‘The Apostles.’--This, the second of Elgar’s large oratorios and certainly one of his best, was heard for the first time at the Birmingham Festival, on Oct. 3, 1903. That Elgar had in mind the writing of a trilogy, of which ‘The Apostles’ is the first part, is evidenced by his statement in the preface of this work that he had long desired ‘to compose an oratorio which should embody the calling of the Apostles, their teaching (schooling) and their mission, culminating in the establishment of the Church among the Gentiles. The present work carries out the first portion of the scheme; the second portion remains for a future occasion.’ The text is an unusually good one, Elgar himself having spent years on its compilation from the Scriptures and the Apocrypha. The personages represented are the Virgin and the Angel, soprano; Mary Magdalene, alto; St. John, tenor; Jesus, St. Peter and Judas, basses. The tenor acts also as narrator. The leading motive is even more extensively used than in ‘The Dream of Gerontius,’ and the orchestra, which is large and augmented by the shofar (ancient Hebrew trumpet), presents the most important of the themes in the prelude, thus making it a sort of musical epitome of the whole work. The text is grouped into two large parts, with three scenes in the first part and four in the second. In the first scene of Part I, ‘The Calling of the Apostles,’ after the statement that Jesus had spent the night in prayer on the mountain, there follows the dawn, proclaimed by the watchers on the roof of the Temple. The shofar, which announces the daybreak in Jewish synagogues, at this point is heard in the orchestra. From within the Temple comes the response, ‘It is a good thing to give thanks.’ The calling of the apostles now follows and closes the scene. The second scene, ‘By the Wayside,’ discloses Jesus teaching the people the Beatitudes. The third scene, ‘By the Sea of Galilee,’ depicts the repentance and regeneration of Mary Magdalene, which is one of the finest portions of the work. It also sets forth Jesus’ calming of the storm and his walking on the water. The second part begins with the fourth scene, ‘The Betrayal,’ which includes the scenes in Gethsemane, in the palace of the High Priest and without the Temple. No other composer has treated the betrayal at such length and it contains some of the most touching passages of the whole work, among them the short chorus, ‘And the Lord looked upon Peter and he went out and wept bitterly.’ In the fifth scene, ‘Golgotha,’ Jesus’ words, ‘_Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?_’ are not spoken, but their meaning is poignantly expressed in a few introductory measures by the orchestra, after which follows a short, impressive choral phrase of four measures, ‘Truly this was the Son of God.’ The sixth is a short scene ‘At the Sepulchre’ and the seventh and last, ‘The Ascension,’ is characterized by remarkable ensemble passages of great sonority, the voices being grouped as follows: ‘In