Oratorio credited with writing the first English language oratorio, "Esther". Handel's imitators included the Italian Lidarti who was employed by the Amsterdam Jewish community to compose a Hebrew version of "Esther". Britain continued to look to Germany for its composers of oratorio. The Birmingham Festival commissioned various oratorios including Felix Mendelssohn's "Elijah" in 1846, later performed in German as "Elias". German composer Georg Vierling is noted for modernizing the secular oratorio form. John Stainer's "The Crucifixion" (1887) became the stereotypical battlehorse of massed amateur choral societies. Edward Elgar tried to revive the genre around the turn of century with the composition
Eliezer ben Elijah Ashkenazi nor his lofty ideas" (Nobeloth Hokhmah, Samuel b. Judah Loeb Ashkenazi, Basilia 1631, p. 46a). Ashkenazi's wife, Rachel, died at Cracow April 3, 1593. Her epitaph, still extant, bears witness to her piety and benevolence ("Monatsschrift," xliv. 360). His son Elijah published the liturgic collection, "Zibhe Shelamim," and wrote a short elegy on his father, which was used as the latter's epitaph. Eliezer ben Elijah Ashkenazi Eliezer (Lazer) ben Elijah Ashkenazi (1512–December 13, 1585) () was a Talmudist, rabbi, physician, and many-sided scholar. Though of a German family (according to some, the relative of Joseph Colon; see Marco Mortara, "Indice