angelic music the principal elements, in addition to those already mentioned, are the various phases of the great hymn "Praise to the Holiest in the Height." The extraordinary demon music would in itself offer material for an essay. Here we can only touch on a few obvious features--the upward rushing semiquaver figure in chromatic fourths, which is grotesque and rat-like; the three-part figure for strings in quavers which is first heard with the words "Tainting the hallowed air," but belongs more particularly to "in a deep hideous purring have their life"; the terrific fugato "dispossessed, thrust aside, chuck'd down"; the sinister and ominous four-note theme "To every slave and pious cheat"; the _motif_ of demonic pride, p. 83; and the sarcastic prolongation of the last word in "He'll slave for hire." The long chorus formed of these elements is a welter of infernal but most eloquent sound, the enormous technical difficulties all of which were completely mastered yesterday. [Sidenote: ="The Apostles," Birmingham Festival.= _October 15, 1903._] To-day, when Elgar's new Oratorio "The Apostles" was first publicly performed, was a sufficiently striking contrast with the corresponding day in the Festival of three years ago that witnessed the production of the same composer's "Gerontius." On that earlier occasion the interest both of performers and public was languid. That Elgar's music was difficult and harassing to perform was generally known, while the merit of it was regarded as doubtful. The upholders of British musical orthodoxy, with their faith in the saving virtues of eight-part counterpoint, shook their heads, the choral singers found their work disconcerting, and the public doubted whether the composer was anything more than an eccentric. The three intervening years have placed Elgar's reputation on a very different footing. Vague hostility towards the unusual and the unknown has given way almost universally to the recognition that he is one of the great originals in the musical world of to-day; and he thus compels attention even in those who instinctively dislike both his particular methods and the kind of general atmosphere into which his religious art transports the listener.