"The Apostles,"
Preliminary Article.
February 25, 1904.
Elgar's most recent oratorio, "The Apostles," which will be heard by the Manchester public for the first time this evening, stands in much the same relation to recent works in oratorio form by other composers as one of the later musical dramas by Wagner holds to the kind of opera that was in vogue when he began to write. According to current ideas, justified by the practice of many well-known composers, an oratorio comes into existence by some such process as the following. A composer casts about for a subject, either being guided in his choice by consideration of what is in some manner appropriate to the particular occasion, or simply taking a story from the Bible that has not been used before, or not too frequently before, for musical purposes. He then either obtains the services of a librettist or himself arranges a libretto setting forth the chosen story. In the drawing up of the libretto the most important matter is the engineering of "opportunities" for the composer—here an effective air for the principal personage, there a chorus with scope for effective contrapuntal writing, everywhere due regard for the well-varied interest which the public loves, and, at the end of a part, provision for an effective Finale. But some recognised kind of musical opportunity is always the chief matter. No one cares much about the subject except in so far as it provides the musical opportunity of an accepted kind. It is a case of chorus, air, concerted piece, march, air for another sort of voice, and Finale, with connecting recitatives as a necessary evil, and the whole thing standing or falling according as the composer seizes the said opportunities and turns them to account in the accepted manner, or neglects or fails to do that. For so long a time has that kind of oratorio been regarded by the general public as the only possible kind, that even now immense numbers of persons discuss works like "Gerontius" and "The Apostles" on the old lines. That a musician should have a mind, and a message to which notes and chords are subservient, is an idea so new as to be disquieting, if not at once dismissed as absurd. People are so much accustomed to say that they never did care about the subject of a musical work; that no sensible person does; that if the music is pretty the work is good; and there is an end of the matter. Yet now comes a composer and makes the subject the chief thing, writing music that gives no one the slightest encouragement to take interest in it apart from the subject—in short, displaying the most complete indifference to everything that used to be expected of a composer, and giving us all to understand that, in a religious work, if the music does not in some clear manner contribute to the exposition of the subject, it is not justified at all. In this respect "Gerontius" and "The Apostles" are alike. People can take them or leave them, but they cannot make them out to be pretty music, such as one can enjoy without "bothering about" the subject. For Elgar so orders that we have to enjoy with the head and the heart or not at all. He will not allow us to enjoy simply with the nerves or by recognising approved kinds of musical rhetoric.
Whatever Elgar may do in the future, he can never approach a more weighty subject than is expounded in the two parts of "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 "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 "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—"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."