ABSTRACT
At the end of January 1898 Jaeger wrote to Elgar enthusing over choral works by the American composer Horatio Parker. Parker had studied composition in Munich during the 1880s, subsequendy returning to the States to work as teacher, organist and choirmaster. His reputation as a composer was established with a series of major choral works, including the oratorios Hora Novíssima, first performed by the Church Choral Society of New York in April 1893 (and reviewed by the Musical Times) and The 'Legend of St Christopher of1897'. A four-column analysis oîHoraNovissima appeared in the October 1893 Musical Times. With an eye to sales of the vocal score, the article concluded with a warm recommendation of the work to choral societies in search of a novelty, but the technique of the music was subjected to rigorous criticism, with references to Dvorak, Brahms and Wagner, and gives every appearance of being one of the earliest major contributions to the journal by Jaeger himself.1 Parker's works would include incidental music, operas and an organ concerto, and he achieved a high reputation as a craftsman working broadly in terms of his European training. American composers were soon to seek a distinctive voice of their own - one of Parker's pupils was Charles Ives - but Parker's traditional stylistic roots were no doubt something of a recommendation to Jaeger. His music was published by Novello's through their American office, and various works achieved festival performances in this country; Ivor Atkins in particular was a staunch advocate and friend, and Parker's reputation became such that he was awarded an honorary Cambridge degree in 1902. Elgar's response to Jaeger's advocacy of the composer was to emphasize how busy he was with Caractacus, but he praised Hora Novíssima at the expense of the older generation of English composers.2
