The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Standard Oratorios, by George P. Upton

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Title: The Standard Oratorios
Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers

Author: George P. Upton

Release Date: September 28, 2007 [EBook #22793]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE
Standard Oratorios

THEIR STORIES, THEIR MUSIC, AND THEIR COMPOSERS

_A Handbook_

BY GEORGE P. UPTON

CHICAGO
A. C. McCLURG AND COMPANY
1893

Copyright
By A. C. McClurg and Co.
A.D. 1886.

PREFACE.

The "Standard Oratorios" is intended as a companion to the "Standard
Operas;" and with this purpose in view the compiler has followed as
closely as possible the same method in the arrangement and presentation
of his scheme. The main object has been to present to the reader a
comprehensive sketch of the oratorios which may be called "standard,"
outlining the sacred stories which they tell, and briefly indicating and
sketching their principal numbers, accompanied in each case with a short
biography of the composer and such historical matter connected with the
various works as is of special interest. The compiler has also included
in his scheme a sketch of the origin and development of the Oratorio as
illustrated in its three principal evolutionary stages, together with
descriptions of several works which are not oratorios in the strict
sense, but at the same time are sacred compositions written upon a large
scale and usually performed by oratorio societies, such as Bach's
"Passion Music" and "Magnificat," Berlioz's, Mozart's, and Verdi's
Requiems, Mendelssohn's "Hymn of Praise," Handel's "Dettingen Te Deum,"
Schumann's "Paradi