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
Dispersion of the Apostles 3 of the Church History of Eusebius: Arthur Cushman McGiffert comments: Baronius considered that the occasion for this dispersion of the Apostles was the killing of James, son of Zebedee and the departure of Peter "to another place", a view rejected by Friedrich Spanheim. The first vestige of the liturgical feast of the Dispersion of the Apostles appears in the undoubtedly authentic sequence composed for it by a certain Godescalc (d. 1098) while a monk of Limburg on the Haardt; he also introduced this feast at Aachen, when provost of the Church of Our Lady. Godescalc was a follower of