Das italienische Oratorium 1625-1665: Music und Dichtung (review)

This handsomely produced book in the series Speculum Musicae founded by the late Albert Dunning impresses at first glance with its expert layout, forty-nine well-chosen and excellently presented illustrations, rich appendices, numerous tables and music examples, and a CD-ROM. It is an investigation of libretti of Roman oratorios of the period c.1625 to c.1665, and to some extent of their musical settings. Christian Speck's subtitle makes clear that he discusses 'music' and 'poetry'—rather than, for example, composers' biographies, general stylistic trends, or performance practices—but the main title would be more correct if it said 'Roman Oratorios 1625–1665', because no non-Roman works are considered, and of the Roman works only specimens of the oratorio volgare. The primary sources of the study, as surveyed in the Introduction, are printed and manuscript collections of oratorio libretti, the most significant of them being the multi-volume collection Theatro spirituale (c.1677–9) of the former Congregazione de' Padri Filippini at S. Maria in Vallicella (in the Biblioteca Vallicelliana, Rome). Most of the text sources used here were first described by Arnaldo Morelli in the Rivista italiana di musicologia, 21 (1986), 61–143.

The 524-page volume contains two of the three parts, constituting the main text (pp. 1–290 and 291–524 respectively). The second part includes an appendix consisting of oratorio catalogues, bibliography, and index (pp. 439–524). The third part, an edition of ninety-nine libretti, is provided on the accompanying CD-ROM.

Parts I and II of the book are chronologically distinguished from each other: they focus on a first and a second generation of librettists, who were active in the years c.1625–c.1650 and c.1650–c.1665 respectively. Of course these careers overlap to a considerable extent. An overall design reflecting the output of librettists is unusual for a musicological monograph (I remember how, years ago, a publisher sternly refused my proposal of a book on 'opera seria from the age of Apostolo Zeno to that of Pietro Metastasio': habits have changed in this respect).

In the Introduction, the author clarifies his position vis-à-vis the early history of oratorio by separating Giovanni Francesco Anerio's much discussed collection Teatro armonico spirituale di madrigali . . . (Rome, 1619) from the genre of oratorio proper; Anerio's fourteen dialoghi in this collection are not yet oratorios because they do not contain passages in stile recitativo or indeed aria- and canzonetta-poetry. Howard E. Smither (in New Grove II) had classified these compositions as early oratorios, pointing out, for example, the occurrence of dramatically identified individual roles (Saul, Ananias, etc.) and even dramatically identified choruses (soldiers, angels) in them. Speck supports his view by showing the significance of the criterion of the stile recitativo among contemporaries, for example G. B. Doni.

In the Introduction Speck also discusses the theoretical and critical literature of oratorio from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries (I do not know why Domenico Alaleona is invariably spelt in the main text as 'Alaleone'). He recommends the poetic term of the canzonetta as being usefully applicable to various forms of strophic solo song in oratorio (for some authors it is synonymous with aria).

The author's justification for begining the main discourse on Roman oratorio around 1625 is offered in chapter 4, dedicated to the courtly oratorios under Pope Urban VIII. Speck identifies the character of Giovanni Ciampoli's libretto Il cantico delle benedittioni (1626) as that of a musical oratorio, as a result of his revised reading of a letter from Giulio Rospigliosi describing the performances (1625–6) of this work and an opera, given at Urban VIII's papal court during a visit of the Polish Prince Władisław [IV] Wasa. These events have hitherto been discussed only by Margaret Murata, and in a slightly different context. Ciampoli (1590–1643) has mainly been known as the author of the treatise Poetica sacra (1625); Speck collects many details of his...