Abstract
T HE lifetime of Alessandro Scarlatti (1660-1725) coincides with the golden age of oratorio in both its Italian and Latin forms. From unauspicious beginnings in Italian oratories (prayer halls) of the sixteenth century, oratorio had become by 1660 an independent genre of large-scale dimensions for soloists, chorus, and orchestra. It was still, however, bound to the oratory, and some of its lasting features had come from the development of the oratorio within the framework of oratory worship services: its evangelistic intent and educational purpose, its purely aural means of relating a story, and its two-part form. The achievement of Alessandro Scarlatti and his contemporaries was to transcend the musical limitations previously observed in the prayer halls and to transform the genre by stressing the varied emotional states of the characters rather than the events
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