The Dream of Gerontius, oratorio… | Details | AllMusic google+ Description by Wayne Reisig "This, if anything of mine, is worth your memory," wrote Edward Elgar (quoting Ruskin) regarding his oratorio The Dream of Gerontius. The composer, often self-deprecating about even his most ambitious works, felt that this effort, inspired by a poem of Cardinal Newman , represented his finest music. Elgar received a copy of Newman's poem as a wedding present from his priest, and it struck a particular chord with him; in fact, the poem -- which explained Roman Catholic theological views on the immortal soul in an accessible manner -- had a tremendous vogue in the late Victorian era. Elgar edited the text down to about half its orginal size for the sake of musical economy, but he managed to do so without altering the essence of the poem. The 1900 premiere under Richter at the Birmingham Festival was marred by insufficient rehearsal, but at its German premiere a year later it was hailed as a masterpiece. Subsequent British performances quickly established the work in the repertory.

The central character of Gerontius is an imperfect, yet decent, man who is riddled with doubts on his deathbed. An angel comes to him during his last moments to give him a glimpse of the afterlife, culminating in an overwhelming vision of God. Gently the angel returns his ward to a death which will now be a peaceful transition. The prelude to the oratorio commences with a fade-in, as a candle's light would gradually illuminate a dark room. Here the hesitating, vague rhythm would seem to represent the labored breathing of the dying man. A typically Elgar ian martial theme emerges, in major but quickly souring into anguished minor, evoking a crisis of faith. Part One of the oratorio proper commences; it consists of a dialogue between Gerontius, alternately offering supplication and despairing, and the clerical assistants, praying for his soul. Hope is found in the buoyant and noble "Proficisere" of the priest ("Go upon thy journey, Christian soul!"), in Elgar 's nobilmente mode, answered by the chorus of assistants and subsiding to a serene close.

Part Two commences, again nebulous but purged of torment, as Gerontius' soul speculates on this strange new existence and is joined by his angel who will lead him to the Almighty. They travel past the underworld, depicted in the "Demon's Chorus" by a restless, shadowy fugue punctuated by grotesque laughter. The angel assures the soul that they are past their harm, and presently they come before the choir of angels, depicted in the work's most glorious music, "Praise to the Holiest." This ethereal and childlike section is usually performed by a children's chorus. The soul is brought before God, inspiring uncomprehending awe; at this point comes Gerontius' moving aria, "Take me away." The angel soothes Gerontius and returns him to a gentler leave-taking, as the oratorio comes to a serene, transfigured close with "The Angel's Farewell," perhaps Elgar 's most sensitive music. Parts/Movements No. 2, Jesu Maria, I am near to death No. 3, Kyrie eleison No. 4, Rouse thee, my fainting soul No. 5, Sanctus fortis No.

6, I can no more No. 7, Rescue him, O Lord No. 8, Proficiscere, anima Christiana No. 9, Go in the name of Angels No. 10, I went to sleep No. 11, It is a member of that family No. 12a, Low-born clods of brute earth No. 12b, Dispossessed, aside thrust No. 13, I see not those false spirits No. 14, Praise to the Holiest No. 15a, But hark! a grand mysterious harmony No. 15b, Praise to the Holiest No. 16, Thy judgement now is near No. 17, Jesu! by that shuddering dread No. 18, Take me away No. 19, Lord, Thou hast been our refuge No. 20, Softly and gently Appears On Elgar - His Music : The Dream of Gerontius - Composition of the Oratorio Life after Death How Elgar came to write the Work It was in the Summer of 1898 that Elgar was first asked if he would write a major new work for the 1900 Birmingham Triennial Festival.

Elgar accepted, but remained pre-occupied for much of 1899 with other, more pressing matters. During the first months of 1899, he was still hard at work on the Enigma Variations . Then, on 21 March, the Elgars moved from Forli to a far more imposing detached property which Elgar promptly named Craeg Lea , situated overlooking the Wells Road some way south of the town centre. Following the first, successful performance of the Variations on 19 June 1899, his friend, August Jaeger , feeling the original ending to be somewhat perfunctory, persuaded Elgar to compose the extended ending with which we are familiar today. Elgar worked on the new ending during the Summer and the revised work was first performed on 13 September 1899 at that year's Three Choirs Festival, held in Worcester. During the same period, from 11 July until 18 August, he also composed Sea Pictures , his setting for contralto and orchestra of five poems with a maritime theme. The work received its première on 5 October at that year's Norwich Festival, with Clara Butt singing.

It is therefore not surprising that Elgar appears to have given little further thought to the work for Birmingham until the Autumn of 1899. Elgar had owned a copy of Newman's poem since at least 1885; he had been given a further copy as a present on his marriage to Alice in May 1889. By his own admission, Elgar had been considering setting Newman's poem for at least eight years, and Alice's diary for September 1899 records that, in the margins of a Three Choirs concert, 'E. walked with Father Bellasis', a priest from the Birmingham Oratory who had known Newman personally. But the implication that Elgar was at this point considering setting Newman's poem for the Birmingham festival is not borne out by subsequent events. In November 1899, Elgar sent Jaeger his first sketches for a new work which eventually became The Apostles . But by early January 1900, Elgar was coming to realise that he had left himself insufficient time to complete this work. On 12 January, Elgar instead began to adapt his poem to provide a more satisfactory libretto.

Work now progressed rapidly : on 2 March, he sent Jaeger the first forty-four pages of the score; and the remainder of Part I followed on 20 March. Like his contemporaries Sibelius and Mahler, Elgar drew much inspiration from the countryside. In May 1898, while still living at Forli, the Elgars acquired the use of Birchwood , a cottage near Storridge on the border of Worcestershire and Herefordshire. Despite its comparative proximity to Malvern, the atmosphere was a world apart. It was to Birchwood that Elgar fled to find the peace, quiet and inspiration he needed to complete Gerontius against the tight deadlines he now faced. He used a south-facing room on the first floor at the front of the property as his study, with views along the length of the Malvern Hills towards British Camp. And when he failed to find the stimulus he sought from the view from his study window, he would take to the fields and lanes around Birchwood. The entry in Alice's diary for 2 May is of particular interest. It reads : "E. for walk from Bransford to Powyke [sic].

