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From Elijah (1846) to The Kingdom (1906): Music and Scripture Interacting in the Nineteenth-Century English Oratorio
| Content Provider | Scilit |
|---|---|
| Copyright Year | 2016 |
| Description | The time span chosen for consideration in this essay is quite deliberate. Although written by a German, Mendelssohn's Elijah was in fact commissioned to be first performed in England. Not only that, it proved so popular that, with the sole exception of Handel's Messiah, it came quickly to surpass all other oratorios, and indeed the two were to become guaranteed staples of most choral festivities for the rest of the century. At the other end of the period, The Kingdom was not only the last of Elgar's four oratorios, it can be seen to mark the end of an era not only for Elgar himself but also for the oratorio. Whether due to loss of faith or not, Elgar's musical compositions thereafter took a decidedly less religious direction. At the same time they also became more innovative, such that some have seen this latter work as standing in decidedly marked contrast to his oratorios that remain steeped in the music of the nineteenth century.1 But there is also a wider social dimension that makes this the right point at which to halt our survey. The great cult of amateur choral singing that had swept across Victorian England and fed the demand for the continuous creation of new oratorios effectively received, in the casualties of the First World War, a blow from which it never recovered. Not only did the huge losses call into question the religious optimism that characterized so many of these oratorios, but also on a more practical level there were now just not enough enthusiastic male singers around to maintain the practice at its former intensity. Book Name: Music and Theology in Nineteenth-Century Britain |
| Related Links | https://api.taylorfrancis.com/content/chapters/edit/download?identifierName=doi&identifierValue=10.4324/9781315596693-17&type=chapterpdf |
| Ending Page | 214 |
| Page Count | 16 |
| Starting Page | 199 |
| DOI | 10.4324/9781315596693-17 |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited |
| Publisher Date | 2016-04-22 |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Subject Keyword | Book Name: Music and Theology in Nineteenth-century Britain Survey Optimism Century Nineteenth Elijah Oratorios Decidedly |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Chapter |
