Scan 40
The American History and Encyclopedia of Music …, 1908
14 lines. Read by computer on 9 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1"7. The World, and Human Life in particular, are to be very gaily and richly dressed; and when they are divested of their trappings, to appear very poor and wretched; and at length dead carcasses.
3"8. The symphonies and ritornels may be played by a great number of instruments; and if a violin should play the principal part it would have a very good effect.
5"9. The performance may be finished with or without a dance. If without, the last chorus is to be doubled in all its parts, vocal and instrumental. These shall succeed other grave steps and figures of the solemn kind. During the ritornels the four principal dancers are to perform a ballet, 'enlivened with capers or enterchats,' without singing. And this, after each stanza, always varying the steps of the dance; and the four principal dancers may sometimes use the galiard, sometimes the canary, and sometimes the courant step, which will do very well in the ritornels.
7"10. The stanzas of the ballet are to be sung and played by all the performers within and without."
9The destiny of the opera inaugurated by Peri and Caccini fell into the capable hands of Claudio Monteverde, and in the enthusiasm engendered by the brilliant and pleasing lyrical dramas which came from his fertile pen, oratorio was pretty well forgotten for a number of years, the mantle of Cavalieri having seemingly fallen upon no waiting shoulders.
11But shining out of the middle of the century we find the "Querimonia di S. Maria Maddaléna" ("The lament of Mary Magdalene"), by Domenico Mazzocchi (1590-1650), an oratorio said to have been so beautiful that it left all who heard it in tears.
13Giacomo Carissimi (1604-1674) is the next important name connected with the history of oratorio. In addition to his unique distinction of writing quite the last of L'Homme Armé masses, he was one of the most graceful and elegant of the composers of his time. He did his most successful work in this field, and many of his oratorios are extant, such as "The Plaint of the Lost," "The Story of Job," "Bel-
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