Writing lovely part." With the necessary preconditions in place, Elgar converted fragmentary ideas into a complex and fully worked out vocal score with surprising rapidity. As has already been noted, he completed Part I in a two-month period between January and March 1900. Part II occupied a similar timespan despite the distraction of proofs of Part I requiring correction which began to arrive at Craeg Lea in early April. By late May, the vocal score was complete apart from the final "great chorus" ('Praise to the Holiest'). A concentrated burst of heightened compositional activity led to completion on 6 June. At this stage, of course, Elgar still had to orchestrate the work, and the priority was to provide the choir with copies of the vocal score with which to start rehearsing the work. But the next month was largely taken up with a protracted and detailed correspondence between Elgar and Jaeger discussing the finer points of the work as Elgar corrected and returned to Novello the remaining proofs. The dialogue between Elgar and Jaeger consumed valuable time and on one passage in particular - where the Soul, having briefly glimpsed the Almighty, sings "Take me away ..." - they could not agree.

The last proofs were not returned to Novello until 11 July and it was not until 17 July that Elgar made clear to Jaeger that further debate was futile. Copies of the vocal parts began to appear on 21 July and were in the hands of the choir by early August. Much still remained to be done, however, including the bulk of the orchestration. This Elgar completed on 3 August, but correction of the full score continued throughout the following month and there were still the orchestral parts to write out. At last, all was complete. Elgar knew that he had created a work of outstanding merit. On completing the full score, he added to it the now famous quotation from John Ruskin's Sesame and Lilies : 'This is the best of me...' Time was now short, although not impossibly so. But, Elgar and Jaeger apart, few could at this point have appreciated the work's complexity.

To turn a difficult situation into an impending disaster, the choirmaster, Charles Swinnerton Heap, who was already familiar with Elgar's style and had prepared the choir for a successful premi�re of King Olaf some four years earlier, died unexpectedly in June 1900. The consequences of this and the subsequent early history of the work are well known. An under-rehearsed and somewhat chaotic première, slammed by the majority of the critics present, cast doubts on the work's survival. But fortunately there were those in the audience who could see beyond the choir's failings and recognise a work of great merit. Not least among these was Julius Buths Director of the North Rhein Festival, who arranged widely acclaimed performances in Düsseldorf in 1901 and again in 1902 which set Gerontius on the road to the position it holds today. It is tantalising to ponder from this distance what might have become of Gerontius without Jaeger. The choir would have received their vocal scores somewhat earlier and, with more time for rehearsal, may have given a more creditable performance at the Birmingham première. A more favourable critical reception might not have cast initial doubts over the work's survival.

But the work would undoubtedly have been that little bit poorer. If so, would it still have grown in popularity and critical acclaim to achieve the position of respect it commands today? Continue to : Daniel Barenboim conducts Elgar’s “The Dream of Gerontius” Daniel Barenboim conducts Elgar’s “The Dream of Gerontius” Anna Larsson, Ian Storey, Kwangchoul Youn, Rundfunkchor Berlin Edward Elgar The Dream of Gerontius (01:41:05) Anna Larsson Mezzo-Soprano, Ian Storey Tenor, Kwangchoul Youn Bass, Rundfunkchor Berlin, Simon Halsey Chorus Master free Artist biographies As the BBC once said in the introduction to a concert, Edward Elgar’s oratorio The Dream of Gerontius is seen in Great Britain as a “national monument”. While the work enjoys nearly the same esteem as Handel’s Messiah and Mendelssohn’s Elijah in its native, almost every performance abroad is seen as a rediscovery. And it is to such that the Berliner Philharmoniker and conductor Daniel Barenboim invite you with this concert.

To make The Dream of Gerontius comprehensible to audiences, comparisons are often drawn – but these only partially go to the core of the work. Strauss’s Death and Transfiguration is comparable, according to some: As with Elgar, it is about someone dying who ultimately achieves heavenly bliss, but in contrast to Strauss, it is not about fighting and heroism, but a spiritual vision of the transition to the afterlife. Parallels are also often drawn to Wagner’s music, which Elgar revered. The through-composed structure is doubtlessly inspired by Wagner in that there is no division into arias and choruses. And there are also some elements reminiscent of Parsifal. Overall, however, The Dream of Gerontius is a completely independent composition with an individual musical language and a penetrating power of faith. One of the first continental Europeans who recognized the value of the oratorio was, incidentally, Richard Strauss, who after a performance, praised Elgar as “the first English progressive musician”. “...

a strange refreshment ...” Edward Elgar’s Oratorio The Dream of Gerontius A Vision of Death and the Afterlife Praying, dreaming, dying: a soul is divested of its earthly covering and awakens in the world of spirit. Led by an angel he passes by the demons assembled at the judgement court and approaches the throne of God. Intercession by the Angel of the Agony brings him a lenient judgement. His Soul is gently lowered by the Angel into the waters of Purgatory to await its reawakening. Nearly 100 minutes of music for a story that takes place outside of time and space. Edward Elgar’s oratorio The Dream of Gerontius, composed in 1900 and first performed that year in Birmingham under the great Austrian conductor Hans Richter, is the setting of a poem by John Henry Cardinal Newman.

Much-loved and performed in Britain and, to a lesser extent, other English-speaking countries, Gerontius in this country is rarely given except by choral societies, even though the first German performance (a “most excellent interpretation”, wrote the correspondent from the Times of London) took place only a year after the under-rehearsed, nearly disastrous Birmingham premiere – sung in German translation and conducted by Julius Buth, in Düsseldorf, the birthplace of Elgar’s publisher and closest friend A. J. Jaeger. In 1902, another performance in that city was enthusiastically acclaimed by Richard Strauss and, the same year, Gerontius was first performed by the Berliner Philharmoniker,under the baton of Ferruccio Busoni. The Composer and his Life Elgar, generally considered one of the most English of all English composers, always felt himself to be an outsider. Being a Roman Catholic was a source of tension in a staunchly Protestant land, and being an artist was something he felt a need to suppress in the staid social establishment of his provincial upbringing.

