The style of Beethoven as a composer of sacred music is reflected in his single oratorio "Christ on the Mount of Olives," that like his single opera stands apart, amply sufficient to prove what he was capable of accomplishing. Mendelssohn, in his "St. Paul" and his "Elijah," embodied a high ideal, building on his predecessors and attaining, especially in the latter, an eclectic spirit that manifests keen discrimination. The oratorios of Liszt, the "Christus," "St. Elizabeth" and some lesser works, reveal high purpose and original treatment of a revelation in tones of sacred events. In the oratorios of the Frenchman Gounod, preeminently in his "Redemption," it is interesting to find modern chorals based on those of the German Bach, and, in fact, as it has been aptly said, a modernized treatment of Bach's passion form.
What may be the next step in the evolution of the oratorio it were difficult to estimate. Whether modern efforts can ever surpass, or even equal, the sublime productions in this field, or whether creative genius will be turned into wholly new channels, the future alone may determine.
That adventurous spirit, Claudio Monteverde, who nearly three hundred years ago made himself responsible for the first feeble utterances of an orchestra that tried to say something for itself, divined the possibilities of expression in varying combinations of tone-quality and gave vigorous impulse to the germ of the symphony already existing in the formless instrumental preludes and interludes of his predecessors among opera-makers. His revelation of the charm that lies in exploring the resources of instrumentation led to ever increasing demands on the orchestra. The prelude developed into the operatic overture whose business it became to prepare the spectator for what followed. That music was capable of conveying an impression in her own tone-language was apparent, and in due time the symphony rose majestic from the forge of genius.
Prominent among the materials welded into it was the dance of obscure origin. As the vocal aria was the result of the simple folk-song combined with the intense craving of song's master molders for individual expression, so instrumental music striving to walk alone, without support from words, gained vital elements through the discovery that various phases of mental disposition might be indicated by alternating dance tunes differing in rhythm and movement, according to Nature's own law of contrasts. That unity of purpose was essential to the effectiveness of the diversity was instinctively discerned.