Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A musical composition for voices and orchestra, telling a usually sacred story without costumes, scenery, or dramatic action.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A place of worship; a chapel; an oratory.
- noun A form of extended musical composition, more or less dramatic in character, based upon a religious (or occasionally a heroic) theme, and intended to be performed without dramatic action and scenery.
- noun The words or text of an oratorio; an oratorio libretto.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Mus.) A more or less dramatic text or poem, founded on some Scripture nerrative, or great divine event, elaborately set to music, in recitative, arias, grand choruses, etc., to be sung with an orchestral accompaniment, but without action, scenery, or costume, although the oratorio grew out of the Mysteries and the Miracle and Passion plays, which were acted.
- noun Performance or rendering of such a composition.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun music A
musical composition on areligious theme ;similar toopera but with nocostume ,scenery oracting .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a musical composition for voices and orchestra based on a religious text
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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These "sacred actions" or plays were not performed in the church itself, but in an adjoining chamber, called in Italian "oratorio," an oratory, and the title has since then adhered to this species of sacred work.
The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 357, October 30, 1886 Various
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This work due to its setting to music by Mikis Theodorakis as an oratorio, is a revered anthem whose verse is sung by all Greeks for all injustice, resistance and for its sheer beauty and musicality of form.
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The oratorio is arranged in 15 distinct sections meant to parallel the structure of a passion play.
Archive 2007-07-01 2007
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The oratorio is arranged in 15 distinct sections meant to parallel the structure of a passion play.
Talk about 2007
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For example, Frank Martin's adaptation of the Tristan and Iseut legend in oratorio form Le Vin Herbé.
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For example, Frank Martin's adaptation of the Tristan and Iseut legend in oratorio form Le Vin Herbé.
Archive 2007-07-01 2007
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What becomes portable, therefore, in subsequent performances of the oratorio, is its ability to call forth the anxious spectre of French aggression and the supposedly dire consequences of political apostasy or reform.
Projection, Patriotism, Surrogation: Handel in Calcutta 2006
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I have a voice, and I came over to England two years ago to study English, so that I might sing in oratorio at the Albert Hall.
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Although the name oratorio was not applied to the new form until sixty years later (Andrea Bontempi, 1624-1705), there is an unbroken tradition connecting the exercises established by St. Philip with the period when the new art-form received its definite character.
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 11: New Mexico-Philip 1840-1916 1913
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Susannah Cibber, who gained considerable fame as a singer in oratorio before becoming an acress.
Memoirs of Mary Robinson Mary Elizabeth Robinson 1895
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