The musical treatment is melodious, opening, after a short orchestral prelude, with the joyous, though reflective, chorus, ‘There is joy in the presence of the angels of God,’ preceded by a brief soprano solo. The parable then opens with tenor recitative and aria, ‘A certain man had two sons,’ and armed with the good counsel of his father, the prodigal son starts away. He is heard from in the chorus of revelry, ‘Let us eat and drink; to-morrow we die.’ The admonishing contralto solo, ‘Love not the world,’ is well known, having found its way to concert programs. After an orchestral prelude the soprano declaims in recitative the Prodigal’s experience as a swineherd and his struggle with famine, closing with the aria, ‘O that thou had’st harkened.’ The repentance of the Prodigal is beautifully expressed in the tenor aria, ‘How many hired servants of my father.’ A chorus, ‘The sacrifices of God,’ is followed by the Prodigal’s return--the joy of the father being expressed in the bass aria, ‘For this my son was dead.’ One of the finest choruses in the work, ‘O that men would praise the Lord,’ is soon followed by the unaccompanied quartet, ‘The Lord is nigh,’ and the final chorus, ‘Thou, O Lord, art our Father,’ closes with a joyous ‘Hallelujah.’ ‘The Light of the World,’ the second of Sullivan’s oratorios and much longer than the first, was written for the Birmingham Festival and performed there on August 27, 1873. The composer’s plan is set forth in the preface as follows: ‘The work has been laid out in scenes dealing respectively, in the first part, with the nativity, preaching, healing and prophesying of our Lord, ending with the triumphal entry into Jerusalem; and in the second part with the utterances which, containing the avowal of himself as the Son of Man, excited to the utmost the wrath of his enemies, and led the rulers to conspire for his betrayal and death; the solemn recital by the chorus of his sufferings, and the belief in his final reward; the grief of Mary Magdalene at the sepulchre; and the consolation and triumph of the disciples at the resurrection of their Lord and Master.’