Nevertheless, his wife, a general’s daughter, went over the Roman faith before the birth of their son, even though Elgar’s Protestant father, a music dealer in Worcester and organist at that city’s St. George’s Roman Catholic Church, officially converted to Catholicism only on his deathbed. Edward helped out his father in the shop and in church, where, with little formal training, he absorbed whatever he could and soon became proficient on the piano, organ and bassoon as well as on the violin (which he played in the Worcester Festival, including under Dvořák) and as a violin teacher and conductor of church and workers’ choirs. Elgar wrote his great choral works for festivals. The Dream of Gerontius and his subsequent oratorios The Apostles (1903) and The Kingdom (1906) as well as the ode The Music Makers (1912) were all composed for the Birmingham Triennial Festival, whose earlier commissions had included Mendelssohn’s Elijah. Elgar’s steady production of monumental works ended abruptly, however, with the death of his wife in 1920.

A few years later he began a major series of recordings, conducting his own works for HMV, but even with the encouragement in 1932 of his friend George Bernard Shaw, he was unable to complete the composition of his Third Symphony, which remained fragmentary at his death two years later. The Dream, a Dying Newman’s epic poem The Dream of Gerontius appeared in 1865 and found great favour even in non-Catholic circles. Elgar received a copy in 1889, probably as a wedding present, although he had first read the poem much earlier and for many years pondered how he might set it to music. Then in 1900, he completed the huge score of his oratorio within a few months. He had prepared the libretto himself, making substantial cuts in the text, especially the second part, after discussions with Fr. Richard Bellasis, trustee of Cardinal Newman’s literary estate. The remarkable rigour of Elgar’s composition overcomes any lack of external drama and makes the difficult subject matter accessible to all listeners.

Part I, just over half an hour in length and introduced by a thematically concentrated orchestral prelude in D major/minor, is taken up with Gerontius’s prayers, dreams and death, culminating in the Priest sending his Soul on its way to Heaven. Gentle exultation is the basic tone of Part II, lasting roughly an hour, in which the Soul is accompanied by the Angel on its final journey. The belief that all things that decay are “only a likeness” (Goethe), all things earthly only a trial for departing from and entering the spiritual world, has seldom been set to music as potently yet serenely as in this work. Even the immediate fear of physical death that briefly afflicts Gerontius at the end of Part I is depicted with comparative discretion by the orchestra. The string complement, subdivided into 16 parts, is initially held down to pppp until the harmony takes on an unusual chromatic colouring, underscoring the dying man’s struggle.

At once, the chorus cries out “Rescue him, O Lord” and then it too is magically divided: a semi-chorus, supported by the organ, prays for Gerontius; it is answered by the larger chorus with melismatic Amens. In Part II, Elgar divides the chorus into Demons, Angels, Souls in Purgatory and praying “Voices on Earth”. Although The Dream of Gerontius is primarily conceived as a choral work, it contains a highly demanding solo part, one requiring great stamina: the tenor, who portrays Gerontius in Part I and his Soul in Part II. He is present over long stretches of the work and must stand up to a large ensemble throughout an extremely wide and differentiated range of dynamics, mostly restrained. Alongside him is the solo bass embodying the Priest praying for Gerontius in Part I and the Angel of the Agony praying for his Soul in Part II.

When Gerontius awakens in the second part and, against gently pulsating strings, feels “a strange refreshment”, a guiding Angel (mezzo-soprano) appears and enters into a dialogue in recitative with the Soul that forms the framework of Part II upon which the successive otherworldly phases unfold. The Dream of Gerontius has often been compared with Wagner’s Parsifal, which surely says more about the inspiration of Elgar’s work than its execution. As a detailed compositional vision of the hereafter – apart from settings of the Requiem – Gerontius is a musical rarity. Perhaps the most astonishing exception to that assertion was provided by Gustav Mahler, whose Fourth Symphony, ending with the song Das himmlische Leben (Heavenly Life), was composed at the same time as but completely independently of Gerontius. At first glance, no work could seem farther removed from Elgar’s oratorio than this symphony in which Mahler makes use of such far-flung elements as sleighbells and a mistuned violin.

The apparent irony of the cheerful hereafter conjured up in Mahler’s finale with soprano solo, based on a text from Des Knaben Wunderhorn, also seems worlds away from the solemn gravity of Cardinal Newman and Elgar. In fact, the opposite is true. It was by no means the intention of Mahler, who had converted to Catholicism only three years before, to poke fun at the eschatology of his newly acquired faith. Mahler completed the draft score of his Fourth on 6 August 1900, exactly two months after Elgar wrote the final bar of Gerontius. The last lines set by Mahler in the symphony read: “Die englischen Stimmen / Ermuntern die Sinnen, / Dass alles für Freuden erwacht” (“The angelic voices / delight the senses, / for all things awake to joy.” Elgar at the end of Gerontius has the Angel sing: “Be brave and patient on thy bed of sorrow; … And I will come and wake thee on the morrow.” Both works then die away in the major as softly as possible – these two great visionaries leave the final awakening to us listeners.

Olaf Wilhelmer Translation: Richard Evidon Daniel Barenboim and the Berliner Philharmoniker can look back on an artistic partnership lasting forty-five years. It was as a pianist that Barenboim made his debut with the orchestra under the direction of Pierre Boulez in June 1964. He first conducted the orchestra five years later. At his most recent appearance in April 2010 he conducted works by Brahms, Wagner, and Elgar. As soloist, he performed the two Chopin Piano Concertos with the orchestra in October 2010 (concductor: Asher Fisher). Daniel Barenboim was born in Buenos Aires in 1942 but moved to Israel with his parents ten years later. His first piano teacher was his mother, followed by his father. He was ten when he made his professional debut in Vienna and Rome, and it was not long before he was undertaking international tours. He made his conducting debut in London in 1967 and since then has appeared with leading orchestras throughout Europe and the United States.

