Scenes from the Saga of King Olaf

The text is an adaptation of Longfellow's The Saga of King Olaf, a poem about the historical figure Olaf Tryggvason, who brought Christianity to Norway. Longfellow's source had been the medieval Heimskringla. Longfellow's text was adapted for Elgar by one of his neighbours, H. A. Acworth. Elgar appears to have found Acworth a satisfactory collaborator, as he went on to provide Elgar with another libretto, Caractacus (1898). ==Music==

The cantata has a prologue, nine scenes and an epilogue. Of particular note are the forceful first scene (The Challenge of Thor) and the lively fifth (The Wraith of Odin). In the seventh scene (Thyri) there is duet between Thyri and Olaf, 'The Grey Land Breaks to Lively Green', through which they express their love. The chorus, 'A Little Bird in the Air', has been called highly original, "unlike anything else Elgar composed before or since". In the epilogue, the final unaccompanied chorus As Torrents in Summer has achieved separate popularity as a partsong. As in the case of some other works by Elgar, reviews have noted the influence on King Olaf of Wagner's music, for example, in the use of Leitmotifs; the Guardian's music critic Andrew Clements refers to "echoes of Wagner" in the score. ==Performance history==

King Olaf was first performed in 1896 at the Victoria Hall in Hanley, Staffordshire, with the composer conducting. The soloists included Edward Lloyd, Another place with connections to the work is Bergen in Norway. Longfellow knew the violinist Ole Bull who came from Bergen, and their friendship appears to have been a factor in the poet choosing King Olaf as a subject. Davis conducted the work again at the Three Choirs Festival: despite there being a tradition of performing Elgar at this festival, this was a premiere. ==Publication==

The score was published by Novello & Co, a firm which had already published The Black Knight and which became Elgar's regular publishers. However, their edition of 1896 has been described as a "relatively cramped" by the Elgar Society which published a full score in 2007. ==Recordings==

The work was recorded for the first time in the 1980s by EMI with the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Vernon Handley, a specialist in British music. In 2014 the Bergen Philharmonic and three Norwegian choirs recorded the work at the Grieg Hall for Chandos (a 2 CD set including a shorter work, The Banner of Saint George) under the baton of Sir Andrew Davis. ==References==