Was Elgar’s The Kingdom an attempt to write a religious Ring Cycle?

To go from the second day of the England v. India Test match at Lord’s to the Albert Hall for the opening night of the Proms was to make a journey that a chosen few might find enviable. Nonetheless, different though the two activities are, there were some similarities. For example, the arena at the Albert Hall, where the Promenaders stand, fills up more or less to capacity before the seats around it attract a single occupant, these seats being taken at the last possible minute before the start of the concert. Exactly the same thing happens at Lord’s: the pavilion is filled while the rest of the ground remains empty until seconds before the start of play. The reason is that the Promenaders and the MCC members do not have numbered seats, and have to jockey for a good view of the performers, the regular public having a reserved space. It is an irony that at Lord’s the rich and privileged have to get up early in order to elbow their way to a preferred vantage point, whereas at the Proms it is those who cannot afford a seat who must inconvenience themselves. But that is how the two traditions have grown up.

We were treated to Elgar’s rarely performed oratorio The Kingdom at the Proms that night. Even Elgar eventually questioned whether a trilogy of oratorios on the theme of the foundation and purpose of the Church was quite his bag. He wrote the first instalment — The Apostles — in 1903 to illustrate the calling of the 12 young men, and followed it three years later with The Kingdom, which describes the beginning of their evangelical mission on earth. The Last Judgment was supposed to show the outcome of that mission at the end of time, but at Elgar’s death there were only sketches for it.