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
Paul Burkhard by numerous artists since then, including Alan Breeze, Billy Cotton, Billy Vaughn, Connie Francis, Diana Decker, Eddie Calvert, Eddie Fisher, The Everly Brothers, Harry James, Lys Assia, Ray Anthony & his Orchestra, Russ Morgan & his Orchestra, and many others. Paul Burkhard Paul Burkhard (21 December 1911 in Zürich – 6 September 1977 in Zell) was a Swiss composer. He primarily wrote oratorios, musicals and operettas. The contemporaneous and similarly named Swiss composer Willy Burkhard was no relation to him. Probably his most famous artistic creation was the song "" ("Oh! My Pa-Pa") about the death of a beloved clown-father,