The most important stages in his career to date have been as principal conductor of the Orchestre de Paris from 1975 to 1989, as music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra from 1991 to 2006 and as general music director of Berlin’s Staatsoper Unter den Linden since 1992. In the autumn of 2002 the Berlin Staatskapelle appointed him principal conductor for life. Barenboim has additionally appeared as a guest conductor at many international festivals, including the Bayreuth Festival, where he conducted a number of important productions every year from 1981 to 1999. Since the start of the 2007/08 season he has also worked closely with La Scala, Milan, in the role of Maestro Scaligero and since December 2011 as their Music Director. In 1999 Barenboim and the Palestinian writer Edward Said set up the West-Eastern Divan Workshop, which every summer brings together young musicians from Israel and the Arab countries in order that the shared experience of communal music-making may encourage dialogue between the different cultures of the Middle East.

In 2002 Barenboim and Said received the Príncipe de Asturias Prize for their peace efforts in fostering international understanding. Among other awards that Daniel Barenboim has received are the Großes Verdienstkreuz of the Federal Republic of Germany and the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize; he was named »Grand officier dans l’ordre national de la Légion d’honneur« in France and »Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire«. The Rundfunkchor Berlin, founded in 1925, produced great musical moments of the 1920s and 30s under the direction of conductors such as George Szell, Hermann Scherchen, Otto Klemperer and Erich Kleiber. After the Second World War, the choir and its principal conductor Helmut Koch made the oratorios of Handel internationally known in their original versions.

Dietrich Knothe (1982 – 1993) formed the choir into a precision instrument for the most difficult of works; Robin Gritton (1994 – 2001) both enriched and refined the ensemble’s palette of colours. Since 2001, the Rundfunkchor Berlin has been led by Simon Halsey, who places particular emphasis on stylistic and linguistic perfection, resulting in lively and exciting performances of works from all periods and in all styles. Their work together is documented by a busy recording schedule; recently their CD of Kaija Saariaho’s opera L’amour de loin with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester conducted by Kent Nagano won the 2010 Grammy Award for best opera recording. Simon Halsey, who was awarded the “Bundesverdienstkreuz” (Cross of the Order of Merit) in January 2011, has also initiated many of the choir’s education and outreach projects, the interdisciplinary event series Broadening the Scope of Choral Music as well as the annual Sing-along Concert.

The choir has been a partner of leading orchestras and conductors all over the world, including long-standing partnerships with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester and the Berliner Philharmoniker. The Rundfunkchor Berlin last appeared with the Berliner Philharmoniker in December 2011 performing Poulenc’s Gloria, conducted by Nicola Luisotti. Kwangchul Youn received his musical training in his native South Korea as well as in Sofia and Berlin. A winner of several competitions, he gave his debut in 1988 in Seoul, and was an ensemble member at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin from the 1993/94 season until 2004. Since then, engagements have taken him to the major opera houses, such as those in Vienna, Munich, Frankfurt, Leipzig, Hamburg, London, Paris, Barcelona, Buenos Aires and New York. Kwangchul Youn’s repertoire includes stage works by Mozart, Beethoven, Rossini, Gounod, Verdi, Strauss and, in particular, Richard Wagner.

The bass performs at prestigious festivals (such as Bayreuth, Ludwigsburg and Salzburg) and also enjoys international success on the concert stage. In addition, he regularly gives recitals with his regular accompanist Helmut Oertel. Kwangchul Youn performed with the Berliner Philharmoniker for the first time in May 2002 in the bass role of Mozart’s Requiem under the baton of Daniel Barenboim; his most recent Berlin concerts with the orchestra were in mid-March 2007 with three performances of Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis, conducted by Bernard Haitink. Since 2009, Youn Kwangchoul has been a professor at the College of Music at Seoul National University. Ian Storey is from Chilton in the English county of Durham. He first studied furniture design at the University of Loughborough before training as a singer in New Zealand and London (including at the National Opera Studio), Milan and Trieste. His stage career began in 1991 at Opera East as the Male Chorus in Benjamin Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia.

Since then, Ian Storey has developed a broad repertoire which, in addition to the standard works of the 19th and 20th century from Bizet to Shostakovich, also includes rarely-heard operas such as The Olympians by Arthur Bliss and A Tale of Two Cities by Arthur Benjamin. Engagements have taken the tenor not only to the major British opera companies, but also to La Scala in Milan, Zurich Opera, the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, Frankfurt Opera, the Royal Swedish Opera in Stockholm, the Washington National Opera and, in Berlin, to the Deutsche Oper and the Staatsoper im Schiller Theater. In addition, he has also performed at major festivals such as those at Glyndebourne, Edinburgh, St Gallen and Torre del Lago. In addition to his opera commitments, the artist is also invited to perform as a concert soloist with leading symphony orchestras; this will be his debut with the Berliner Philharmoniker. In 2008, Ian Storey was awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters (DLitt) by Loughborough University, and is the official representative of the English county of Herefordshire.

The Swedish singer Anna Larsson has established herself on the opera stage and in the concert hall as one of the most renowned altos internationally. Her repertoire ranges from Monteverdi’s Orfeo, the great masses of Bach and Beethoven, Verdi’s Requiem and the vocal-symphonic works of Brahms and Mahler, to Bernstein’s Symphony No. 1 (Jeremiah).As an opera singer, Anna Larsson focuses on roles in the music dramas of Richard Wagner in which she has appeared at theatres such as the Royal Opera houses in Copenhagen and Stockholm, the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels, the state opera houses in Vienna, Munich and Berlin and at festivals including Salzburg, Florence and Aix-en-Provence. This season, she sings Erda in Das Rheingold at the Staatsoper im Schiller Theater in Berlin under the baton of Daniel Barenboim. The artist regularly performs with the world’s leading orchestras and conductors.

She made her debut with the Berliner Philharmoniker in the soprano part in Mahler’s Second Symphony (conducted by Claudio Abbado) during a European tour by the orchestra in October 1997; she most recently performed with the orchestra in Berlin as Erda in Wagner’s Rheingold conducted by Sir Simon Rattle in mid-June 2006. Anna Larsson, who is also a passionate performer of lieder, was named Royal Court Singer by King Carl XVI Gustaf in 2010. In summer 2011 she opened her own concert hall Vattnäs Konsertlada near Mora (Sweden). Daniel Barenboim appears by courtesy of Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft.

