Catholic Italy / Sacred Music and Oratorio       Sacred music and Oratorio In the Italy of the Seicento, music plays a major role perfectly integrated into the Italian baroque art movement. It undergoes a profound change, gradually lifting profane music to a level equal to that of sacred music. If it is the former that drives the greatest evolution, the latter also develops original forms to such an extent that both finally create lyric expressions, such as the opera and oratorio, which had never been so close. Yet sacred music is extremely codified at the time, because it is important for the Roman Church. The latter, in agreement with the Counter Reformation, is redefining its liturgy, and uses the ceremonial music to make the Church more attractive to the congregation. Thus it serves to accompany mass, and it is sung a cappella and in several registers. The Council of Trent established its rules and simplified it in order to make it more accessible to the public. At the time Giovanni Luigi da Palestrina is the principal composer of this musical model and he writes around one hundred masses, in a clear and precise style, without great originality, but in phase with a Church on the path of purification. If sacred music seems to be completely on the margin of the new profane style of music already in vogue, it is influenced indirectly by the aristocratic worship that develops within private or oratorical chapels. For the first time at the end of the 16th century, Saint Philippe de Neri, established these places of worship for “ edification and spiritual elevation ”. The social elite assembles therein to pray and to hear sermons: in these shortened services music plays a role as important as the predication. Thus are sung some choral dialogues, executed by several voices with musical accompaniment, but these gradually undergo new influences. They become more dramatic and develop biblical themes in which soloists, choir and narrator alternate. These religious stories, related through music, are called “ oratorio ”, taking the name of the place that sees their beginning. They integrate all the contributions of vocal and instrumental music including recitative, aria, sonata and concerto and in a certain manner introduce the theatre into the Church, without the scenery. Giacomo Carissimi is one of the masters of the oratorio of the 17th century and even though Palestrina still influences his masses, his oratorios and cantatas contribute to bringing sacred music to the profane world. The development of the oratorio corresponds to that of the opera, and the two genres nearly merge from their beginnings. Indeed the oratorio is often named the “ religious cantata ” or “ spiritual opera ” because it relates equally drama in musical form and has a sung recitative. In fact, on all sides, the polyphonic voices have been abandoned so that the text, of poetic or religious form, is sustained by music and a solo voice.