Musical Criticisms Part 7

[Sidenote: ="The Dream of Gerontius," Birmingham Festival.=

_October 3, 1900_]

"The Dream of Gerontius," Cardinal Newman called his poem, with exquisite modesty. How that poem may stand in the estimation of those who share Cardinal Newman's point of view in regard to religious matters is perhaps an important question, but not one with which musical, or any artistic, criticism is concerned. For nothing is more certain about art than that it is subservient to a person's view of life. Artistic or aesthetic criticism must be humble, and must abstain from trespa.s.sing on the ground of faith and morals. Indirectly, indeed, aesthetics may have a bearing on these more serious subjects. For is it not written of religious doctrines, "By their fruits ye shall know them"?--and nothing else is in so complete a sense a "fruit" of a religion as a work of art arising therefrom. Nevertheless, the function of aesthetics is not to commend or blame a view of life, but rather to enquire with what eloquence, with what sincerity, with what measure of convincing power the artist expounds his ideas and communicates his feelings, whatever those ideas and feelings may be. With these reflections I find it necessary to premise my notes on Edward Elgar's new work. The reflections are rather solemn, but the new work is very solemn. It is deeply and intensely religious; it is totally unconventional, and must be discussed in an unconventional manner. First, then, let me state a point of difference from all that I have experienced in listening to other oratorios and sacred cantatas, and, I may say, all other musical works with words made by one person and music by another. The point is that _this_ music, on the whole, is apt to bring home to the listener the greatness of the poem. The composer has not merely chosen from the poem such material as suited him. He has expounded the poem musically, and to the task of expounding it he has brought what may be described without inflation as the resources of modern music. We shall doubtless hear of plagiarism from "Parsifal," and there is indeed much in the work that could not have been there but for "Parsifal." But it is not allowable for a modern composer of religious music to be ignorant of "Parsifal." One might as well write for orchestra in ignorance of the Berlioz orchestration as write any serious music in ignorance of the Wagnerian symbolism. Edward Elgar does nothing so affected as to ignore the development which, for good or for evil, the language of music underwent at the hands of Wagner. His orchestral prelude, however, reverts to an earlier Wagnerian type. It gives a forecast of the whole story in such wise that at the end of it the imagination has to be carried back. We have the last agony of the sick man, his death, and pa.s.sage to the unseen. The symbols, though employed in the Wagnerian manner, are, nevertheless, thoroughly original, taking us into an atmosphere and a world absolutely remote from all that is Wagnerian.

When the voice of Gerontius (a.s.signed to a tenor solo) enters we are carried back to the death-bed--to the prayers of Gerontius and his companions. A series of choruses with intervening and accompanying pa.s.sages for the solo voice is devoted to the King of Terrors. Here the music touches the various notes in the gamut of feeling, from the agony of terrors to serene confidence. After the parting of Gerontius, with the words "Novissima hora est," a new voice enters, that of the Priest (baritone), chanting "Proficiscere, anima Christiana." Among the supplications for the departed is a chant three times repeated, each of the two parts ending with a choral "Amen" that bears a tender echo of the mediaeval "Cantus fictus." An extended section of chorus and semi-chorus bring the first part of the cantata to a peaceful and prayerful ending.

In the second part the soul of Gerontius is winging its way towards the celestial regions, holding colloquy with an angel. There is a Dantesque pa.s.sage in which a chorus of demons is overheard by the pair--the soul and the angel. Gerontius is encouraged by the angel. Echoes of earthly voices, praying for the departed soul, are borne up from the earth, and in the end the soul of Gerontius is affectionately delivered over to Purgatory by the angel, there to wait suffering indeed, but in resignation and in the a.s.surance of salvation.

Naturally the prevalent poetic note in such a work is the mystical exaltation, now of the contrite sinner, now of the aspiring saint. The chief climax is reached, not at the end, but in the hymn of the Angels, "Praise to the Holiest in the Height," recurring before the departure to Purgatory. But the whole work sings "Praise to the Holiest in the Height _and in the Depth_." A powerfully contrasting note is heard in the death-agony of Gerontius and, above all, in the chorus of demons occurring in the second part. Here a comparison with Berlioz is simply inevitable--for Edward Elgar's dramatic power admits of comparison with the great masters. His demons are much more terrible than those of Berlioz, who was a materialist in the profound sense--not, that is, in virtue of more or less shifting beliefs, but of unalterable temperament.

