was produced in Berlin in 1755,
and was a revelation in the matter of chorale treatment. Nothing which
had preceded it could equal it in musical skill or artistic handling. But
there was one coming greater than Graun, the father of modern music,
Johann Sebastian Bach. "If all the music written since Bach's time should
be lost," says Gounod, "it could be reconstructed on the foundations
which he laid." Besides his "Christmas Oratorio," Bach wrote five passion
oratorios, two of which, the "St. John" and "St. Matthew," have been
published and are still performed. Of these two, the "St. Matthew" was
conceived on the grander scale. In this sublime masterpiece, the early
oratorio reached its highest form in Germany. It contains a narration
delivered by an evangelist, solo parts for the principal characters,
arias, choruses, double choruses, and chorales, the congregation joining
in the latter, in which the composer not only reveals an astonishing
dramatic power in the expression of sentiment and the adaptation of his
music to the feeling and situation of the characters, but also a depth
and accuracy of musical skill and invention which have been the despair
of composers from that time to this.

With Bach, the passion-music accomplished its purpose, and we now enter
upon the third and last stage of the evolution of oratorio. It is a new
form, and the change leads us to a new country. We have examined the
sacred dramas, with their musical setting, in Italy, and the
passion-music in Germany; and now comes the oratorio in England,--the
oratorio as we know it and hear it to-day. Handel was its great
originator. He began his English career as an operatic writer; but he
soon tired of setting music to the trivial subjects so common in opera,
which, as he himself declared, were not suited to a composer advancing in
years. There were other inducements, however, which led him to turn to
the oratorio, and among them one of the most powerful unquestionably was
his disgust with the cabals which were organized against him by Italian
rivals. "Esther" was his first English oratorio, and it made a great
success. It was followed by "Deborah" and "Athalia." His vigorous
dramatic power and close musical scholarship were never more apparent
than in these works. They aroused such an enthusiasm that from this time
forth (1737) he devoted himself exclusively to this species of
composition. He wrote in all seventeen English oratorios. In 1739 he
prod