(8) ‘The Symphonies and Ritornelles may be played by a great number of instruments; and, if a violin should play the principal part, it would have a good effect. (9) ‘The performance may be finished with or without a dance. If without, the last chorus is to be doubled in all its parts, vocal and instrumental; but, if a dance is preferred, a verse beginning thus: _Chiostri altissimi e stellati_, is to be sung, accompanied sedately and reverently by the dance. These shall succeed other grave steps and figures of the solemn kind. During the ritornelles, the four principal dancers are to form a ballet, _saltato con capriole_, enlivened with capers or _entrechats_, without singing, and thus, after each stanza, always varying the steps of the dance; and the four principal dancers may sometimes use the _galiard_, sometimes the _canary_, and sometimes the _courant_ step, which will do very well in the ritornelles. (10) ‘The stanzas of the ballet are to be sung and played by all performers within and without.’ As a matter of fact Cavalieri’s work was in reality a sacred opera, not an oratorio. Contemporaries of Cavalieri, Agostino Manni (_Rappresentazione del Figliuol Prodigo_), Anerio (_Teatro armonico spirituale_), Pietro della Valle (_Esther_, _La Purificazione_) and, somewhat later, Domenico Mazzocchi, Luigi Rossi, Ludovico Bellanda, Vittorio Loreto (_La Pellegrina Constante_, _Sacre d’Abramo_), Francesco Balducci (_La Fede_) and others, represent tentative gropings toward a more artistically satisfying formal and musical development of the oratorio. II The slow revival of choral art quite naturally found in sacred subjects the material best suited to treatment, not alone because of earlier sixteenth century associations, but also because such subjects did not over-encourage dramatic realism. Yet even Carissimi (1604-1674) had but little success in his efforts to establish a loftier spiritual standard in oratorio. He did much to perfect the recitative, and to add charm and variety to the instrumental accompaniment; he set aside the theatrical presentation, often gave dramatic details to a ‘narrator’ and laid more weight on the choral element. His music has real quality and beauty; yet the secular idea persists in his works and defeats his attempts to turn Scriptural dramatic representations into genuine church-music. Despite this, his work is valuable as a stepping stone--he was the first to write music which held out hopes of a future for the oratorio as a distinct art-form.