Elgar's oratorio The Apostles was the biggest endeavour of his creative life. Elgar used the Bible as the source for his libretto, taking words and phrases, combining separate stories andsuperimposed different actions one upon another until the psychological emphasis of the libretto reflected its composer as faithfully as the music it was to serve.
The Elgar Complete Edition brings together for the firsttime all of the composer's surviving music from printed and manuscript sources.