cy 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 pass 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 Mass._]

[Sidenote: _Secularization of the Mass._]

Transferred from the Church to the concert-room, and considered as an
art-form instead of the eucharistic office, the Mass has always made a
strong appeal to composers, and half a dozen masterpieces of missal
composition hold places in the concert lists of the singing societies.
Notable among these are the Requiems of Mozart, Berlioz, and Verdi,
and the Solemn Mass in D by Beethoven. These works represent at one
and the same time the climax of accomplishment in the musical
treatment and the secularization of the missal text. They are the
natural outcome of the expansion of the office by the introduction of
the orchestra into the Church, the departure from the _a capella_
style of writing, which could not be consorted with the orchestra, and
the growth of a desire to enhance the pomp of great occasions in the
Church by the production of masses specially composed for them. Under
such circumstances the devotional purpose of the mass was lost in the
artistic, and composers gave free reign to their powers, for which
they found an ample stimulus in the missal text.

[Sidenote: _Sentimental masses._]

[Sidenote: _Mozart and the Mass._]

[Sidenote: _The masses for the dead._]

[Sidenote: _Gossec's Requiem._]

The first effect, and the one which largely justifies the adherents of
the old ecclesiastical style in their crusade against the Catholic
Church music of to-day, was to make the masses sentimental and
operatic. So little regard was had for the sentiment of the words, so
little respect for the solemnity of the sacrament, that more than a
century ago Mozart (whose masses are far from being models of
religious expression) could say to Cantor Doles of