Excerpt from The Standard Oratorios: Their Stories, Their Music, and Their Composers; A Handbook As in the case of the Standard Operas, the work has been prepared for the general public rather than for musicians, and as far as practicable, technical terms have been avoided. Description, not criticism, has been the purpose of the volume, and the various works are described as fully as the necessarily brief space allotted to each would allow. The utmost pains have been taken to secure historical and chronological accuracy, inasmuch as these details are nearly always matters of contro versy. The favor which has been so generously accorded to the Standard Operas leads the com piler to believe that the Standard Oratorios will also be welcomed by those who enjoy the sacred music of the great masters, and that it will prove a valuable addition to other works of musical reference. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.