Infinitely remote from that of Berlioz is the temperament revealed in Edward Elgar's music, which, like parts of the poem, fairly merits the epithet "Dantesque."

[Sidenote: ="Gerontius,"

Lower Rhine Festival,

Dusseldorf.=

_May 22, 1902._]

"Ever since the far-off times of the great madrigal composers England has played but a modest part in the concert of the great musical powers.

For the products of the musical mind it has depended almost entirely on importation, and has exported nothing but works of a lighter order."

Such are the words with which the German author of the "Gerontius"

programme, specially written for this Festival, introduces his subject.

The economic metaphor is ingenious. It does not imply too much or justify the state of things to which it refers. Rightly or wrongly, Germany and the Continent of Europe in general did not feel that serious English music was a thing to be taken seriously, and to that fact the writer refers with ingenious delicacy, going on to say that about the turn of the century a change began to be noticeable. Everyone conversant with musical affairs knows how that change was brought about, though not everyone on our own side of the Channel cares to admit what he knows. It is in the main to Edward Elgar--a man who has done his best work living quietly in the Malvern hills, without official position of any kind, remote from social distraction and the strife of commercialism--that the change is due. The presentation of so lengthy a work as the "Dream of Gerontius" at a Rhine Festival has a kind of significance that the English musical public would do well to consider. The programme is much more carefully selected than at our own festivals, the idea being not at all that it should contain "something for all tastes," but that it should be characteristic of musical art as it now stands, giving only the most typically excellent of newer compositions, and of older compositions only those upon which it is felt that contemporary genius had been more particularly nourished. It is not accidental that on the present occasion the names of Handel, Mendelssohn, Schumann are absent while Bach is very abundantly represented; Beethoven's name figures in connection with the most modern in feeling of all his works (the C minor Symphony), and Liszt's with his revolutionary "Faust" Symphony. Nor is it accidental that the preference is given to Strauss among German and Elgar among English composers. For those are the men who really carry the torch, and the Germans are not to be deceived in such matters.

The performance of "Gerontius" yesterday evening had a good many features of special interest. Full justice was done to the instrumental part of the work by the magnificent Festival orchestra of a hundred and twenty-seven performers. Those peculiar qualities of the imagination which make of Dr. Wullner, jun., by far the best representative of Gerontius as yet found were once more demonstrated, and the part of the Angel was given by Miss Muriel Foster with the wonderfully beautiful and genuine voice that has long been recognised as her most remarkable gift, and with considerably greater and more expressive eloquence than any previous experience might have led one to expect from her. In the ba.s.s parts of the Priest and the Angel of Death Professor Messchaert sang with wonderful dramatic power, and the semi-chorus, seated in a line before the orchestra, acquitted themselves almost to perfection in the delicate task that they have to perform throughout the death-bed scene.

I have already expressed the view that the final section of the first part, beginning with the Priest's "proficiscere, anima Christiana," is the point at which one first becomes conscious of actual genius in the composition; but now, after further study and another complete hearing of the work, I am not quite satisfied with that statement. Perhaps at that point a good many listeners first become clearly conscious of the composer's genius. But on looking back at the extraordinary eloquence and beauty of the musical symbolism in the prelude and death-agony of Gerontius, one perceives that the _quietus_ which comes to the spirit in the scene following Gerontius's death is merely a climax in a process that really begins with the first notes. The heavenly calm at the opening of the second part I realised yesterday more thoroughly than ever before. Splendid as the treatment of the hymn "Praise to the Holiest in the Height" is, the final section is not so completely adequate as the rest. The truth is that the composer there found himself in presence of a task hopelessly beyond the powers of any mortal except Bach. In the "Sanctus" heard on Sunday evening the shining circles of the heavenly choir are, as it were, made audible to the ears of mortals.

Bach could only do it once, and no other composer could do it at all.

Elgar gives a beautiful and grandly conceived hymn of the Church Triumphant, and with that we may well rest satisfied. He is in the main a dramatic composer, and, in those cases where he enters the domain of purely religious music, he gravitates back rather to Palestrina, with his "souls like thin flames mounting up to G.o.d," than to the greater and serener spirit of Bach.