Watch now Elgar Dream of Gerontius Vocal Score : Choraline Elgar Dream of Gerontius Vocal Score Username WEBSITE ORDERS - ChoraLine Store on left hand side PHONE ORDERS - 01285 644845 Mon to Fri 9am to 4pm SAME DAY DESPATCH (Please order by 3pm) FIRST CLASS POST - FREE GIFTS with Postal Orders over £30 EASYPLAY (Stream & Download) For Immediate Use Music Gifts for Children Elgar Dream of Gerontius Vocal Score The Dream of Gerontius, popularly called just Gerontius, is an oratorio (Opus 38) in two parts composed by Edward Elgar in 1900, to text from the poem by Cardinal Newman. It relates the journey of a pious man's soul from his deathbed to his judgment before God and settling into Purgatory. It is widely regarded as Elgar's finest choral work, and by some to be his magnum opus. It was composed for the Birmingham Music Festival of 1900 and the first performance took place on 3 October 1900, in Birmingham Town Hall.

If you wish to buy Elgar's Dream of Gerontius, please click Vocal Scores and then FILTER BY COMPOSER, or see below for more. Newman's poem tells the story of a soul's journey through death, and provides a meditation on the unseen world of Roman Catholic theology. Gerontius (a name derived from the Greek word geron, "old man") is a devout Everyman. Elgar's setting uses most of the text of the first part of the poem, which takes place on Earth, but omits many of the more meditative sections of the much longer, otherworldly second part, tightening the narrative flow. In the first part, we hear Gerontius as a dying man of faith, by turns fearful and hopeful, but always confident. A group of friends (also called "assistants" in the text) joins him in prayer and meditation. He passes in peace, and a priest, with the assistants, sends him on his way with a valediction.

In the second part, Gerontius, now referred to as "The Soul", awakes in a place apparently without space or time, and becomes aware of the presence of his guardian angel, who expresses joy at the culmination of her task (Newman conceived the Angel as male, but Elgar gives the part to a female singer). After a long dialogue, they journey towards the judgment throne. They safely pass a group of demons, and encounter choirs of angels, eternally praising God for His grace and forgiveness. The Angel of the Agony pleads with Jesus to spare the souls of the faithful. Finally Gerontius glimpses God and is judged in a single moment. The Guardian Angel lowers Gerontius into the soothing lake of Purgatory, with a final benediction and promise of a re-awakening to glory. The oratorio calls for a large orchestra of typical late Romantic proportions, double chorus with semichorus, and usually three soloists. Gerontius is sung by a tenor, and the Angel is a mezzo-soprano.

The Priest's part is written for a baritone, while the Angel of the Agony is more suited to a bass, but as both parts are short they are usually sung by the same performer. However, some performances assign different singers for the two parts. The choir plays several roles: attendants and friends, demons, Angelicals (women only) and Angels, and souls in Purgatory. They are employed at different times as a single chorus in four parts, or as a double chorus in eight parts or antiphonally. The semichorus is used for music of a lighter texture; usually in performance they are composed of a few members of the main chorus; however, Elgar himself preferred to have the semi-chorus placed near the front of the stage. The required instrumentation includes two flutes (II doubling piccolo), two oboes and cor anglais, two clarinets in A and bass clarinet, two bassoons and contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani plus three percussion parts, harp, organ, and strings.

Elgar called for an additional harp if possible, plus three additional trumpets (and any available percussionists) to reinforce the climax in Part II, just before Gerontius's vision of God. Each of the two parts is divided into distinct sections but, unlike in most oratorios before the time, the music continues without significant breaks. Part I is approximately 35 minutes long and Part II is approximately 60 minutes. Part I: 2. Jesu, Maria – I am near to death 3. Rouse thee, my fainting soul 4. Sanctus fortis, sanctus Deus 5. Proficiscere, anima Christiana 1. I went to sleep 2. It is a member of that family 3. But hark! upon my sense comes a fierce hubbub 4. I see not those false spirits 5. But hark! a grand mysterious harmony 6. Thy judgement now is near 7. I go before my judge 8. Softly and gently, dearly-ransomed soul The work begins with an orchestral prelude which presents the most important motifs.

In a detailed analysis, Elgar's friend and editor August Jaeger identified and named these themes, in line with their functions in the work. Gerontius sings a prayer, knowing that life is leaving him and giving voice to his fear, and asks for his friends to pray with him. For much of the soloist's music, Elgar writes in a style that switches smoothly between exactly notated, fully accompanied recitative, and arioso phrases, lightly accompanied. The chorus adds devotional texts in four-part fugal writing. Gerontius's next utterance is a full-blown aria Sanctus fortis, a long credo that eventually returns to expressions of pain and fear. Again, in a mixture of conventional chorus and recitative, the friends intercede for him. Gerontius, at peace, submits, and the priest recites the blessing Go forth upon thy journey, Christian soul! (a translation of the litany Ordo Commendationis Animae). This leads to a long chorus for the combined forces, ending Part I. In a complete change of mood, Part II begins with a simple four-note phrase for the violas which introduces a gentle, rocking theme for the strings.

This section is in triple time, as is much of the second part. The Soul's music expresses wonder at its new surroundings, and when the Angel is heard, she expresses quiet exultation at the climax of her task. They converse in an extended duet, again combining recitative with pure sung sections. Increasingly busy music heralds the appearance of the demons: fallen angels who express intense disdain of men, mere mortals by whom they were supplanted. Initially the men of the chorus sing short phrases in close harmony, but as their rage grows more intense the music shifts to a busy fugue, punctuated by shouts of derisive laughter. Gerontius cannot see the demons, and asks if he will soon see his God. In a barely accompanied recitative that recalls the very opening of the work, the Angel warns him that the experience will be almost unbearable, and in veiled terms describes the stigmata of St. Francis. Angels can be heard, offering praises over and over again. The intensity gradually grows, and eventually the full chorus gives voice to a thrilling setting of the section that begins with Praise to the Holiest in the Height.

