A HISTORY OF VOCAL MUSIC. 589 



With the great masters of oratorio you are all so familiar 

 that I need only draw your attention to one, perhaps the 

 greatest of all — Handel. 



The choir will sing a beautiful chorus by Handel from his 

 oratorio, " Solomon." It is called the " Nightingale Chorus," 

 from the fact that the accompaniment, together with the 

 words, is said to suggest the song of that bird. You shall also 

 hear two of Handel's beautiful solos — namely, " Arm, arm, ye 

 brave," from " Judas Maccabaeus," and " Angels ever bright 

 and fair," from "Theodora." 



While the oratorio was being developed in Eome, some 

 enthusiastic musical amateurs of Florence were attempting a 

 revival of a form of drama as nearly similar as they could 

 conceive to a Greek play ; but, quite unexpectedly to them- 

 selves, though due to their exertions, the first opera ever com- 

 posed sprang into existence, and was performed in Florence 

 about the year 1600. 



By the end of the seventeenth century operatic perform- 

 ances were given in almost every city in Europe. Paris 

 boasted of one of the greatest schools of opera, especially 

 during the time of Gliick, who resided in Paris for many years. 

 Christopher Gluck was one of the greatest operatic composers 

 that ever lived, and probably was as great a benefactor to that 

 branch of our art as Palestrina was to the sacred art of com- 

 position. 



I have chosen for illustration a song of Gliick' s from 

 " Orfeo " — "Che faro." It is a wonderful illustration of the 

 possibilities of melody as an expression of pathos combined 

 with sorrow and entreaty. Orfeo is supposed to be singing 

 this song in Hades when he is begging for the return of his 

 wife. You know the story — how that, in consequence of his 

 beautiful singing (or playing on the lute, as the old classic 

 legend has it), Euridice was allowed to accompany Orfeo 

 from Hades on condition that he would not look back on his 

 wife until they had arrived in the outer world ; but poor Orfeo 

 was so anxious to see his wife following him that he forgot all 

 about the compact, and lost her for the second time. 



After the Eeformation the mass of the Eomish Church was 

 replaced by a form of composition suitable to the Eeformed 

 Church, known as the anthem, a species of composition for 

 which the English have been famous from the time of its 

 invention as a form until the present day. 



Hein-y Purcell, organist of Westminster Abbey in 1680 — 

 one of the greatest musicians that ever lived — wrote many 

 beautiful anthems. Probably the most popular is the famous 

 Bell Anthem, " Eejoice in the Lord," which the choir will now 

 sing, so called from the attempt to imitate a peal of bells in 

 the symphony. 



