The Kingdom (Elgar) The Kingdom (Elgar) The Kingdom, Op. 51, is an English-language oratorio composed in 1906 by Edward Elgar. It was first performed at the Birmingham Music Festival on 3 October 1906, with the orchestra conducted by the composer, and soloists Agnes Nicholls, Muriel Foster, John Coates and William Higley. The dedication is ""A. M. D. G."" Elgar wrote "The Kingdom" for choral and instrumental forces. Following "The Dream of Gerontius" and "The Apostles", the Birmingham Triennial Music Festival commissioned Elgar to produce another large oratorio for the 1906 festival. This was "The Kingdom", which continues the narrative of the lives of
Canons of the Apostles John of Antioch (Joannes Scholasticus), Patriarch of Constantinople from 565 to 577, published a collection of synodal decrees in which he included these eighty-five canons, and this number was finally consecrated for the Greek Church by the Trullan or Quinisext Council of 692, which stopped short of affirming their apostolic authorship, instead referring to them as having been handed down in the name of the Apostles. On the other hand, the Latin Church, throughout the Middle Ages, recognized only fifty canons of the Apostles. This was the number finally adopted by Dionysius Exiguus, who first translated these canons into Latin