Elgar's 'Scenes from the Saga of King Olaf' for soprano, tenor and bass soloists, choir and orchestra, come from his apprentice years, in which he wrote several works for choir and orchestra, which are rarely staged these days, also having only sparse recordings. Sir Andrew Davis seems to have a penchant for resurrecting and refreshing such wayside works, and in this case he aptly works with the Bergen Philharmonic and Norwegian choirs. The result is very satisfying, and offers stiff competition to the only other recording, EMI's 1985 fine version by fellow Elgarian Vernon Handley, which is appreciably slower and certainly outclassed by the SA-CD sonics.

Technically a Cantata, the 'Scenes from the Saga of King Olaf' was composed specifically as a commission for the 1896 North Staffordshire Triennial Musical Festival. Longfellow’s neo-Chaucerian poems 'Tales of a Wayside Inn' (1863) contains the 'Saga of King Olaf' which would have been discovered by the young composer, excited by the tales of Viking life. It contains twenty-two episodes and a total of almost eight thousand words, thus requiring significant abridgement to make
a manageable and performable work, and for this task Elgar enlisted the help of his Malvern neighbour, Harry Arbuthnot Acworth. Out of the episodes, Acworth prepared a libretto of eight scenes, an introduction and epilogue, and seven connecting recitatives. Of the eight scenes, Acworth took four either entirely or partly from the Longfellow poem, and four were completely revised versions of Longfellow.

According to musicologist Róisín Blunnie (see Ref), the Elgar/Acworth redaction is more than just an abridgement, as "the musical setting features a much stronger and more clearly defined moral course than Longfellow’s version, and is clearly a product of its time and of the beliefs and pragmatic intentions of its Victorian creators". Elgar's intuition aimed it at a target audience, with its cuttings and revisions at times revealing radical dramatic and moral implications. Greatly influenced by the late-nineteenth-century British context of its birth, King Olaf makes quite a journey from Longfellow’s poem to Elgar’s cantata, as Blunnie observed. To attain this effect, Elgar uses his fast-developing expressiveness of his music, choral, solo and orchestral, together with skilfully instrumental applied colours and masterful writing for large choruses. The work as a whole is held also together by a series of motifs, for subjects like Thor, environments such as the sea and activities such as dancing. This helps the conductor to characterise the Cantatas sections as well as to convey mood.

In short, Longfellow's pub musician tells a Tale of a heroic Norwegian, King Olaf Tryggvason, who brought the Christian faith to his pagan Nordic lands, before being undone by treachery from his ill-fated relations with three women. In the end, and beyond his death, only his mother remained faithful. Olaf Tryggvason played an important part in the conversion of the Norse to Christianity which later spread over Scandinavia, and this tension between Christians and Pagans is exploited by Elgar and Acworth. At the end of the work, however, Elgar resists the temptation to portray the triumphal aspects of ultimate victory of Christianity over Paganism (in Victorian times!). He makes the last two bars extend the air of ambiguity, closing on a "tierce de Picardie" ( a very satisfying satisfying major chord) for chorus and orchestra; then the voices fall to nothing. Next, the major third is drained away from the instruments, leaving only a wide-spaced long-sustained bare fifth. This ending stands in stark opposition to the rousing choruses and battle scenes which permeate the cantata.

Sir Andrew's choice of Norwegian forces proves a major part of the success of his reading. No less than three choirs are combined; the Bergen Philharmonic Choir, which thrived under Grieg's tenure of the Bergen Philharmonic, Collegium Musicum (professional and amateur) and the Edvard Grieg Korg (salaried), which resides at Trondhaugen, Grieg's former home. Håkon Matti Skrede is the founder of
the Edvard Grieg Korg and the Choirmaster for this disc. This large chorus handles the English text with aplomb and good diction, clearly exhibiting many new textures which Elgar was introducing. Elgar often divides the full choir into separate choirs or sections, and these are positioned clearly across the sound-stage to provide clarity and excitement of dialogue.

