Edward Elgar and His World (30 page)

—A. H. S.

The Birmingham Festival. Elgar's “The Apostles.”

Monthly Musical Record
33 (November 1903): 201–2

This article, signed “E. A. Baughan,” was written by Edward Algernon Baughan. Baughan was the music critic of the
Daily News
until 1912, in which year he was replaced by Alfred Kalisch, and instead became the paper's drama critic.
³⁰
This was perhaps an appropriate move for someone who, Elgar told Gerald Cumberland, could not “hum a melody correctly in tune. He looks at music from the point of view of a man of letters.” For an alleged non-musician, however, Baughan's influence in British musical discourse in this period was considerable: besides the
Daily News,
he wrote for the
Westminster Gazette,
the
Morning Leader,
and was editor of the
Musical Standard
between 1892 and 1902. Baughan's view of Elgar's music was mixed: in addition to his reservations about
The Apostles
he felt that
Caractacus
lacked sufficiently dramatic musical themes, and his praise for
Gerontius
was presumably tempered, as Byron Adams has noted, by his reservations about Wagner. Elgar was on sufficiently good terms with Baughan to adopt his suggestion of “In London Town” as a subtitle for
Cockaigne,
but Meirion Hughes's statement that Baughan was a “friend” of the composer is surely an exaggeration: more likely, Elgar was aware that Baughan was too important a figure to be alienated.
³¹

MOST of us went to the Birmingham Town Hall on October 14th expecting much. “The Dream of Gerontius” had marked so great an advance on “Caractacus” that it was only reasonable to suppose that “The Apostles” would hold the same position with regard to “The Dream of Gerontius.” And was the advance not continuous? Well, it is very difficult to give a definite opinion after the mere study of a vocal score and after hearing a full performance once, and most of us left the Town Hall in some perplexity of mind. It is the usual thing to say that great works of art are not easily understandable. I agree in so far that no man, however great a critic he may be, ever grasps the full import of a new work at once; but though he may not be able to see all its beauties in the proper perspective, he is not blind to them. I can remember many great compositions of music which I heard for the first time and did not thoroughly understand, and only really loved after close knowledge of them. But even at first they have always left a definite impression of liking or not liking; something in them has appealed strongly, even at a first hearing. Elgar's new oratorio did not do that; it left me finally cold and unmoved. I hasten to add that on some others it had precisely the opposite effect. I think there are reasons why the work did not impress me, quite apart from specifically musical reasons.

To begin with, Dr. Elgar, who has to a certain extent formed his own libretto, which is made up of extracts from the Scriptures and the Apocrypha, has not been very clear in his intentions. In the note which prefaces the score he tells us that it has long been his wish to compose an oratorio which should embody the calling of the apostles, their teaching, and their mission, culminating in the establishment of the Church among the Gentiles. Whether that is a subject which calls for musical treatment or not, it is a clear aim clearly expressed. But in the libretto of “The Apostles” the aim is not kept steadily in view. We have a long scene in which Mary Magdalene expresses her strivings after better things, and another, much longer, in which Judas is fully penitent. The crucifixion itself is passed by as not being within the scope of a work which is entitled “The Apostles,” but there is a short scene at Golgotha which does not carry forward the idea of the work as expressed by the composer. Dr. Elgar's book suffers from containing too much. The story of Mary Magdalene would fill a whole cantata or oratorio, so would the character of Judas. Apparently it has been the composer's intention to treat his subject in a series of more or less related pictures, but from this very shifting of the view-point arises much of the inconclusiveness of the oratorio. The composer is reported to have said that he has always been struck with the idea that the apostles were men, and that he has always wished so to treat them in oratorio. But we get so little of the apostles themselves, and so much of extraneous matter, that they are far from being anything but the faintest of shadows. Only Judas and Mary Magdalene are alive, and they were not apostles at all.
³²
Perhaps the third part of the oratorio, which was not produced, may bring the apostles into more prominence.

