ANGEL OF THE AGONY, DEMONS, ANGELICALS, AND SOULS, ALBERT A. STANLEY, Conductor. HOLMES COWPER EDWARD WILLIAM ELGAR Born at Broadheath (near Worcester), England, June 2, 1857; still living. We have come to associate with the products of English composers characteristics for which Handel, more than any other great composer, seems to stand. There has always been in English music a directness of purpose, a certain blunt, sometimes rough, honesty of statement, and a contempt for any over-accentuation of the emotions that comports perfectly with the genius of the Anglo-Saxon race. Such admirable qualities are not to be despised, but, unfortunately, English composers were so fully dominated by Handel and Mendelssohn that the originality and fervor seen in Purcell's music seemed to have been forever lost, and they drifted into a conventionality that made freedom of utterance impossible. But now that Italy seems to have exhausted herself, and Germany is unproductive-despite Richard Strauss,-England seems to have entered upon a new artistic era, and in the person of Edward William Elgar we find the embodiment of a reaction against the "ways of the fathers" that is fraught with hope and laden with prophecy. The unusual prominence given to Elgar in the programs of our great concert institutes, in reviews and in musical journals, would seem to indicate that in him we have a composer of more than ordinary significance, one of real originality. Whether the superlative admiration expressed by some will be justified by the verdict of time we may not determine, but there can be no doubt-in view of the fact that he seems to be an artistic storm center-that he really has something to say. His artistic equipment is superb, and, when we consider that he is almost entirely self-taught, the mastery he displays in every direction-especially in his control of the resources of the orchestra, in which he is only equalled by Richard Strauss-is nothing short of marvelous. His career seems to emphasize ultra-modern art not as the work of individual genius alone, but as an expression of the tremendous energy and complex forces conditioning modern life-and in the highest sense cosmopolitan. This view seems to be enforced by the fact that the art of the two composers to whom we have referred—while it seems to be a real necessity of expression and permeated by this zeitgeist has technically but comparatively little in common. The query so often put as to the permanence of this movement cannot be definitely answered, but if the foregoing suggestions are correct, there can be no doubt of its sincerity-and sincerity is a condition of enduring art. His life has been singularly lacking in incident, quite unlike the career of his younger contemporary, Richard Strauss, but his works display a versatility, a fine sense of values, and an intellectual appreciation, indicative of a wide acquaintance with literature, art, and life. None but a man to whom the highest concepts of life appeal could have written such a work as "The Dream of Gerontius," "the greatest choral work of the nineteenth century-not excepting Brahm's 'Requiem”.” Elgar is a devout Roman Catholic. Almost ascetic in his devotion to the teachings of the Mother Church, in "Gerontius" he has blazed a new path. Attracted by subjects often out of touch with the modern point of view, he clothes these subjects in ultra-modern dress, and, more than any other, seems to have solved the problem of the relation of dramatic form to religious content. Living in the Malvern Hills, it was not strange that he should have given us his noble "Caractacus," which reflects England's glory and tells the story of one of the noblest of her early heroes. It may be that in the partial seclusion of his environment we may see the reason for his present tendencies, so admirably illustrated in the "Dream of Gerontius" and his latest work, "The Apostles." Whether, as Ernest Newman fears, this absorption in medieval thought and early Christian history will react unfavorably on his work, by substituting introspection for action, and mysticism for clear cut realistic statement, time alone will tell. At all events, we must rejoice that Cardinal Newman's poem inspired him to write such a work as the one now under consideration. Space forbids an extended analysis of the work, but certain characteristics must be pointed out, in the interest of such an appreciation of the significance of the subject, as the nobility of the poetry, and the ultra-modern dramatic texture of the virile, fervid, and beautiful musical setting demand. First of all stress must be laid upon the fact that it is organic in structure. It is so closely knit together by a complicated system of typical motives, in some instances expanded into broad melodies; it is so compact in form, so entirely unlike the typical oratorio, with its solos, choruses and orchestral episodes standing unrelated side by side, that it can not come under any conventional definition of the form. It is the poem set to music in such a manner as to emphasize the unity of the idea rather than to display the variety of its utterance in single numbers, or, in other words, it is a religious work composed along the musicodramatic lines first laid down by Richard Wagner. All the musical factors exist in |