神剧(oratorio)
根据宗教题材写出的大型音乐作品，由独唱、合唱和乐团演出。神剧一词衍生自「礼拜堂」一词，为社区居民祈祷之处，16世纪中叶，内里在反宗教改革运动中所提供在教堂之外的宗教教化场所举办具有道德教育意义的音乐娱乐，即为保持着非礼拜仪式（非拉丁语）形式的神剧。现存最早的神剧，实际上为具宗教性质的歌剧，是卡瓦利雷（1550年～1602）在1600年所作，之後神剧密切地依照此歌剧的形式发展。卡利西密推出一种重要的义大利神剧的体例，而在17世纪後期，夏庞蒂埃成功地将义大利神剧移植到法国。在德国，舒次的作品，是巴哈神剧受难曲的先兆。最着名的神剧作曲家是韩德尔，他最伟大的英语作品包括了无可比拟的《弥赛亚》（1742）。韩德尔启发了海顿伟大之作〈创世记〉（1798）的灵感，并对19世纪的神剧有巨大的影响，当时的作曲家包括白辽士、孟德尔颂和李斯特。20世纪的神剧作曲家包括有艾尔加、史特拉汶斯基、奥乃格和彭德雷茨基，但神剧的发展已开始衰退。
English version：
oratorio
Large-scale musical composition on a sacred subject for solo voices, chorus, and orchestra. The term derives from the oratories, community prayer halls set up by St. St. Philip Neri in the mid-16th century in a Counter-Reformation attempt to provide locales for religious edification outside the church itself, and the oratorio remained a nonliturgical (and non-Latin) form for moral musical entertainment. The first oratorio, really a religious opera, was written in 1600 by Emilio de' Cavalieri (c. 1550-1602), and the oratorio's development closely followed that of opera. G. Carissimi produced an important body of Italian oratorios, and M.-A. Charpentier transferred the oratorio to France in the later 17th century. In Germany the works of H. Schutz anticipate the oratorio-like Passions of J.S. Bach. The most celebrated oratorio composer was G.F. Handel; his great English works include the incomparable Messiah (1742). Handel inspired F.J. Haydn's great Creation (1798) and exerted great influence on the 19th-century oratorio, whose composers include H. Berlioz, F. Mendelssohn, and F. Liszt. Though the oratorio thereafter declined, 20th-century oratorio composers included E. Elgar, I. Stravinsky, A. Honegger, and K. Penderecki.