A lot of the music is calm and thoughtful rather than dramatic. If Elgar had completed all three oratorios, "The Kingdom" would have been the middle one: quiet and relective between two more dramatic ones. As in "The Apostles" , Elgar used the idea of the Leitmotif. This is something that Richard Wagner had developed in his operas: the technique of having short tunes (motifs) which represent particular characters or events in the story.