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The Apostles, which make up the oratorio in its present form. This deals with the calling of the Apostles and with some of the most important incidents in the life of the Redeemer during His ministry. Everyone intending to hear the work should read the short and clear account given in Canon Gorton's
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Interpretation of the Text. The writer is remarkably successful in bringing out the profound consistency and psychological insight which distinguish this oratorio text so very sharply from most others. Attention may be drawn specially to the characterisation of the three Apostles, John, Peter, and Judas, expounded mainly on pages 13 and 15. Canon Gorton also shows us the sources from which some of the most fruitful ideas and telling symbols of the oratorio have been derived. The music exemplifies a further development along the lines indicated by
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Gerontius. In the resources which he calls into play the composer is a thorough-going modern. His orchestra is of great size, and he does not scorn the specially modern instruments or the modern tendency to group and subdivide in an elaborate and subtle fashion. In the quality of his absolute musical invention he shows himself to be neither a classic nor a romantic, but a psychological musician. His thematic web is the exact analogue of the emotional and imaginative play to which the exposition of the story gives rise from point to point, and it thus partakes of the nature of language. The composer cares nothing for accepted views as to what is in accordance with the proper dignity of oratorio; but, trusting to his conception as a whole to ennoble every part, he allows himself to be here and there extremely realistic, very much as the great religious painters have done. He works on a great scale; in the handling of musical symbols he is not dismayed by tasks that might well be considered impossible, and he thus reminds one of the compliment which Erasmus paid to Albrecht Dürer--
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There is nothing that he cannot express with his black and white--thunder and lightning, a gust of wind, God Almighty and the heavenly host.
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The Apostles,
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The Apostles is not to be expected. The same thing has been said of
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Gerontius, and the score of the later work yet more obviously transcends the powers of the best endowed and disciplined musical forces to render it in a manner which
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All hope of reaching the end of their task with a feeling of complacency must be abandoned by the choir, orchestra, soloists, and conductor who undertake to perform
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The Apostles, which, in point of technical difficulty, is a
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Symphonie Fantastique and Mass in D combined. Still, in a relative sense, a rendering may be satisfactory--in the sense that it has the root of the matter in it, not that it is faultless in every detail,--and in that sense we should call the rendering of yesterday highly satisfactory. The general intonation of the choir was better than on any previous occasion, all the delicate fluting rapture of the celestial choruses at the end sounding wonderfully sweet and showing not the least trace of fatigue. The orchestral playing was more subtle than at Birmingham, and it seemed to afford a better justification of the composer's extraordinary colour schemes. It would be hard to suggest a better representation for any of the solo parts. As at Birmingham, Mr. Ffrangcon Davies gave the words of the Redeemer with admirable dignity, and here and there with a trumpet tone in his voice that might have reminded an Ammergau pilgrim of the late Joseph Mayer. As the Narrator and the Apostle John Mr. Coates gave a rendering worthy of his Gerontius earlier in the season. In the parts for women's voices Miss Agnes Nicholls and Miss Muriel Foster once more proved their immeasurable superiority to singers of the
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order in music of real poetic quality. Mr. Black gave a most telling interpretation of the part of Judas, which, as in the Passion Play at Oberammergau, has greater dramatic significance than any other. All the solo parts, except the Redeemer's, are in certain sections so much interwoven with each other and with the chorus that the combined result overpowers the individual interest, though in the parts of the Magdalene and of Judas there are also important independent developments. There can be no question as to the general excellence of the rendering, and the audience was on the same enormous scale as when
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Gerontius was given in November; but the reception was very different. There was applause, of course, yesterday, but no scene of great enthusiasm such as the earlier and simpler oratorio evoked. Some persons seem to be of opinion that the comparative reserve of the public was caused by the extreme solemnity of the subject; that they were really impressed by the music, but in such a manner that there was no inclination to be demonstrative. In this there may be some truth; but,
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The Apostles being unquestionably much more austere and difficult to understand than
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Gerontius,
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The Apostles represents in many important respects an advance upon the earlier oratorio. The poetic theme of the whole work is incomparably more ambitious, and the musical invention is in more respects than one of greater power. In regard to this point the obvious case to take is Mr. Jaeger's example 3 (Novello's edition),
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Christ, the Man of Sorrows, that being the _motif_ of which more frequent and varied use is made than any other. Here we find unmistakable progress. In its simplest form the theme is more intense and more profound in feeling than any in
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Gerontius, and furthermore the manner in which the significance of it develops throughout the work, up to the Ascension phrase, where it occurs in its most expanded form, though not for the last time, shows a great advance in the composer's art. Again, the interest of the
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Apostles music is much more varied. All the symbolism having reference to Christ in solitude makes a most powerful appeal to the imagination; and the opening of the Temple gates at dawn is a scene of astonishingly graphic force and bold design. In the second part the tragedy of the Passion is given in four scenes of tremendous intensity, and then, in the section headed
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At the Sepulchre, we begin to become aware of the spirit which is Elgar's most rare and wonderful possession.
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And very early in the morning, says the text,
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Thereupon are heard the watchers singing an echo of the music from the great sunrise scene at the beginning. After a dozen bars the fluting notes of a celestial chorus begin gliding in, and then we have an example of that _naïf_ mediævalism at which the second part of
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Gerontius here and there hints. A kind of unearthly exhilaration begins to sound in the music. The Resurrection has brought a new fact into a sorrowful world. It is a sublime adventure, at news of which heaven and earth bubble into song. Throughout all the rest of the work the composer creates that sense of the multitudinous which belongs to parts of the hymn
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Praise to the Holiest in the earlier oratorio. But the angelic rapture that accompanies the Resurrection and Ascension in the
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Apostles