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The Oratorios of Alessandro Stradella

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 1974

Carolyn Gianturco
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Extract

Much of the early history of the musical oratorio is still unknown. It seems that by the 1620s it was customary for religious confraternities to have music at their services before and after the sermon. In Rome the Congregation of the Oratorio, Philipp Neri's group which eventually met at the Chiesa Nuova, preferred music with Italian texts, whereas the Arciconfraternitàdel Santissimo Crocifisso, named after a cruxifix unharmed in a terrible fire at S. Marcello, preferred Latin texts. Apparently it is these two organizations, with their great emphasis on music and their financial support of trained musicians, which provide the background for the creation of the new musical genre and the impetus for its spread to other centres.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association , Volume 101 , 1974 , pp. 45 - 57
Copyright
Copyright © 1977 The Royal Musical Association and the Authors

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References

1 The best study to date on the early history has been D. Alaleone, Studi su la storia dell' oratorio musicale in Italia, Turin, 1908 (reprinted as Storia dell'oratorio musicale in Italia, Milan, 1945). (Further references are to the 1945 edition.) However, we await the publication of Howard Smither's book, The Oratorio in the Baroque Era, for clarification on the many-faceted and complex pre-history and early history of the genre.Google Scholar

2 The history of Neri's group has kindly been traced for me by Howard Smither. According to Dr. Smither, Philipp Neri's group, while in a general sense it could be so called, was never officially a confraternity. They first met in Neri's room in the building next to San Girolamo (c. 1552–4), then in an oratorio constructed over a side aisle of the church (c. 1554–74). When they outgrew these quarters, they moved to an oratorio near San Giovanni dei Fiorentini and finally (1574), when they officially became the Congregazione dell'Oratorio, they were given the church of Santa Maria in Vallicella. They held their spiritual exercises in various halls until 1640 when the present oratorio, next to the church, was completed.Google Scholar

3 The earliest evidence we have that the word ‘oratorio’ was used with reference to a musical composition is in a letter of 1640 by Pietro Della Valle to G. B. Doni. See Smither, ‘What is an Oratorio in Mid-Seventeenth-Century Italy?’, International Musicological Society, Report of the Eleventh Congress Copenhagen 1972, Copenhagen, 1974, ii. 657–63.Google Scholar

4 For a list of Stradella's oratorios (in the order in which they are discussed in this paper) see Appendix, p. 57 below.Google Scholar

5 It is still not certain which of Carissimi's extant works were intended for the Oratorio del Santissimo Crocifisso. It would also be valuable to be able to date them, since Carissimi's death in 1674 makes him a contemporary of the young, but composing, Stradella.Google Scholar

6 See my article on the life and works of Stradella in the forthcoming sixth edition of Grove's Dictionary.Google Scholar

7 From records now in the Vatican Archives found and published by Alaleone (op. cit., p. 342).Google Scholar

8 The following information is taken from Anreas Liess, ‘Materialien zur romischen Musikgeschichte des Seicento. Musikerlisten des Oratorio San Marcello, 1664–1725’, Acta musicologica, xxix (1957), 137–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 Owen Jander, ‘Concerto Grosso Instrumentation in Rome in the 1660 a and 1670's’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, xxi (1968), 171.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10 The Oratorio della Pietà, located a block away from San Giovanni dei Fiorentini, has since been demolished.Google Scholar

11 See Casimiri, Raffaele, ‘Oratorii del Masini, Bernabei, Melani, Di Poi, Pasquini, e Stradella in Roma, nell'anno Santo 1675’, Note d'archivio, xii (1936), 157–69.Google Scholar

12 According to his first biographer, Ottavio Pittoni, in his ‘Notizie de’ contrapuntist e compositori di musica' in the Vatican Library, Cappella Giulia MS 1–2, pp. 699–700.Google Scholar

13 Charles Burney, A General History of Music, ed. F. Mercer, London, 1935, ii. 580.Google Scholar

14 Ibid., ii. 578.Google Scholar

15 Dedicated to him by Giovanni Battista Giardini, the author of the libretto and the duke's secretary.Google Scholar

16 Published in Rome. The quotations presented here are from Francesco Saverio Quadrio, Delia storia e della ragione d'ogni poesia, iii (Milan, 1744), 496–7Google Scholar

17 See Luin, E. J., ‘Repertorio dei libri musicali di S.A.S. Francesco II D'Este nell'Archivio di Stato di Modena’, Bibliofilm, xxxviii (1936), 419–45. The parts for Santa Editta are mentioned as n.10 under ‘Oratory’ and n.5 under ‘Musica duplicata e divisa in Parti’.Google Scholar

18 An aria for Aman; and a duet or trio also seems to be missing.Google Scholar

19 E.g. ‘Empio nò’ in Part I.Google Scholar

20 It is interesting to note that only these two of the oratorios make use of the basso ostinato technique.Google Scholar

21 Medicea, f.3394. Notices of this kind exist from the later 16703 as well.Google Scholar