[Sidenote: ="Gerontius,"

Preliminary Article.=

_March 12, 1903._]

In subject, though not in treatment, this oratorio--the first performance of which in Manchester will be given this evening--is closely akin to the morality play "Everyman." Gerontius is not a historical character, but a typical person, belonging to no particular age or country. He is further like Everyman in being a layman, who has lived in the world, as distinguished from the Church, and in being just a plain, well-meaning man, without very great or shining qualities. The poem on which the oratorio is founded begins, at a later stage than "Everyman," with the death-bed scene, and does not end with the death of Gerontius's mortal part, but peers wistfully into the world beyond, and "under the similitude of a dream," tells much of what holy men have imagined about the experiences of Christian souls going to their account under the guidance of angels.

In the oratorio the utterances of Gerontius are a.s.signed to a tenor soloist, who in the first part has to deliver the broken phrases of the sick man "near to death," and in the second the delicately restrained raptures of the soul that "feels in him an inexpressive lightness and a sense of freedom," as he gradually becomes conscious of the angelic presence that is bearing him along towards the heavenly regions. The only other soloist in the first part is the Priest (ba.s.s), who delivers the solemn "Proficiscere, anima Christiana, de hoc mundo," as the soul of Gerontius quits the body. In the second part the second and third soloists represent, one the Guiding Angel (mezzo-soprano) and the other the Angel of the Agony (ba.s.s), who, at the most solemn moment of the oratorio, is recognised by the Soul as "the same who strengthened Him, what time he knelt, lone in the garden shade bedewed with blood." The semi-chorus in the first part is the group of "a.s.sistants," or friends gathered about the dying man's bed. The function of the chorus in the first part is not defined, but it may be taken as voicing the prayers and aspirations of other faithful souls, aware of Gerontius's case and sympathising with him. In the second part the chorus is now of "angelicals," now of demons. The semi-chorus again represents the voices of friends on earth, which at one point are imagined as again becoming audible to the Soul, and also takes part in certain phases of the great hymn "Praise to the Holiest in the Height," where the vocal harmony falls into as many as twelve parts.

Those who are to hear this music to-day for the first time should beware of judging it by false standards. Let them be prepared for the fact that from beginning to end there is not a particle of anything in the least like Handel or Mendelssohn. Without the slightest intention of doing anything revolutionary, but simply following the bent of his own genius, the composer here brushes aside the conventions of oratorio very much as Wagner brushed aside the conventions of opera, and justifies himself just as thoroughly in so doing. To hear the "Gerontius" music is to become acquainted with by far the most remarkable and original personality that has arisen in musical Britain since the days of Purcell. One might trace the manifestations of that originality in the harmony, that always shows a touch both sensitive and sure, in the orchestration and interplay of chorus and semi-chorus, in the amazing sweetness and depth of feeling that sounds in the Angel (mezzo-soprano solo) music, in the force and truth of musical expression which, for the most part, extends even to elements of minor importance in the work. But for the present these broad indications must suffice, and we will only add the warning that the music is powerful, subtle, and of manifold significance, not to be judged in too great a hurry, and yielding up the best of its secrets only to those who listen repeatedly and study between.

[Sidenote: ="Gerontius,"

Halle Concerts.=

_March 13, 1903._]

Originality is disadvantageous to a composer at first in two ways. The more obvious is that listeners find the music speaking to them in an unknown or partially unknown tongue, and are displeased; and the less obvious, that players and singers cannot, as a rule, do justice to an unfamiliar style. When it is a case of winning recognition for something new and original a thoroughly adequate rendering is half the battle.

Such a rendering carries with it a sense of enjoyment and satisfaction in the performers, and there is always a chance that this may to some extent communicate itself to the public; whereas in the other case the embarra.s.sment of the performers will certainly communicate itself, and the audience attribute everything unsatisfactory to the unknown or insufficiently guaranteed composer. In Elgar's "Gerontius" the originality is strong and unmistakeable, and the performers find their technical skill severely taxed. But fortunately the composer has a clear head; he knows the technique of each instrument and he never miscalculates. Performers therefore find their task, though often difficult, is always possible and, further, that the result is always satisfactory. For Elgar has an ear; he is a man of tone, and does not care for music that looks well on paper but sounds rather muddy. These points, known to those who for some time past have taken a close interest in Elgar's work, made it possible to hope that the Manchester performance of his great oratorio would be a striking success, and perhaps even throw a new light on the merits of the composition; and it can scarcely be questioned that the experience of yesterday evening fulfilled those hopes. It was doubtless the most carefully prepared of the performances that have been given thus far in this country. Dr.

