journey after death, William Walton's Belshazzar's Feast (1931) is a blaze of brass and choral color, and Michael Tippett's A Child of Our Time (1941) used African American spirituals in place of Bach's chorales.
Famous oratorios
- Handel - Messiah (1742).
- Bach - St Matthew Passion (1727) and Christmas Oratorio (1734).
- Haydn - The Creation (1798).
- Mendelssohn - Elijah (1846).
- Elgar - The Dream of Gerontius (1900).
- Walton - Belshazzar's Feast (1931).
Where to start listening: Handel's Messiah is by far the most famous oratorio and a natural first listen - its "Hallelujah" chorus is one of the most widely recognized pieces of choral music ever written. Haydn's The Creation is a good next step, especially the sunrise-like orchestral depiction of "Let there be light."