Oratorios

•An oratorio is a piece of choral music with orchestral accompaniment based on a Bible story

•The most famous oratorio is The Messiah by Handel which tells the life of Jesus. It was composed in 1742 (the Baroque period)

•The best known passage of The Messiah is the Hallelujah Chorus :

•It is worth listening carefully to the different textures in this piece.

1.Describe the texture at the start (monophonic, polyphonic or homophonic)

2.Describe how the texture changes later in the piece around 0.42 on the clip (monophonic, polyphonic or homophonic)

Voices and vocal techniques