human
Gerontius as the more perfect work of art, though the individual beauties of the
gpt
Apostles are greater and more wonderful. Nearly everything in the later oratorio is stronger. The symbols of the Church show an advance upon the corresponding parts of
human
Gerontius scarcely less remarkably than the symbols of the heavenly choir. The strange Old Testament element connected with the Temple service again shows imaginative power of quite a new kind, wonderfully enriching the background of the composition, and the tragic force of the
gpt
Passion scenes is immensely greater than anything in
human
Gerontius. But with our present degree of knowledge we miss in the
gpt
Apostles that crowning artistic unity which prompted us to describe
human
Gerontius
gpt
In the South.
human
In the South, has a picturesqueness, or rather a kind of graphic power, arising from far-reaching play of the imagination. In thematic invention it is perhaps more strongly stamped with Elgar's originality than any other work. Its whole tone, atmosphere, and colouring are something essentially new in music, the only hint of any other composer's influence occurring in the viola solo, which bears a faint suggestion of Berlioz's
gpt
Harold in Italy. But, being a secondary element in the latter part of the Overture, it is to be regarded merely as that kind of reference which in music is as allowable as it is in literature. The _grandioso_ theme beginning in A flat minor, which was suggested by the Roman remains of La Turbie, is so striking that it has already acquired a good many nicknames. The
human
theme, it has been called; elsewhere, the
gpt
theme, the
human
Jack the Giant-killer, and, among Germans, the
gpt
Siebentöter theme. In any case it is a most extraordinary piece of musical expression, of a kind scarcely ever foreshadowed by any other composer, except once or twice by Beethoven, who first sought and found the musical symbol of great historic or cosmic forces, or of the emotion stirred in the human consciousness by the play, or after-effects, of such forces. One thing remains to be said about this Overture. The composer's procedure is a compromise between the old procedure by way of thematic development and the newer by way of dramatic suggestion, and he does not always succeed completely in the fusion of the two, as, for example, Beethoven does in his greater
human
Leonora