The Apostles (Elgar) The Apostles (Elgar) The Apostles, Op. 49, is an oratorio for soloists, chorus and orchestra composed by Edward Elgar. It was first performed on 14 October 1903. After his international success with the "Enigma Variations" (1899) and "The Dream of Gerontius "(1900), Elgar was commissioned by the Birmingham Triennial Music Festival, which had also produced "Gerontius", to write a new choral work. This encouraged Elgar to start composing a large-scale work on a subject he had been contemplating, according to the composer, since boyhood when he had even started selecting the words. "The Apostles", like its successor "The Kingdom", depicts
Vocation of the Apostles portrait of Diotisalvi Neroni, who had taken refuge in Rome after plotting against Piero di Cosimo de' Medici. Another exile from Constantinople is John Argyropoulos, who appears on the right. Other characters on the right are members of the Tornabuoni family. Vocation of the Apostles The Vocation of the Apostles is a fresco by the Italian Renaissance painter Domenico Ghirlandaio, executed in 1481–1482 and located in the Sistine Chapel, Rome. In 1481 a group of Florentine painters left for Rome, where they had been called as part of the reconciliation project between Lorenzo de' Medici, the "de facto" ruler of