After a brief orchestral passage, the Soul hears echoes from the friends he left behind on earth, still praying for him. He encounters the Angel of the Agony, whose intercession is set as an impassioned aria for bass. The Soul's Angel, knowing the long-awaited moment has come, sings an Alleluia. The Soul now goes before God and, in a huge orchestral outburst, is judged in an instant. At this point in the score, Elgar instructs "for one moment, must every instrument exert its fullest force." This was not originally in Elgar's design, but was inserted at the insistence of Jaeger, and remains as a testament to the positive musical influence of his critical friendship with Elgar. In an anguished aria, the Soul then pleads to be taken away. A chorus of souls sings the first lines of Psalm 90 ("Lord, thou hast been our refuge") and, at last, Gerontius joins them in Purgatory. The final section combines the Angel, chorus, and semichorus in a prolonged song of farewell, and the work ends with overlapping Amens.

This rearrangement of the text was devised by Elgar to adhere to the traditional form of the oratorio, which requires the work to end with a final statement by the chorus. Like Cardinal Newman, Elgar was a Roman Catholic and was intimately familiar with the poem. He had owned a copy since at least 1885, and in 1889 he was given another copy as a wedding present. This contained handwritten copies of extensive notes that had been made by General Gordon, and Elgar is known to have considered the text in musical terms for several years. Throughout the 1890s, Elgar had composed several large-scale works for the regular festivals that were a key part of Britain's musical life. In 1898, based on his growing reputation, he was asked to write a major work for the 1900 Birmingham Triennial Music Festival. He was unable to start work on the commission until the autumn of 1899 though, and after considering a different subject decided to tackle the poem that he now knew so well. Composition proceeded quickly. Thanks to his Victorian habit of daily letter-writing, we have detailed insight into Elgar's interactions with Jaeger, his editor at the publisher Novello.

The record shows how Jaeger helped in shaping the work, and in particular the crucial depiction of the moment of judgment. But one result of the haste was that, despite their very considerable experience and the confidence which Elgar reposed in them, the performers and conductor, Hans Richter, were given only a short time in which to come to terms with a complex, demanding and somewhat revolutionary work. The soloists at the Birmingham Festival on 3 October 1900 were Marie Brema, Edward Lloyd and Harry Plunket Greene. The first performance was, famously, a near disaster, but many of the critics could see past the imperfect realisation and the work became quickly established in Britain. Shortly after the premiere, the German conductor and chorus master Julius Buths made a German translation of the oratorio and arranged a successful performance in Düsseldorf on 19 December 1901, placing it in an established part of the performance repertoire in Germany. Elgar was present and wrote "It completely bore out my idea of the work: the chorus was very fine". Buths produced it in Düsseldorf again on 19 May 1902 in conjunction with the Lower Rhenish Music Festival.

The soloists included Muriel Foster, and Elgar was again in the audience, being called to the stage 20 times to receive the audience's applause. This was the performance that finally convinced Elgar for the first time that he had written a truly satisfying work. Buths's festival co-director Richard Strauss was impressed enough by what he heard that at a post-concert banquet he said: I drink to the success and welfare of the first English progressive musician, Meister Elgar. In April 1911 the work was given its Canadian premiere in Toronto by Frank Welsman's Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the Sheffield Choir under the baton of the composer. In the first decades after its composition the leading performers of the soul were Gervase Elwes and John Coates, and Louise Kirkby Lunn, Elena Gerhardt and Julia Culp were admired as the angel. Dedication and superscription Elgar followed the practice of Johann Sebastian Bach in dedicating his work "A.M.D.G." (Ad maiorem Dei gloriam, or "To the greater glory of God").

Knowing that he had created a masterpiece, he wrote at the end of the manuscript score this quotation from John Ruskin's Sesame and Lilies: This is the best of me; for the rest, I ate, and drank, and slept, loved and hated, like another: my life was as the vapour and is not; but this I saw and knew; this, if anything of mine, is worth your memory. Although Gerontius was, indeed, his greatest achievement to date, several major works were to come in the following decade. The conductor Hans Richter signed the autograph copy of the score with the inscription: "Let drop the Chorus, let drop everybody--but let not drop the wings of your original genius." Until 1899, Elgar was generally regarded by the British musical establishment as a talented but essentially provincial composer and conductor. Most composers were academics. Furthermore, Britain was still looked down on by Continental Europe as having little to offer musically.

With the Enigma Variations and Gerontius, Elgar showed Europe that Britain could produce music of great stature, and he showed Britain that it was possible to make a living primarily as a composer, which opened the door for a succession of musicians who were composers first and foremost. The work itself has remained in the repertoire in both Britain and the U.S., during periods when Elgar's style has fallen in and out of favor, and despite its frank adherence to Catholic dogma. It is challenging, but not overwhelmingly so, for amateur choruses, and its pure narrative of faith usually overcomes sectarian objections. The solo parts have made or cemented the reputations of generations of British singers. This is particularly true of the Angel, whose part has passed from Muriel Foster to Clara Butt, Kathleen Ferrier, and Janet Baker. As has been noted, Elgar was a Roman Catholic at a time when the Church of England was socially and politically dominant, and the work is Catholic in its dogma. This gave rise to objections in some influential quarters; some clerics expressed the wish that Elgar would modify the text to remove the word "masses" and other Catholic references. Fortunately Elgar was able to resist the suggested bowdlerization.

Similarly, Elgar reported that several people had assumed he would use the standard hymn tunes for the sections of the poem that had already been absorbed into Anglican hymn books: Firmly I believe and truly, and Praise to the Holiest in the Height. The idea was presumably that the audience could join in the singing. Again, Elgar had no such intention. In performance, the semichorus is often composed of a small number of singers embedded in the main chorus. However, Elgar approved of the layout used in the Düsseldorf performance, when the group was placed in front of the orchestra, providing a contrasting tonal quality. Benjamin Britten's recording uses the choir of King's College, Cambridge as semichorus to good effect, with its unique tonal quality of boys and cathedral-trained young men. Gerontius is the title of a historical novel by James Hamilton-Paterson, which gives an imagined account of a cruise to South America and up the Amazon that Elgar took in 1923, but about which little is known. The piece was written at Spetchley Park, home of the Berkeley Family.

