For centuries European composers have saved some of the best of the best of their output for musical works (usually choral) inspired by the events of the week from Palm Sunday through Maundy Thursday and Good Friday to Easter Sunday. This is the first of several blog posts devoted to the rarer music surrounding these events.
The German tradition of musical settings of the Passion story reached its apex with the dramatic St. John Passion and the monumental St. Matthew Passion of Johann Sebastian Bach. But the tradition did not end there by any means. In the early 1800s, another German composer contributed to the field with an oratorio which has been often forgotten and certainly rarely heard. Beethoven's Christus am Ölberge ("Christ on the Mount of Olives") is a dramatic, almost operatic concert work lasting about an hour. It has solo parts for three singers: Jesus (tenor, a switch from the older tradition of a baritone voice), Peter (bass), and a Seraph (coloratura soprano). Also required is a chorus and normal classical orchestra.
Some people find the text rather lame. Beethoven himself seemed not to be overfond of it, but the music he produced is memorable indeed, and certainly deserves to be performed more often. All three soloists have great arias, and they join together in a marvellous contrapuntal trio near the end. The chorus must depict first the timidity of the disciples. Then, at the midpoint, they suddenly switch to the diametric opposite position, becoming the soldiers sent to seize Jesus. In one memorable number the singers switch from soldiers to disciples and back again on the turn of a beat, several times. Finally, at the end, the chorus raises a heartfelt hymn of praise to Almighty God for his redemption of humanity, and this number alone of the whole oratorio has received wider circulation.
I once had an EMI LP recording made in Bonn in 1970 to honour the Beethoven Year, and the highlight of this was the singing of Nicolai Gedda as Jesus. I now have a DG recording under Bernhard Klee dating from 1973, which was included in a 5-CD set of the complete choral works of Beethoven. Time to get it out again!
In the early 1900s, Edward Elgar in England fell under the spell of Wagner and set himself to write a trilogy of oratorios that would do for the English oratorio tradition what Wagner's Ring Cycle did for German opera. Fortunately, Elgar was too consummate a musician to allow Wagner to completely swamp him, but the results certainly did adopt some Wagnerian style features.
Of the two oratorios he completed, The Kingdom has been the more performed, but The Apostles is (for me) the greater work. Scarcity of performance is readily explained when you realize that this oratorio requires no less than six first-rate soloists -- plus large choir, children's choir, and orchestra. Indeed, the singers Elgar chose for the premiere included several noteworthy European opera singers rather than English performers -- he needed to have that kind of dramatic flair in the interpretation of his music.
There are so many marvellous moments in this score that I can hardly describe them all. But the most striking feature of the music is the constant sense of place as an element of the composition. The scene changes constantly, from a desert mountaintop to the roof of the Temple, from the Tower of Magdala to the storm-tossed Sea of Galilee, and finally from the Mount of the Ascension to the clouds of heaven. While every change is indicated in the score and text, the music faithfully illustrates every place as surely as it indicates the moods and needs of the characters.
Elgar used an authentic Jewish shofar to introduce the equally authentic psalm chant in Part 1 as the dawn chant of the priests, and this leads in turn to what I think is the most resplendent depiction of a sunrise ever given in orchestral music. The storm on the sea is depicted vividly in the orchestra as Mary Magdalene describes it, her words closely interwoven with the speeches of the disciples. In Part 2, at the emotional heart of the piece, we come to the marvellous aria of despair for Judas (bass), a masterpiece of collated text and intense music which ends with the quiet muttering of the singers in the Temple as Judas' body sways at the end of the rope.
The Crucifixion and Resurrection are both touched in lightly, almost as in an impressionistic pencil sketch. Of Golgotha there is no narration, no description, only the Virgin Mary singing mournfully as St. John tries to comfort her. The Easter sunrise scene begins with a reminiscence of the sunrise hymn from Part 1 and then continues with a female chorus chanting distantly to depict the angelic voices -- voices which fade away most realistically as the scene ends.
The final scene moves at the moment of Christ's Ascension into a steady march rhythm which dominates the music through a long crescendo lasting for several minutes. An almost silent pause brings a beautiful litany of women's voices lightly accompanied, and then the march builds up again until it bursts forth at the final climax of the work with a throbbing triplet accompaniment that raises the emotional temperature several additional degrees. The work ends with a long radiant diminuendo down to a final chord that swells up and dies away, much like the concluding chords of Götterdämmerung or Parsifal. In some ways that is the most Wagnerian moment of the whole piece.
There are two fine recordings that I know of. In 1970 Sir Adrian Boult gave The Apostles its first complete recording for EMI. In 1996 Richard Hickox laid down his version for Chandos. Either one will serve very well. I'd give Boult a slight edge for his soloists and his apparent love of the score, but Hickox has the advantage of rich digital sound in the typical Chandos manner and this too is important. Take your pick, but do give The Apostles your time. I think you will come to love it as much as I do.
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