Then, again, Dr. Elgar has so wavered between the outside or picturesque view of his subject and the psychological and spiritual that the one cancels the other out to some extent. Much space in the score is given to the musical description of what may be called the background of the picture, and the more abstract parts of the oratorio which deal with the teaching or schooling of the apostles are hardly extended enough. One feels that the ideas might have been more fully illustrated in music, and the oratorio as a whole thus given a more complete spiritual cohesion. The composer's idea, no doubt, has been to get away from accepted ideas of oratorio. Why not a mixture of realism and spiritualism, or, rather, why not set a spiritual subject in a realistic background? This question, I fancy, Dr. Elgar has asked himself, and I can quite see that its answer would have considerable fascination for a modern composer. He could point to Bach's “Passion” music and to the mixture of the concrete and abstract in Handel's oratorios. Moreover, is there not the more modern example of Dr. Wolfrum's “Weihnachtsmysterium,” in which the mixture of realism and abstract ideas has a certain fascination on paper?
³³
I think Dr. Elgar has been largely influenced by that work, or, at any rate, the German composer has anticipated Dr. Elgar, who may have seen in that oratorio some kind of realization of the ideas he has long held as to the treatment of this particular subject. Dr. Wolfrum's composition is not very successful, but though I rank Dr. Elgar's work far above it in originality and inspiration, the two have many features in common, and one of these is a certain scrappiness in appeal to the emotions. One heard “The Apostles” and was conscious of much fervent admiration for separate sections of the work—the simple and telling setting of the Beatitudes, for instance—but the whole made no deep and abiding impression.

To come more to details, Dr. Elgar has made much use of the
leit-motif
system, and the enthusiastic analyst of the Birmingham programme book has been almost inarticulate in his admiration for the composer's ingenuity. All musicians must have the deepest respect for Dr. Elgar's clever use of representative themes, but though he employs them with apt poetic significance, he does not seem able, or he is unwilling, to develop them. Nor are they all themes in the ordinary sense, but rather figures, and occasionally appropriate harmonies. Then, again, I am not sure that the composer is not one of those who love complexities for the sake of complexities—just as
I'art nouveau
designers are fanatics in meaningless curves. Many musical conceits, which look interesting on paper and can be logically defended as the natural outcome of the subject musically illustrated, do not tell in performance, except as the unrecognisable woof and web of the whole tapestry. Sometimes that effect is desirable, but often Dr. Elgar gives one the impression that his picture is all background. This is a good deal due to the uninteresting shape of his vocal melody. The design is undistinctive and does not stand out. The finest vocal music in the oratorio is that assigned to Judas, which certainly shows a freer use of the human voice than Dr. Elgar had before exhibited. On the other hand, Mary Magdalene's outburst of penitence, so fine a subject for the musical artist, is weak and unmoving. The choral fantasy which accompanies it is in the composer's most original vein, but from the uninteresting character of the solo music it becomes of too much importance. To return to Dr. Elgar's love of complexity, I must confess that some of his pages in which the chorus and soloists are woven into a whole are only interesting on paper. The music does not come out clearly, and the mind becomes confused by the hurly-burly rather than impressed by a gradually growing climax. To pretend to criticize the work fully from a first performance would be absurd and unfair, of course. On a closer acquaintance much that seems a comparative failure may become justified, and the different parts of the work homogeneous; but my first impressions were that, in spite of the advance which the composer has shown in his technique, and in spite of the many touches of imagination and fancy with which the score abounds, “The Apostles” is not the masterpiece for which we were waiting. It has not the peculiar note of individuality which makes “The Dream of Gerontius” (a much less ambitious work) so sincere and genuine, and in general Dr. Elgar has given me the idea that there is a limit to his creative inspiration. More than ever he has shown that his abilities are equal to any task, but in “The Apostles,” brilliant example as it is of modern technique and, better than that, of modern imagination as a factor in the moulding of musical form, I have not yet heard the clear voice of one who is inspired.

—E. A. B
AUGHAN

Musical Gossip of the Month
BY
‘C
OMMON
T
IME
'

Musical Opinion
27 (November 1903): 111–12

Musical terms like “Common Time” were not uncommon for journalistic pseudonyms, particularly in less academic, more informal writing (such as the series of leisurely articles about English churches, cathedrals, and the music therein written between 1903 and 1909 by “Dotted Crotchet” of the
Musical Times)
or in polemic columns about current musical events. They were also sometimes adopted by correspondents to the letters pages of music periodicals.