Elgar stayed in Gardeners Cottage and was said to have been inspired by the sound of the wind through the pines there - which can still be heard today. Click here to view all items related to the Dream of Gerontius. Copyright © Choraline 2017 | Edward Elgar: "The Dream of Gerontius" - YouTube Edward Elgar: "The Dream of Gerontius" Want to watch this again later? Sign in to add this video to a playlist. Need to report the video? Sign in to report inappropriate content. Rating is available when the video has been rented. This feature is not available right now. Please try again later. Published on May 13, 2014 Text by John Henry Newman Wesley Rogers, tenor (Gerontius / Soul of Gerontius) Kendall Gladen, mezzo-soprano (Angel) Kevin Deas, bass (Priest / Angel of Agony) UC Davis Symphony Orchestra | Christian Baldini, music director D.

Kern Holoman, conducting University & Alumni Chorus | Jeffrey Thomas, conductor Garrett Shatzer, assistant conductor Sacramento Opera Chorus | Bruce Olstad, chorusmaster Alda Turgieva, rehearsal accompanist Nina Ankelé, chorus manager | Rod Gideons, general director Category Elgar - A Short Biography A Short Biography by Ian Lace Elgar was born on 2nd June 1857 at Broadheath, a village some three miles from the small city of Worcester in the English West Midlands. His father had a music shop in Worcester and tuned pianos. The Elgar shop in the centre of Worcester The young Elgar, therefore, had the great advantage of growing up in a thoroughly practical musical atmosphere. He studied the music available in his father's shop and taught himself to play a wide variety of instruments. It is a remarkable fact that Elgar was very largely self-taught as a composer - evidence of the strong determination behind his original and unique genius. His long struggle to establish himself as a pre-eminent composer of international repute was hard and often bitter.

For many years he had to contend with apathy, with the prejudices of the entrenched musical establishment, with religious bigotry (he was a member of the Roman Catholic minority in a Protestant majority England) and with a late Victorian provincial society where class consciousness pervaded everything. Throughout the 1880s and the 1890s his experience grew and his style matured as he conducted and composed for local musical organisations. He also taught the violin and played the organ at St. George's Roman Catholic Church in Worcester. Alice Elgar In 1889 he married one of his pupils, Caroline Alice Roberts, daughter of the late Major- General Sir Henry Roberts who had enjoyed a distinguished career with the British army in India. She married Edward in opposition to her aunts and cousins (her mother had died in 1887) who considered that in marrying the son of a mere tradesman, a music teacher without prospects, she was marrying beneath herself. Nevertheless, Alice with determination and a dogged faith in Edward's emerging genius, played a vital part in the development of Elgar's career.

Slowly, and through such early works as Froissart (1890), the Imperial March (1897) and the cantatas King Olaf (1896) and Caractacus (1898), his reputation began to spread beyond the area immediately around his native Worcestershire. His first big success came with the Variations on an Original Theme (Enigma) in 1899. Dedicated to "my friends pictured within", this work, which is a masterpiece of form and orchestration, showed that Elgar, by that time, had surpassed the other leading English composers of his day, both in technical accomplishment and sheer force of musical personality. The final page of the manuscript score of The Dream of Gerontius After Sea Pictures , a song cycle for contralto and orchestra (1899), came one of Elgar's greatest religious compositions - The Dream of Gerontius - based on Cardinal Newman's poem about a soul's journey through to its judgement and beyond. Unfortunately, due to inadequate rehearsals, the first performance at Birmingham in October 1900 of this complex and original work proved to be a failure, but the majority of the critics recognised the work's greatness.

Fortunately, the composition was rescued from oblivion by a second performance under Julius Buths at Dusseldorf in December 1901, and again at the Lower Rhine Festival in Dusseldorf in May the following year. Following this latter performance, Richard Strauss praised Elgar as the first English progressive musician. After the initial failure of the Dream of Gerontius in 1900, Elgar was understandably depressed, but within a few days he had characteristically started writing again - an ebullient concert overture - Cockaigne (In London Town) which was successfully premiered in 1901. Confirming this success, in the same year came the first two Pomp and Circumstance Marches - the first in D major containing the famous trio section that was later to becomeLand of Hope and Glory. Elgar appreciated its worth; he had prophesied: "I've got a tune that will knock 'em - knock 'em flat! a tune like that comes once in a lifetime " Elgar had 'arrived'.

An all-Elgar festival at Covent Garden was held in 1904, which included an exuberant new overture, In the South , written after a visit to Alassio in Italy. In July of that year, Elgar was knighted by King Edward VII. By this time, Elgar's works were being performed both in Europe and in the USA In 1905, came the Introduction and Allegro for Strings , a masterly essay in string writing dedicated to Professor Sanford of Yale University. In 1906, Elgar was busy working on his great oratorio, The Kingdom , the sequel to The Apostles of 1903. These two works were based on an intricate tapestry of linking leitmotives in the style of Wagner. Elgar originally intended that there should be a cycle of three oratorios but the third part of the trilogy was never completed. Elgar conducting in EMI's Abbey Road No 1 studio in 1931 Elgar next began to concentrate on symphonic work. He had been planning a symphony (originally around the character of General Gordon) as early as 1898.

Work began again in earnest during the winter of 1907-08, while he was staying in Rome. The Symphony No. 1 in A flat was first performed in Manchester in December 1908. It was dedicated to and conducted by Hans Richter who said of it: "Gentlemen, let us now rehearse the greatest symphony of modern times, written by the greatest modern composer - and not only in this country". The work was received with tremendous enthusiasm and there were a hundred performances of it in Britain and all over Europe and in America, Australia and Russia, etc. in just over a year. August Jaeger of Novellos (the music publishers) - Nimrod of the Enigma Variations - believed that the symphony's slow movement was comparable to those of Beethoven . A Violin Concerto in B minor followed in 1910 and then, in 1911, another symphony. The violin concerto was dedicated to Fritz Kreisler who gave the first performance. The score is headed with an inscription in Spanish: "Aqui esta encerrada el alma de .." ("Here is enshrined the soul of .").