Richter was, for various reasons, peculiarly anxious that it should go well; Mr. Wilson made up his mind some time ago that whatever conscientious work could do to secure a worthy performance should be done; the hopes and endeavours of choir-master and conductor were seconded by the choir in an admirable spirit; and, though it seems that for some time the usual difficulties of an unfamiliar style were felt, not a trace of any such thing was to be observed in the performance, the remarkably willing and energetic style in which the choral singers had grappled with their task bearing its proper fruit in a rendering that sounded spontaneous and unembarra.s.sed, as though the singers were sure of the notes and could give nearly all their attention to phrasing, expression, and dynamic adjustments. In the highest degree remarkable, too, was the orchestral performance. Pa.s.sages of such peculiar difficulty as the rushing string figures, that represent the strains of heavenly music overheard by the Soul and the Angel as they approach the judgment-seat, came out with much greater distinctness than we have ever heard before, and we had a similar impression at many other points in the performance, which was as delicate as it was precise in detail and broad in style. But experience of all the complete performances yet given induces us to think that the difference between thorough success and ordinary half-success with this oratorio depends more on the semi-chorus than on any other point, and this is where the pre-eminence of last night's rendering, among all yet given in this country, is most unquestionable. Though not placed in front of the orchestra--as they should have been and, we hope, will be next time,--this group of twenty picked singers was really excellent. The voices blended well, and their combined tone was clearly distinguishable from the larger choir's. At the notoriously dangerous points, such as the re-entry with the "Kyrie"

after the invocation of "angels, martyrs, hermits, and holy virgins,"

there was no hint of embarra.s.sment, and they played their part as a slightly more delicate choral unit with absolute success in the litany and throughout the marvellous concluding chorus of the first part, where, as the original a.n.a.lysis suggested, the n.o.ble pedal-point harmonies symbolise the swinging of golden censers, as the supplications of the friends and of the church rise up to the throne of G.o.d. Among the astonishingly new kinds of musical eloquence obtained in this work by the interplay of chorus and semi-chorus it is worth drawing special attention to the tenor and alto unison in the semi-chorus on p. 108 (we quote from the second edition). The pa.s.sage is not difficult, but to realise the particular effect of tone as well as it was realised yesterday shows exquisite adjustment.

As princ.i.p.al soloist Mr. John Coates had an enormously difficult task, which he performed about as well as was possible with the vocal material that has been a.s.signed to him by nature. All that thorough knowledge of the part, together with high artistic intelligence, could do was done.

His voice did not break on the high B flat (p. 33), and he seemed to be well disposed, notwithstanding his recent illness. Though it is usually said that Elgar writes better for orchestra than for choir, and better for choir than for the solo voice, he was very finely inspired when he conceived the part of the mezzo-soprano Angel. The opening arioso, "My work is done," is a most lovely song, to which the haunting "Alleluia"

phrase forms a kind of refrain. But even this--one of the very few detachable things in the oratorio--is not the best of the Angel's music.

It is surpa.s.sed by the other song, "Softly and gently, dearly ransomed Soul," where the dropping of the Soul down into the waters of Purgatory is accompanied by music of quite unearthly sweetness and tenderness.

These are things which make it seem almost a shame to discuss this work in any purely technical aspect. Miss Brema made the Angel's part one of the few entirely satisfactory features of the first performance, and again yesterday her n.o.bly expressive style did full justice to the marvellous beauty of the music. Mr. Black was vocally irreproachable in the part of the Priest who speeds the parting soul of Gerontius, and again as the Angel of the Agony in the second part.

