Antecedents

• Liturgical drama – within or near the church and relating stories from the Bible

• Miracle Plays – presents a real or fictitious account of the life of a saint

• Morality Plays – the characters personify moral qualities or abstractions in which moral lessons are taught

• Mystery Plays – usually representing biblical subjects

• Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179) – German nun, composers, and the founder of a convent

  • Oldest surviving Morality Play – Ordo Virtutum

Movements

• Reformation (1517) – more spiritual reform

• Counter Reformation

  • Council of Trent: 1545-1563 – addressed corruption and abuse

• Oratorio Volgare – use of languages of that specific region in oratorios

• Oratorio Latino – use of Latin in oratorios, upholding tradition

People

• Martin Luther (1483-1546)

  • Reform without (abuse and corruptions within the Catholic Church)

• Filippo Neri (1515-1595)

  • Reform within the church

• Giacomo Carissimi (1605-1674)

  • A “Musical orator” and employed musical rhetorical devices in his compositions

Churches

• San Girolamo della Carità

• Chiesa Nuova

o (formerly Santa Maria in Vallicella)

• Congregazione dell'Oratorio

• San Marcello and Oratorio del Santissimo Crocifisso

Oratory

• Specific room designated primarily for prayer within the church

The Music

• Lauda - in Italian, poetic, dialogue, strophic, AABB

• Examples: “Anima mia che pensi” and “Nell’apparir del sempiterno Sole

The People and the Music

• Emelio de’ Cavalieri (1550-1602), Rappresentatione di anima, et di corpo (1600)

o Representation of the Soul and the Body

• Giovanni Francesco Anerio (ca. 1567– 630), Teatro armonico spirituale (1619)

o Harmonic Spiritual Theater

• Pietro Della Valle (1586-1652), Oratorio della Purificatione (1640)

o Oratorio of the Purification

Rhetorical Devices

• palillogia – Repetition of the same word, with none between, for vehemence and repeating the same group of tones at the same pitch level

• epizeuxis - A rhetorical term for the repetition of a word or phrase in immediate succession, usually with no words in between.

o The most common is coupled with sequential repetition at the interval of the perfect fourth or fifth. Palillogia can be a sub-grouping within a larger epizeuxis.

• homoeoteleuton - the use of word-endings that are similar or the same, either intentionally for rhetorical effect or by mistake during copying of text

o i.e. He saw the boat and then he wrote a note,” the repetition of the “-ote” sound in “boat” and “note”

• pathopoeia - Speech that evokes strong emotions in the audence

• hypotyposis - lifelike description of a thing or scene. In music, “word painting.”