Some say that he was referring to Alice Stuart-Wortley, daughter of the English Pre-Raphaelite painter Millais. She was closely associated with Elgar and his music at this time. The concerto is a difficult virtuoso piece similar in scale to the Brahms concerto but more richly orchestrated. The slow movement has a particular beauty and the last movement has a unique and magical feature - an accompanied cadenza where the strings are instructed that the pizzicato tremolando should be thrummed with the soft part of three fingers whilst the violin muses at length over ideas recalled from the earlier movements. Elgar conducting at Wembley The Symphony No. 2 in E flat , although by no means as immediately successful as its predecessor, is nevertheless probably Elgar's profoundest symphonic utterance. The score is prefaced by a quotation from Shelley: "Rarely, rarely comest thou, Spirit of Delight", suggesting that the work is not only about delight but also about the rarity of its occurrence. Elgar dedicated the symphony to the memory of King Edward VII, who had recently died but the composition is much more than an expression of national mourning for a much loved monarch.

Elgar admitted to his friends that it symbolised everything that had happened to him between April 1909 and February 1911, and its roots went back even further. He marked the score with two place names - Venice & Tintagel. In fact the Larghetto, usually assumed to be a funeral lament for the late King, begins with an idea inspired by the Basilica of St. Mark in Venice, which Elgar had visited in 1909. Between the period of the Second Symphony and the beginning of the First World War in 1914, there appeared only two major works - The Music Makers , an ode for contralto, chorus and orchestra based on a poem by Arthur O'Shaughnessy (1912), and a symphonic study based on Shakespeare's Falstaff (1913). The Music Makers is a deeply personal work with many self quotations from earlier works. It expresses the positive influence on society of the creative artist but it also underlines his loneliness and vulnerability.

Elgar considered Falstaff to be amongst his very best works - a view shared by many professional musicians - but after the personal outpourings of the great oratorios, the symphonies and the violin concerto, Falstaff seemed relatively detached and this probably explains its comparative neglect. The First World War depressed Elgar deeply. Apart from a few patriotic pieces, incidental music for a children's play entitled The Starlight Express (1915), settings of three war poems by Laurence Binyon The Spirit of England (1915-17), now recognised as one of the composer's masterpieces, and the ballet The Sanguine Fan (1917), nothing major emerged. It was not until 1918 and 1919 that his final great period produced the three chamber works - the Violin Sonata and the String Quartet , both in E minor, the Piano Quintet in A minor and the Cello Concerto in E minor , his last great masterpiece. Audiences were quick to note the change - no longer the pomp and swagger of earlier days. Here was a new Elgar - less assured, more contemplative, more withdrawn.

Speaking of the Cello Concerto, Elgar's biographer Ian Parrott says: "It is a work apart, by a lonely man in war-time who sees that artistic criteria have altered irreversibly". In 1920, Lady Elgar died and with her died much of Elgar's inspiration and will to compose. She had organised his household and ministered to his comforts. For a long time she saved him hours of drudgery, for instance by ruling bar lines on score paper. She walked miles in all weathers to post precious parcels of manuscript and proofs. In the early days of their marriage she had collaborated with him to produce such works as Scenes from the Bavarian Highlands (1896) - Elgar's settings of his wife's poems inspired by holidays spent in Germany. At times when success seemed forever to be eluding him, she never lost faith. In short, she had been the driving force behind his genius encouraging him and proclaiming his talents at every opportunity.

Elgar with Marco, his spaniel dog Throughout the 1920s, Elgar, saddened by his bereavement and by the social and musical changes brought about by the war, lived in virtual retirement, outwardly content to live the life of a country gentleman in his beloved Worcestershire with his dogs, sometimes emerging for the occasional visit to London or for a conducting or recording assignment. (He made a fine series of recordings of his own compositions for HMV). Honours continued to be conferred on him: in 1928 he was created Knight Commander of the Victorian Order (K.C.V.O). About this time, it seemed that he had taken on a new lease of life for he began work on a number of large projects including an opera, The Spanish Lady and a third symphony. In 1933 he flew to Paris to conduct his violin concerto with the youthful Yehudi Menuhin, the soloist with whom he had recorded the work in London some weeks earlier. Whilst in France, Elgar took the opportunity of visiting Delius at Grez-sur-Loing. Both men had but one more year to live.

In October, Elgar was found to be suffering from a malignant tumour which pressed on the sciatic nerve. Further composition became impossible and he died on 23rd February, 1934. © ELGAR SOCIETY 1979 . "For thirty years after his death in 1934, his music was considered to be 'out of fashion'. It was said to epitomise the Edwardian era and to have no relevance to a later age.

I believe, however, that it is far too great to be tied to one short period of history and that, in any case, it is music of so personal a nature that it can be described accurately not as 'Edwardian' but only as 'Elgarian'." Michael Kennedy - 'Portrait of Elgar' (Oxford University Press -1968) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ " His greatest music was, and often is, regarded as quintessentially English But when this has been done, there is still the paradox that appreciation of Elgar was shown in the first place by immigrants or foreigners of singular discernment " "They (the Elgars) were proud to be English; they were often concerned with the little as well as the large issues of national life; but they accepted it as axiomatic that national sentiment was valueless unless it was linked to the humane tradition of European thought " Dr. Percy M. Young - 'Elgar O.M.' (Purnell Book Services - 1973 edition) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Edward Elgar (2nd June 1857 - 23rd February 1934) - "Those years had seen change accelerate as never before in human history.

His response had been to seek the illumination of time remembered. For all those of his generation and the future who would feel the insight of retrospection, he had made of that evanescence his music." Jerrold Northrop Moore - 'Edward Elgar - A Creative Life' (Oxford University Press - 1984)

Question: Who composed the oratorio 'The Dream of Gerontius'?
Answer: Edward Elgar