In reference to a musical composition the word "dramatic" has sometimes to be used in a sense different from "theatrical." Thus the two great Pa.s.sions by Bach--the "St. Matthew" and the "St. John"--both have a dramatic element so strong that at certain points the music becomes altogether dramatic. Yet no sane person ever called it theatrical, in the sense of unfit for a church. By "dramatic" in such cases one means two things--(1) having thematic material that is conceived with a certain vividness, in reference to a particular situation or mood of feeling; (2) developed according to procedure that does not sacrifice the vividness to formal or structural considerations. In this sense, then, we call Elgar's "Gerontius" a dramatic composition from beginning to end. To find fault with it for the absence of choral climax in the manner of Handel and Mendelssohn is as much out of place as it would be with Wagner's "Tannhauser." On the other hand, we do not agree with the criticism that "Gerontius" is Wagnerian music. In two places there is a brief and faint suggestion of "Parsifal," first in the _sostenuto_ theme for _cor anglais_ and 'celli that enters in the fifty-second bar of the Prelude and recurs in some form at several points in the course of the work, and secondly in a recurrent phrase for strings at the entry of the recitative a.s.signed to the Angel of the Agony--and to some extent throughout that recitative, which vaguely recalls "Parsifal." The other elements we find to be unlike Wagner and unlike every other composer but Elgar. These elements it is convenient to cla.s.sify, not according to the usual technical or formal principle, but according to a dramatic principle. One notes, in the first place, four main categories--(1) the purely human; (2) the ecclesiastical; (3) the angelic; (4) the demonic.

The Prelude opens with the symbols of Judgment and Prayer. Next the "slumber" theme enters, to be joined at the fourteenth bar by the "Miserere." The note of feeling contracts and sinks towards utter abas.e.m.e.nt, which reaches the lowest point in the _cor anglais_ theme with _tremolando_ accompaniment. But now the sick man's despair finds expression in a loud cry, which is answered in the majestic and ringing tones that remind him to face death hopefully. A quite new musical element enters with the Andantino theme, developed at some length, and informs the penultimate section of the n.o.ble tone-poem, which continues till a brief _reprise_ of the slumber theme suggests the pa.s.sing of the soul. New phases of the Judgment theme connect the Prelude with the opening recitative, and here the imagination has to be carried back, as usual after the Prelude of a dramatic composition, which as a rule epitomises a good part of the action. It is evident, then, that the Prelude is concerned only with the first two of the categories above enumerated--that is to say, with the purely human and the ecclesiastical, and not at all with the angelic or demonic. Of the angelic music the princ.i.p.al elements, in addition to those already mentioned, are the various phases of the great hymn "Praise to the Holiest in the Height." The extraordinary demon music would in itself offer material for an essay. Here we can only touch on a few obvious features--the upward rushing semiquaver figure in chromatic fourths, which is grotesque and rat-like; the three-part figure for strings in quavers which is first heard with the words "Tainting the hallowed air," but belongs more particularly to "in a deep hideous purring have their life"; the terrific fugato "dispossessed, thrust aside, chuck'd down"; the sinister and ominous four-note theme "To every slave and pious cheat"; the _motif_ of demonic pride, p. 83; and the sarcastic prolongation of the last word in "He'll slave for hire." The long chorus formed of these elements is a welter of infernal but most eloquent sound, the enormous technical difficulties all of which were completely mastered yesterday.

[Sidenote: ="The Apostles,"

Birmingham Festival.=

_October 15, 1903._]

To-day, when Elgar's new Oratorio "The Apostles" was first publicly performed, was a sufficiently striking contrast with the corresponding day in the Festival of three years ago that witnessed the production of the same composer's "Gerontius." On that earlier occasion the interest both of performers and public was languid. That Elgar's music was difficult and hara.s.sing to perform was generally known, while the merit of it was regarded as doubtful. The upholders of British musical orthodoxy, with their faith in the saving virtues of eight-part counterpoint, shook their heads, the choral singers found their work disconcerting, and the public doubted whether the composer was anything more than an eccentric. The three intervening years have placed Elgar's reputation on a very different footing. Vague hostility towards the unusual and the unknown has given way almost universally to the recognition that he is one of the great originals in the musical world of to-day; and he thus compels attention even in those who instinctively dislike both his particular methods and the kind of general atmosphere into which his religious art transports the listener.

In "The Apostles" Elgar adheres completely to those principles which were exemplified by "Gerontius" first among works of British origin.

That is to say, the music is continuous, as in Wagnerian musical drama.

