In reference to a musical composition the word "dramatic" has sometimes to be used in a sense different from "theatrical." Thus the two great Passions by Bach--the "St. Matthew" and the "St. John"--both have a dramatic element so strong that at certain points the music becomes altogether dramatic. Yet no sane person ever called it theatrical, in the sense of unfit for a church. By "dramatic" in such cases one means two things--(1) having thematic material that is conceived with a certain vividness, in reference to a particular situation or mood of feeling; (2) developed according to procedure that does not sacrifice the vividness to formal or structural considerations. In this sense, then, we call Elgar's "Gerontius" a dramatic composition from beginning to end. To find fault with it for the absence of choral climax in the manner of Handel and Mendelssohn is as much out of place as it would be with Wagner's "Tannhäuser." On the other hand, we do not agree with the criticism that "Gerontius" is Wagnerian music. In two places there is a brief and faint suggestion of "Parsifal," first in the _sostenuto_ theme for _cor anglais_ and 'celli that enters in the fifty-second bar of the Prelude and recurs in some form at several points in the course of the work, and secondly in a recurrent phrase for strings at the entry of the recitative assigned to the Angel of the Agony--and to some extent throughout that recitative, which vaguely recalls "Parsifal." The other elements we find to be unlike Wagner and unlike every other composer but Elgar. These elements it is convenient to classify, not according to the usual technical or formal principle, but according to a dramatic principle. One notes, in the first place, four main categories--(1) the purely human; (2) the ecclesiastical; (3) the angelic; (4) the demonic. The Prelude opens with the symbols of Judgment and Prayer. Next the "slumber" theme enters, to be joined at the fourteenth bar by the "Miserere." The note of feeling contracts and sinks towards utter abasement, which reaches the lowest point in the _cor anglais_ theme with _tremolando_ accompaniment. But now the sick man's despair finds expression in a loud cry, which is answered in the majestic and ringing tones that remind him to face death hopefully. A quite new musical element enters with the Andantino theme, developed at some length, and informs the penultimate section of the noble tone-poem, which continues till a brief _reprise_ of the slumber theme suggests the passing of the soul. New phases of the Judgment theme connect the Prelude with the opening recitative, and here the imagination has to be carried back, as usual after the Prelude of a dramatic composition, which as a rule epitomises a good part of the action. It is evident, then, that the Prelude is concerned only with the first two of the categories above enumerated--that is to say, with the purely human and the ecclesiastical, and not at all with the angelic or demonic. Of the