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dramatic, but his intonation was not good, and occasionally the sentiment and passion of the words were too accentuated. Mr. Coates as St. John , and Mr. Dalton Baker as St. Peter , were both excellent in their respective parts. Beethoven’s Eighth Symphony, which brought the afternoon programme to an end, provided a pleasing contrast to the emotionalism of the previous work, and was very well played, under Mr. A. H. Brewer’s careful direction.
    â€”G. H.
    The Gloucester Festival
T HE N EW W ORKS .
    Monthly Musical Record 34 (October 1904): 185–86
    Another article by E. A. Baughan.
    I N looking back on the festival the chief memory is of two British religious works which presented features so diverse that comparison of them is not without interest; need I say that I refer to Sir Hubert Parry’s “The Love that casteth out Fear” and Sir Edward Elgar’s “The Apostles.” 51 The two oratorios seem at first blush to differ so radically in workmanship and musical aim that a comparison may appear to be out of place. In some ways that is so; but as being the religious musical expression of two of the most prominent English composers, there is room for thought in comparing the complexion of the two works.
    I have now heard “The Apostles” thrice—at Birmingham, at Covent Garden and at Gloucester. From the first the oratorio struck me as disconnected, as wanting in a central idea carried out consistently. The composer has apparently desired to mix realism or description with abstract religious thought, perhaps taking some of Bach’s cantatas and Wolfrum’s “Christmas Mystery” as his models. Only on this ground of realistic naivete can you explain the rather cheap realism of an instrumental description of the thirty pieces of silver on the cymbals, and of the opening choruses with the use of the shofar. Then, again, the repentance of Mary Magdalene, with its punctuation of a chorus describing the fascination of the old life, falls within the same type of treatment. There is no reason why a modern composer should not make use of this realistic background, but it must be laid on with tactful brush, otherwise it becomes of more importance than the principal figures. It is here that Elgar seems to me to have failed. His series of pictures are individually of interest, especially in their orchestral colour and general treatment. But the plan of the whole is by no means organic. The Apostles, whom the composer wished to draw as men, according to what he has told several interviewers, do not loom with importance. On the other hand, the figure of Christ is purposely made shadowy, and the unessential matter of the repentance of Mary Magdalene is given too much prominence. Apart from this weakness of the work I personally cannot put myself in sympathy with the composer’s type of religious feeling. It is, if I may so put it, too servile. In “The Dream of Gerontius” the sentimental mysticism of the music is thoroughly in keeping with the character of Cardinal Newman’s poem, and it has also the merit of seeming to be an expression of the composer’s own religious outlook. At any rate, the music of the earlier work rises to a natural climax and has the air of personal sincerity, which I do not notice in “The Apostles.” The story of their “call” does not bear that sentimental treatment. Yet though the composer has orchestrally given vigour to his musical picture, beneath the outside of the work there runs the same vein of sentiment. No doubt this is due to the faith which Sir Edward Elgar holds. To me, and, I have no doubt, to many others, this results in a monotony of style which becomes cloying in its sweetness. The same characteristic is to be noticed in all the composer’s religious works, from “The Light of the World” to “The Apostles.” It is not, in short, an English treatment of religious feeling; indeed,