Free Edward Elgar and His World by Byron Adams Page B

Miss Marie Brema made nothing of the melodic and recitative music assigned to Mary Magdalene. It is true that indulgence was claimed on the score of a cold, but really it must have been an extraordinarily slight cold, as her singing showed absolutely no signs of indisposition. And the same may be said of Mr. Gregory Hast, for whom indulgence was similarly claimed. The male singers are better served, though scarcely the tenor (Apostle St. John)—on this occasion, Mr. Hast. There is, undoubtedly, some really good and impressive writing for the baritones, more especially is this noticeable in the music that falls to Judas Iscariot. And Mr. Plunket Greene—though one cannot always admire what he does—made quite the most of it. I do not say that the music for the three low male voices is anything very remarkable in gratefulness or effectiveness, but, in my opinion, it is a world better than that the soprano and contralto have to sing, especially the contralto. The music becomes more interesting—Elgar was ever good at descriptive music—in the second part, and the vocal principals have considerably less to do, and what they do fully passes muster; or to put it another way, you are not worried by any great shortcoming on the part of the composer. The orchestral introduction, however, is, to speak plainly, a very poor thing. It is bald, means absolutely nothing; and must surely have been written in a hurry. That complaint made, I have to say that the remainder of the work really flows properly. It is not great music; it is not the music of genius; it has, as all Elgar, but little of the harmonic refinement and science of the great German School of Music—Bach, Beethoven, Wagner and Richard Strauss. But it is music of great talent, and that, of course, is a good deal. That Part I ., however, can never appeal to me, with its faded Elgarisms and general oppressiveness. No music can be good that is laboured. And the fact should not be explained away—such as the book demanded that sort of treatment, etc., etc. Strange to say, there are a few who positively do not feel that it is laboured. Some musicians—plain men who are not always thought much of and who often know something about composition—are entirely of my opinion. The performance, conducted by Mr. Arthur Fagge, was extremely meritorious.
    â€”J. H. G. B.
    NOTES
    The author wishes to thank Byron Adams, James Clement, Stewart Gilles, Geoffrey Hodgkins, and Charles Edward McGuire for their help in the preparation of this chapter; thanks also to the library and staff of the Bodleian Library, Oxford; the Faculty of Music Library, Oxford; the British Library; and the British Library Newspapers at Colindale.
    1. Jerrold Northrop Moore, ed., Elgar and his Publishers: Letters of a Creative Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), 1:414–16; “Dr. Elgar’s New Oratorio: ‘The Apostles,’” The Musical Times 44 (April 1903): 228–29; “The Apostles,” The Musical Times 44 (July 1903): 449–50. The libretto referred to in the April article was not that of the oratorio in its final form, but that of the larger, three-part Apostles whose third part eventually became the basis of The Kingdom . Edwards had arranged with Elgar to submit the article on the music in time for publication in the June issue, but illness prevented the composer from doing so. See Moore, Elgar and his Publishers , 1:435–36.
    2. Canon Gorton, “Dr. Elgar’s Oratorio ‘The Apostles,’” The Musical Times 44 (October 1903): 656–57; Jerrold Northrop Moore, Edward Elgar: A Creative Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), 414; Meirion Hughes, The English Musical Renaissance and the Press 1880–1914: Watchmen of Music (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002), 174.
    3. C. V. Gorton, The Apostles: sacred oratorio by Edward Elgar. An Interpretation of the libretto (London: Novello, 1903); A. J. Jaeger, The Apostles, Parts