The Shepherd Boy as messenger (accompanied by a melancholy incipit of his innocent song) recounts to Job that he is the only survivor from the holocaust meted out by the Sabeans (6). This is inspired music, not only in the inventive choral harmony, but also in the expressive interjections from the doleful unison cellos and low violins (how Elgar must have loved this passage!). The episode ends with a poignant lament (‘The song of the shepherd has ceased in the land’) in which the oboe sings out a mournful transformation of the orchestral ‘symphony’ in Scene I. As he summons the Sabean horde to destroy Job’s flocks, the tonality moves to B minor, a key which frames the whole of the chorus’s narrative description of the dreadful carnage. The pentatonic ruminations of the clarinet are expunged as Satan enters malignantly (5). The second verse behaves in the same way with but a small modification at the end in the form of a coda (‘They need no guard, God is their ward’). The tonal events of the instrumental prelude find their way into the two verses of the song: a modulation to B flat signals the end of the verse and the beginning of the refrain (‘The wind bites not’), while the interrupted cadence to the minor subdominant (‘The gentle sheep may stray’) ominously only provides a half close. Moreover, this minor subdominant recurs unexpectedly, first as an unusual cadential interruption and then as means of modulating to B flat major, the flat mediant – all this before surfacing effortlessly into G major once again for the Shepherd Boy’s first verse. Here we have a demonstration of Parry’s harmonic resourcefulness as he colours his luminous G major with the minor subdominant. The simplicity of the musical ideas, the pentatonic clarinet melody, the limpid timbre of the treble voice and the uncomplicated strophic form all contribute to a vision of tender innocence yet clouding this representation of gentle naïveté are the darker harmonies that intrude in the strings, serving to remind us of the coming storm. The pastoral evocation that formed a significant portion of Scene I is further accentuated at the beginning of Scene II with the song of the Shepherd Boy (4). With God’s acquiescence and Satan’s exit, the scene ends with a further restatement of the orchestral ‘symphony’, returning us to the pastoral depiction of Job, yet with a sense of foreboding in the knowledge that destruction and suffering are about to befall our hero.
God’s faith in Job is echoed in the orchestra by a variation of the opening ‘symphony’, but this is short-lived as Satan impatiently bursts in with ‘Doth Job serve God for nought?’, a tonally unstable episode that culminates in a strident passage for horns and Satan’s challenge ‘But put forth Thine hand now, and touch all that he hath’ (3). Switching abruptly to A flat major, Satan enters to confront God (personified by the male chorus). On this uncertain note the music becomes more animated as we are launched into the dialogue between God and Satan (2). The tonality quickly switches to A minor as the narrator tells of the days of feasting and of Job’s doubt that perhaps his sons and daughters may have ‘cursed God in their hearts’. Our first picture of Job is his righteousness, painted resplendently in Parry’s stirring modulation to B flat (‘and one that feared God’) and the repetition of the orchestral ‘symphony’. A descending figure in the cellos, representing the spirit of Job in his changing fortunes, ushers in the first declamatory section of the scene.
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After the weighty plagal cadence of the full orchestra, we hear the first of several leitmotivs that punctuate the fabric of the four individual scenes. Its broad diatonic C major sweep, replete with melodic sequence, pedal point and rich orchestration is unmistakable Parry and it never fails to stir as it recurs throughout the oratorio as a form of neo-baroque ‘symphony’. The introduction to Job (track 1) begins with a majestic orchestral statement that immediately recalls the noble tone of the opening of Blest Pair of Sirens.
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