There is no such thing in the work as a detachable musical "number"--whether air, song, chorus, concerted piece, march, or anything else. The composer has musical symbols corresponding to ideas, feelings, moods, aspects of nature or personality, religious conceptions or aspirations, animated scenes of popular life, phases of local and national custom, exhortations of the angels, suggestions of the devil, mystical rapture, rebellious despair; and he uses those symbols in the manner of a language. There is no mechanical work, no carrying out of architectural schemes with lifeless material. Everything in the score is vivified by the idea. The composition heard to-day consists of the first and second parts of the projected oratorio. In the first part there are three scenes--"The Calling of the Apostles," "By the Wayside," and "By the Sea of Galilee"; in the second part four scenes--"The Betrayal,"

"Golgotha," "At the Sepulchre," and "The Ascension." After the prologue and the narrator's opening recitative, the setting forth of the Apostles' calling begins with the changing of the Temple watch at dawn, the watchmen on the roof as they salute the rising sun being conceived as the unconscious heralds of Christ's kingdom on earth. Here the musical treatment is stamped with the utmost grandeur, and points of amazingly vivid and picturesque detail are successively made, the curious Oriental _Melismata_ of the watchman's cry, accompanied by the _Shofar_ (Hebrew trumpet of ram's horn), giving way to the psalm within the Temple, between the phrases of which is heard the brazen clangour of the opening gates, while the air is flooded with the rushing music of harps. For the psalm an old Hebrew melody is used. So rich in matter is the text of the oratorio that I cannot attempt here even to give an outline of it, but must refer readers to Canon Gorton's booklet "An Interpretation of the Libretto" (Novello and Co.). There will be found an account of the sources from which the composer took his text, and in particular the justification for his view of Judas as a man who intended not to betray his Master to destruction but to force His hand, to make Him declare His power and establish His earthly kingdom forthwith--a view for which there would seem to be patristic authority.[2] The oratorio is not theological; it is a dramatisation of the Gospel story that may be compared with Klopstock's "Messiah." After the introductory sections, broadly expounding the scheme of Redemption as accepted by the entire Christian world, but not enforcing any particular doctrine, all the stress is laid on the individuality of the persons--the Apostles, the Magdalene, and the Mother of Christ--and on the collective character of the groups, such as the women who are scandalised at the ministrations of the Magdalene and the mob which cries "Crucify Him!"

As an accompaniment of the drama we have the mystical chorus of angels commenting on the progress of earthly affairs and giving utterance to the sweet, pa.s.sionless jubilation of sinless beings after the Ascension.

To those who are acquainted with "Gerontius" it is almost needless to say that the composer is at his best in rendering the music of the heavenly choir. His marvellous faculty of finding music that matches the words inevitably, so that once heard the a.s.sociations seem to have been long known, is here repeatedly ill.u.s.trated. Perhaps the most absolutely perfect examples occur at the words "What are these wounds in Thine hands?" and in the recurrent "Alleluia" phrase.

[2] Compare De Quincey's famous essay on Judas Iscariot.--ED.

Elgar's austerity is more strongly p.r.o.nounced in "The Apostles" than in "Gerontius," and so, too, is his audacity in using the special resources of the modern dramatic orchestra to expound a religious theme. The old pompous oratorio manner he has left an immeasurable distance behind him.

He sticks at nothing in his determination to cut down to the quick of human nature, to reject all abstractions and conventions and ill.u.s.trate an idea or fact of religious experience in its relation to actual flesh and blood. The sinister parts of the oratorio recall by their general tone, atmosphere, and colouring the scene in Klopstock's "Messiah" in which an avenging angel carries the soul of Judas up to Golgotha and there shows him the results of his work. Mighty as the music is, it is all strictly ill.u.s.trative, and so the centre of gravity remains in the text.

Some time must elapse yet before anyone can offer a confident estimate of "The Apostles" as a work of art. It will possibly be found to stand to "Gerontius" in something like the relation of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony to his Seventh, the later work being of greater depth and significance but less perfectly finished.

[Sidenote: ="The Apostles,"

Preliminary Article.=

_February 25, 1904._]

Elgar's most recent oratorio, "The Apostles," which will be heard by the Manchester public for the first time this evening, stands in much the same relation to recent works in oratorio form by other composers as one of the later musical dramas by Wagner holds to the kind of opera that was in vogue when he began to write. According to current ideas, justified by the practice of many well-known composers, an oratorio comes into existence by some such process as the following. A composer casts about for a subject, either being guided in his choice by consideration of what is in some manner appropriate to the particular occasion, or simply taking a story from the Bible that has not been used before, or not too frequently before, for musical purposes. He then either obtains the services of a librettist or himself arranges a libretto setting forth the chosen story. In the drawing up of the libretto the most important matter is the engineering of "opportunities"