Word: oratorio
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...five years he had turned out the two works on which his fame still rests: Le Roi David and Pacific 231, a huffing, chuffing orchestral description of a locomotive getting under way. In his oratorio-like Le Roi David he perfected his own trick of plaiting two huge, serpentine strands of melody into a dissonant, sometimes arid, fabric of harmony. He went on to write some 60 works, including four symphonies, also twenty-odd French and English movie scores (Mayerling, Pygmalion), a medium which he prefers to opera...
Even the Protestants of Switzerland had something to paste in their books. The day before the canonization, fashionable Rome turned out to hear the municipally supported Academia de Santa Cecilia sing the oratorio, Nicolas de Flue-words by Swiss Protestant Denis de Rougemont, music by Swiss Protestant Arthur Honegger...
Bach: Arias (Marian Anderson, contralto, with the RCA Victor Chamber Orchestra, Robert Shaw conducting; Victor, 6 sides). The mighty-voiced contralto, holding herself down to a small orchestra, is not at her best. Included are arias from three cantatas, the Christmas Oratorio and the Passion According to St. Matthew. Performance: fair...
...other Cetra set is even more distinctive, being the first recording in the world of the Haydn oratorio, The Seasons. Another fine technical job features this set, which every lover of Haydn should at least hear, for its appealing simplicity and melodic beauty. The arias are like those of Mozart operas, the choral numbers serene, the orchestration surprisingly rich...
Conductor Jones was content to follow the precedent of Felix Mendelssohn, who in 1829 started a Bach revival in Germany. The Mass was sung with even more voices than the Bethlehem choir used last week. Said Ifor Jones: "Mendelssohn was an oratorio writer [with] large choruses and super-duper performances...