Sir Edward Elgar (1857-1934)
The Kingdom, Op 51 (1906)
Francesca Chiejina (soprano – The Blessed Virgin); Dame Sarah Connolly (contralto – Mary Magdalene); Benjamin Hulett (tenor – St John); Ashley Riches (bass – St Peter)
Crouch End Festival Chorus
London Mozart Players / David Temple
rec. 2024, Alexandra Palace Theatre, London
Text included
Signum Classics SIGCD896 [2 CDs: 89]

In the booklet accompanying the first complete commercial recording (1973) of The Kingdom, Sir Adrian Boult wrote; “I think there is a great deal in The Kingdom that is more than a match for Gerontius, and I feel that it is a much more balanced work and throughout maintains a stream of glorious music whereas Gerontius has its ups and downs.” Boult’s high opinion of the work is shared by the conductor of this new recording David Temple who in the current liner goes further stating it to be “Elgar’s best choral work….a gem from first note to last.” The fact remains though that in concert and in the studio Gerontius remains far more familiar and indeed popular. The reasons for this are fairly easy to discern despite the best arguments of Elgar authorities such as Boult or Temple. Elgar famously wrote “This is the best of me” at the end of Gerontius as he sought to redefine the rather worthy musical goals and aspirations of the English Festival Oratorio tradition. Gerontius has a near-operatic intensity with all the roles – chorus included – clearly defined. The ‘set-pieces’ of the work aim high and when they hit their targets remain to this day in performance overwhelming powerful. When the work failed so catastrophically at its Birmingham premiere Elgar was musically and emotionally scarred. In the aftermath of that, both The Apostles and The Kingdom take far fewer ‘risks’ with the Oratorio tradition reinforced rather than challenged. Because it is Elgar, there are many glorious pages, richly scored and deeply felt but as a whole it feels ‘safer’, more comfortable when surely Elgar’s greatest achievements are precisely when he confronts the emotional certainties of Victorian/Edwardian society.

On disc, The Kingdom is hardly over-represented but all of the recordings since and including Boult have been fine. The late 1980’s saw Leonard Slatkin with the LPO on RCA closely followed by Richard Hickox and the LSO on Chandos. Twenty or so years later Mark Elder with the Halle on their own label produced another version. All of these versions are notable for being very well recorded with impressive soloists and include interesting couplings (at the point of writing this review Elder’s survey of the three oratorios can be downloaded in lossless format for less than £10.00 – a remarkable bargain). Any new recording of a major Elgar score is to be welcomed but this version does face stiff competition from the earlier versions – more so when considering that it is offered ‘alone’ with the ninety minutes of the work spread across two discs. But that said this is another very impressive, well and sensitively performed version given an attractive and opulent recording by the Signum engineers. Over the years and previous versions, the engineering and production of the different recordings has been in the hands of famous technical teams and so it is again here with Tim Oldham producing and Mike Hatch engineering. The recording venue is less familiar – the recently (2018) restored Alexandra Palace Theatre – a location most famous as the site of the BBC’s first TV broadcasts in 1935. I am not sure I have ever seen it used as a Classical Music recording location before but it sounds fine – warm and supportive. The use of the London Mozart Players – a noted Chamber Orchestra – suggests a degree of financial constraint which the player listing in the liner note confirms with the strings playing 10.8.6.7.3 which looks a little ‘reduced’ for a work of the scale and sweep of The Kingdom. Especially when set against the rest of the orchestration of triple wind, full brass, percussion, harp and organ. But credit to both the players and the engineering that in fact at no point does the string playing sound lightweight or thin. Leader Ruth Rogers makes a fine job of the important violin solo obbligato in one of the score’s highlights; “the sun goeth down”.

The choir is the Crouch End Festival Chorus with a listed singing strength of 38 sopranos, 34 altos, 21 tenors and 29 basses. The chorus was founded in 1984 with David Temple a co-founder. They are clearly well-trained and disciplined although they do sound like a very British choir without the fresh voiced attack and brilliance of the finest International groups. This was a feature that struck me in the performance of Delius’ Mass of Life from Bergen under Mark Elder where already impressive and imposing music was lifted to another level by the accomplishment of the choral work. As Temple notes in his liner, the demands of the chorus are significantly less than in Gerontius – another self-imposed restriction by the composer after the Birmingham debacle. Likewise Elgar’s deployment of the four ‘standard’ soloists feels more generic than the very specific roles the solos were given in the earlier work. Although each part is given a “character” name the texts they sing have the flavour of collective utterances rather than character-specific revelations. The solo group here are very good both individually and collectively. The stand-out familiar name is Sarah Connolly singing the contralto role of Mary Magdalene although it is soprano Francesca Chiejina who is given the afore-mentioned “the sun goeth down”. Elgar wrote this role and solo (the longest solo section in either The Kingdom or The Apostles) with Agnes Nicholls (the wife of Hamilton Harty) in mind.  Again all the preceding recordings have very fine singers for this role and all perform this section beautifully – if pushed I like the freshness and poise of Margaret Price for Boult and the calm meditativeness of Claire Rutter for Elder. Of the other soloists for Temple I enjoyed the brilliant tone of Francesca Chiejina as well as quite light and lyrical youthful sound of tenor Benjamin Hulett. To be fair, baritone Ashley Riches is very good too although I have a personal preference for a voice in this role with more bass resonance.  Shirley-Quirk for Boult and Luxon for Slatkin are both more imposing presences than Riches but his is a sensitive and caring assumption of the role.

Hard not to feel that David Temple is very much the driving force behind this recording. This is a passion project in the best sense of the phrase and he galvanises all the performers into a deeply felt and convincing performance. That said, such is the quality of all of the previous versions that I would find it impossible to say that this new release supplants any of those earlier recordings. Boult is self-recommending, Slatkin was excellent in Elgar and his Kingdom represents – for some unknown reason – his only commercial recording of this composer’s choral music. Hickox was justly famed for the quality of his choral recordings in particular while the Elder cycle holds the impressive record of each having won the Gramophone’s “Choral recording of the year” award on the original release. Credit then to this new performance not in surpassing any/all of those versions but that it can be considered alongside them. Presentation is very good – as well as Temple’s own introduction to the work Jeremy Dibble contributes his usual insightful and valuable analysis. Full texts and session photographs are included too.

Researching for this review I came across a letter from Elgar expert Michael Kennedy to Sir Adrian Boult quoted in Nigel Simeone’s recent (wonderful) book “Edward Elgar and Adrian Boult” [pub. The Boydell Press 2025]; “I admire parts of The Apostles & Kingdom nevertheless I still get fidgety with them, but with Gerontius never”. I must admit I share Kennedy’s point of view but this new recording gives the listener the best possible opportunity to challenge that opinion.

Nick Barnard

Previous review: John Quinn (May 2025)

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