As to Elgar's “The Apostles,” what is one to say after a first hearing? To praise certain strikingly ingenious pages in the score would be no praise at all, for everyone knows that Elgar is a very clever musician. Indeed, I think that we may take his cleverness for granted. He is a modern musician who knows how to write in the idiom of his day, and has the courage to write for a chorus as if it were as capable in musicianship as a modern orchestra. This trait of Elgar has done much, and will do more, for the education of choral societies. “The Dream of Gerontius,” after its first performance, was generally voted too difficult for our choirs; and, until after its enthusiastic reception in Germany, it looked as if the work would never become popular. Birmingham had failed to do justice to the choral writing of Elgar; and, if Birmingham failed, why should other cities, not so remarkable for their choral abilities, expect to succeed? Yet now I notice that “The Dream of Gerontius” is performed over and over again by the chief choral societies in the kingdom. Either the difficulties were few or our choral singers have been educated up to the point of being able to triumph over them. This courage of Dr. Elgar has also had another effect. It has set the younger men thinking if there was much in the cuckoo cry that oratorio is a played-out branch of art. The old type of choral composition certainly had no great attractions for a modern musician. It was generally assumed that a composer must write down to the choral societies and make his work as simple as possible, or employ an idiom well known to the majority of amateurs, who look on the oratorio and cantata as the chief glory of the musical art.

A
LL
these considerations make one look on Dr. Elgar as a man who has done more than any other for native art. One need have no fanatical belief in modern music because it is modern to grasp the fact that any branch of art which is conditioned by peculiar and parochial limitations cannot have much life in it. I do not think it will be seriously denied that British oratorio had become a strangely parochial affair, wonderful to the foreigner as an index to the state of municipal taste in the United Kingdom. Of late a movement has been made towards bringing choral singing more in line with modern ideas of variety of expression. Practically, the choir is going through the same process of education which has made the modern orchestra what it is to-day. Not many years ago such orchestral performances as Nikisch
³⁴
and Weingartner
³⁵
can now obtain from a band not accustomed to their methods would not only have been impossible but would not even have been dreamt of. In choral singing there have always been ideals of virtuoso finish; but they have been very crude ideals of violent and unexpected contrasts, no better and no worse than the champion brass band playing of a few years ago. I say “of a few years ago,” because now the conductors of the best brass bands have quite other ideals. Indeed, in the higher standard which we now see in choral singing and brass band playing we have the clearest evidence of a musical
renaissance
. The popular forms of our national music making are coming into line with the music which has hitherto been appreciated by only a small class of specially educated or specially gifted men. This could not, of course, be the work of one man, and I do not for a moment claim that honour for Elgar; but I think that he is the man who has come at the right moment, the man who was wanted, and who has helped to give choral singers a new standard of execution.

T
HIS
introduction may seem discursive, but it is really germane to my criticism of “The Apostles.” I wish to recognise to the full the splendid work done by Dr. Elgar and what it means for British art; and yet the work, I frankly confess, seems to me to be a comparative failure. Its mixture of modern orchestral realism and spiritual mysticism is not blended. It is possible that this very mixture may fully express the composer's cast of mind, but it makes an impression of vagueness, of a want of central grip. The music follows the libretto so closely that one cannot be criticised without taking into account the other. Viewed from a purely literary standpoint, the short quotations from the Scriptures and from the Apocrypha which make up the subject of “The Apostles” suffer from a want of proportion and natural sequence. Each section of the book is separate, and some of the parts—and those that are treated at great length—have not at all aided the composer in his avowed intention of composing an oratorio “which should embody the Calling of the Apostles, their Teaching (schooling), and their Mission, culminating in the establishment of a Church among the Gentiles.” If this rather pompous announcement had not been made in the form of a note to the published score, I am certain that no one would have left the Town Hall at Birmingham with any clear idea of the composer's intentions. The effect of “The Apostles” is fragmentary; and, except for “The Beatitudes” (the most successful number in the work), the main impression made on me was by the music assigned to Judas and by the scene in which Mary Magdalene repents of her life.