Barry Banks is an English lyric tenor who elevates himself seemingly effortlessly into the formidable character of Olaf Tryggvason and becomes a heroic tenor. He returns to his beautifully rounded lyric tones in the memorable love song with Gudrun (Emily Birsan), who also projects her characters with great musicianship and intelligence. Cornish Baritone Alan Opie authoritatively takes several robust characters (e.g. Ironbeard) which are the "glue" of the story; his depth of vocal tone and the power of his characterizations comes across even through the full chorus.

No doubt 'Scenes from the Saga of King Olaf' has its flaws, many brought about by the sometimes very confusing manipulation of Longfellow's poem, some through Elgar's remaining musical ineptitudes, but Sir Andrew sweeps most of this away with the informed momentum of his direction and the enthusiasm of his musicians. The orchestra respond magnificently with a wide dynamic range ideally captured on SA-CD and this alone makes this an important acquisition for Elgar lovers. Listening to this work, one cannot help thinking that some short passages have come from works which followed Elgar's really first big success, such as Enigma Variations, such as the later choral works, including The Dream of Gerontius'. Fascinating; here we have evidence of Elgar's development!

'The Banner of Saint George' Op. 33 is a sister pre-Gerontius choral work, nominally a ballade. Elgar's publisher, Novello, commissioned two works from him in celebration of the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria in 1897, the other being 'The Imperial March'. The absurd and wordy text by one Shapcott Wensley, overladen with exclamation marks, presents the tale in two scenes: First, a fearsome dragon ravages the local maidens, but the king’s daughter is willing to sacrifice herself for the community; Second, the red-cross knight arrives and dispatches the dragon, not stopping for reward. In an Epilogue his mission is compared to England’s Imperial role ("Great race, whose empire of splendour/Has dazzled a wondering world!").

That Elgar had innate little feeling for these typical Victorian sentiments is evident from the ballade's overall easy euphony, in the tedium of the narrative choruses, the feebleness of the Dragon and the flatness of George's departure, even though his arrival does lift things a little. The final solid 4/4 march, however, is a good example of Elgar's patriotic mode, and the orchestral detail, particular in the woodwind, is very well crafted. While the importance of St George as the patron saint and symbol of England had persisted for centuries, the Byzantine George, ultimately Bishop of Alexandria, was finally rejected as a Saint by the Roman Catholic Church in 1986, being struck off the roles on the grounds of his reported wickedness and the hated expressed by his contemporaries.

The importance of St George is thus already diminishing rapidly, but perhaps this piece by Elgar will at least remind us of the hallowed days in which St George was regarded as a noble defender and a patron of England. At any least, the 'fff largamente e grandioso' section in the final return of Elgar's final march for George is close to lifting the roof off the Grieghallen in Bergen.

Made in PCM 24/96 format, the SA-CD tracks are splendid, with a stunning immediacy and detail. Balancing of the choir, soloists and orchestra is exemplary, and the hall's perspective and spaciousness are captured in both stereo and multichannel modes, although the latter is more spectacularly focussed and gives the "you are there" feeling. Percussion is laid out at the back of the orchestra, with the timps on the far right and the impressive bass drum on the far left, giving some very deep underlying bass, picked up in 'King Olaf' by the double basses with terrific attack. The two harps, difficult to balance in orchestral contexts, are heard both in their solos and interim accompanying.As usual, a 3-language Chandos booklet has a very useful history and descriptions of the musical sections by Andrew Neill. The choral texts are reproduced in English only.

Sir Andrew Davis has once more resurrected two of Elgar's neglected works, and with previously unavailable high-level sonics and an enthusiastic cast has recovered our awareness of King Olaf's Saga and St John's salute to Queen Victoria. Enjoyable and thought-making. May there be more coming.

REFERENCE
Róisín Blunnie, 2007. A High-Victorian Spyglass: Scenes from the Saga of King Olaf and Late Nineteenth-Century British Idealism. The Elgar Society Journal Vol.15 No.1, 8-14.

Copyright © 2015 John Miller and HRAudio.net

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