Part 19 (2/2)

Of Bach's music we have in the repertories of our best choral societies a number of motets, church cantatas, a setting of the ”Magnificat,” and the great ma.s.s in B minor. The term Motet lacks somewhat of definiteness of the usage of composers. Originally it seems likely that it was a secular composition which the Netherland composers enlisted in the service of the Church by adapting it to Biblical and other religious texts. Then it was always unaccompanied.

In the later Protestant motets the chorale came to play a great part; the various stanzas of a hymn were given different settings, the foundation of each being the hymn tune. These were interspersed with independent pieces, based on Biblical words.

[Sidenote: _Church cantatas._]

The Church Cantatas (_Kirchencantaten_) are larger services with orchestral accompaniment, which were written to conform to the various religious festivals and Sundays of the year; each has for a fundamental subject the theme which is proper to the day. Again, a chorale provides the musical foundation. Words and melody are retained, but between the stanzas occur recitatives and metrical airs, or ariosos, for solo voices in the nature of commentaries or reflections on the sentiment of the hymn or the gospel lesson for the day.

[Sidenote: _The ”Pa.s.sions.”_]

[Sidenote: _Origin of the ”Pa.s.sions.”_]

[Sidenote: _Early Holy Week services._]

The ”Pa.s.sions” are still more extended, and were written for use in the Reformed Church in Holy Week. As an art-form they are unique, combining a number of elements and having all the apparatus of an oratorio plus the congregation, which took part in the performance by singing the hymns dispersed through the work. The service (for as a service, rather than as an oratorio, it must be treated) roots in the Miracle plays and Mysteries of the Middle Ages, but its origin is even more remote, going back to the custom followed by the primitive Christians of making the reading of the story of the Pa.s.sion a special service for Holy Week. In the Eastern Church it was introduced in a simple dramatic form as early as the fourth century A.D., the treatment being somewhat like the ancient tragedies, the text being intoned or chanted. In the Western Church, until the sixteenth century, the Pa.s.sion was read in a way which gave the service one element which is found in Bach's works in an amplified form. Three deacons were employed, one to read (or rather chant to Gregorian melodies) the words of Christ, another to deliver the narrative in the words of the Evangelist, and a third to give the utterances and exclamations of the Apostles and people. This was the _Cantus Pa.s.sionis Domini nostri Jesu Christe_ of the Church, and had so strong a hold upon the tastes of the people that it was preserved by Luther in the Reformed Church.

[Sidenote: _The service amplified._]

[Sidenote: _Bach's settings._]

Under this influence it was speedily amplified. The successive steps of the progress are not clear, but the choir seems to have first succeeded to the part formerly sung by the third deacon, and in some churches the whole Pa.s.sion was sung antiphonally by two choirs. In the seventeenth century the introduction of recitatives and arias, distributed among singers who represented the personages of sacred history, increased the dramatic element of the service which reached its climax in the ”St. Matthew” setting by Bach. The chorales are supposed to have been introduced about 1704. Bach's ”Pa.s.sions” are the last that figure in musical history. That ”according to St. John” is performed occasionally in Germany, but it yields the palm of excellence to that ”according to St. Matthew,” which had its first performance on Good Friday, 1729, in Leipsic. It is in two parts, which were formerly separated by the sermon, and employs two choirs, each with its own orchestra, solo singers in all the cla.s.ses of voices, and a harpsichord to accompany all the recitatives, except those of _Jesus_, which are distinguished by being accompanied by the orchestral strings.

[Sidenote: _Oratorios._]

[Sidenote: _Sacred operas._]

In the nature of things pa.s.sions, oratorios, and their secular cousins, cantatas, imply scenes and actions, and therefore have a remote kins.h.i.+p with the lyric drama. The literary a.n.a.logy which they suggest is the epic poem as contra-distinguished from the drama. While the drama presents incident, the oratorio relates, expounds, and celebrates, presenting it to the fancy through the ear instead of representing it to the eye. A great deal of looseness has crept into this department of music as into every other, and the various forms have been approaching each other until in some cases it is become difficult to say which term, opera or oratorio, ought to be applied.

Rubinstein's ”sacred operas” are oratorios profusely interspersed with stage directions, many of which are impossible of scenic realization.

Their whole purpose is to work upon the imagination of the listeners and thus open gate-ways for the music. Ever since its composition, Saint-Saens's ”Samson and Delilah” has held a place in both theatre and concert-room. Liszt's ”St. Elizabeth” has been found more effective when provided with pictorial accessories than without. The greater part of ”Elijah” might be presented in dramatic form.

[Sidenote: _Influence of the Church plays._]

[Sidenote: _Origin of the oratorio._]

[Sidenote: _The choral element extended._]

[Sidenote: _Narrative and descriptive choruses._]

[Sidenote: _Dramatization._]

Confusing and anomalous as these things are, they find their explanation in the circ.u.mstance that the oratorio never quite freed itself from the influence of the people's Church plays in which it had its beginning. As a distinct art-form it began in a mixture of artistic entertainment and religious wors.h.i.+p provided in the early part of the sixteenth century by Filippo Neri (now a saint) for those who came for pious instruction to his oratory (whence the name). The purpose of these entertainments being religious, the subjects were Biblical, and though the musical progress from the beginning was along the line of the lyric drama, contemporaneous in origin with it, the music naturally developed into broader forms on the choral side, because music had to make up for the lack of pantomime, costumes, and scenery. Hence we have not only the preponderance of choruses in the oratorio over recitative, arias, duets, trios, and so forth, but also the adherence in the choral part to the old manner of writing which made the expansion of the choruses possible. Where the choruses left the field of pure reflection and became narrative, as in ”Israel in Egypt,” or a.s.sumed a dramatic character, as in the ”Elijah,” the composer found in them vehicles for descriptive and characteristic music, and so local color came into use. Characterization of the solo parts followed as a matter of course, an early ill.u.s.tration being found in the manner in which Bach lifted the words of Christ into prominence by surrounding them with the radiant halo which streams from the violin accompaniment. In consequence the singer to whom was a.s.signed the task of singing the part of _Jesus_ presented himself to the fancy of the listeners as a representative of the historical personage--as the Christ of the drama.

[Sidenote: _The chorus in opera and oratorio._]

The growth of the instrumental art here came admirably into play, and so it came to pa.s.s that opera and oratorio now have their musical elements of expression in common, and differ only in their application of them--opera foregoing the choral element to a great extent as being a hindrance to action, and oratorio elevating it to make good the absence of scenery and action. While oratorios are biblical and legendary, cantatas deal with secular subjects and, in the form of dramatic ballads, find a delightful field in the world of romance and supernaturalism.

[Sidenote: _The Ma.s.s._]

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