Spiritualität, Dichtung und Komposition : die variablen Entwicklungsebenen des italienischen Oratoriums

Although the Italian Oratorio has its origins in the spiritual exercises of Filippo Neri, in the 17th century, as a musical-dramatic genre in formal-technical terms, it approaches the form of Opera. So from his secular counterpart it differs mainly by its close ties to the contents of Catholic faith. Its constituent factors, which we have to recognize in the spiritual topic, the poetry and the composition, are all singularly subjected to different, chronologically shifted developments of their gradients. The spirituality, strictly monitored by the Catholic Church, inevitably remains rather static, but cannot totally escape several intellectual-historical dynamics. Local traditions there often play a crucial role, as it shows a comparison between Rome, Naples, Venice and Vienna, all important centers of the Italian Oratorio. The literary development can be exemplified by the work of three representative poets: Arcangelo Spagna, author also of a famous treatise about the Oratorio, Apostolo Zeno and Metastasio. As well as all writing Operas the two last, Court Poets in Vienna, had to comply with their librettos also the elitist imperial claim of the Habsburgs. Nevertheless, in their poems one can find an interesting development, which starts from fideism, for opening later, carefully, to various tendencies of rationalism. Observing the compositional technique the evolution of the Italian Oratorio is very similar to that of the Opera, characterized by the transition from the basso continuo to the new top part oriented musical structure, controlled by a symmetrical, cadenza-metrical implement. Generations of Italian composers contributed to the relative process. However, when all the three constituent factors of the Italian Oratorio – spirituality, poetry and composition – stabilize at an equally high level, we can speak of a classical state.