Elgar: The Kingdom

After the success of their recording of The Dream of Gerontius, it was perhaps logical that Mark Elder and the Hallé (below) should turn to The Kingdom. The second in a projected trilogy of oratorios that Elgar planned in the 1900s, but never completed, it's a work that divides Elgarians, some regarding it as one of his greatest achievements – Adrian Boult claims that, beside it, Gerontius is the work of a "rank amateur" – while others see it as uneven, with the truly inspired passages outweighed by more tendentious ones. That is the impression Elder's performance creates, never approaching the level of excitement that he and his choir and orchestra found in Gerontius. Elder can't disguise the sense that, where the dramatic framework of Gerontius was fundamentally an operatic one, given the trappings of a sacred oratorio, The Kingdom stems more from the Victorian oratorio tradition indebted to Mendelssohn and Stainer, which Elgar never quite transcends. The best moments – the duet for the two Marys (soprano Claire Rutter and mezzo Susan Bickley) and the famous soprano number The Sun Goeth Down – are superbly done, as are the great choral outpourings. But as a whole it remains subdued, never sparking into dramatic life.