Elgar: The Kingdom review – respectful and admirable, but this is still a work hard to love
Completed in 1906, The Kingdom was intended as the central panel in what Elgar had conceived as a New Testament triptych, preceded by The Apostles, from three years earlier and to have been followed by The Last Judgement, a score that got no further than a few sketches. Elgar himself thought highly of The Kingdom, calling it 'the best of me', and though it has never achieved the popularity of The Dream of Gerontius, some Elgarians have agreed with him, claiming it as the greatest of his oratorios, with its orchestral writing in particular seen as far superior. Yet where Gerontius has operatic roots, which give it a compelling dramatic intensity, The Kingdom seems to be wedded too much to the Victorian oratorio, which for all its incidental highpoints makes it inert and uninvolving.
That lack of popularity is reflected in the scarcity of recordings. This performance, conducted by David Temple and recorded in the newly restored Victorian theatre at Alexandra Palace in London, seems to be only the fourth of the complete work currently available. Temple is clearly a huge admirer of the score – 'a gem from first note to last', he calls it – and that admiration shines through his performance with the excellent Crouch End Festival Chorus and a fine quartet of soloists. But to my ears at least it lacks immediacy and, alongside the existing versions – conducted by Adrian Boult, Richard Hickox and Mark Elder, it never quite matches up, for all its good intentions.
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