Hamer Hall, Melbourne
March 10, 2018 at 2pm

The Dream of Gerontius has come a long way since its first disastrous performance in Birmingham on October 3, 1900. Elgar’s masterly setting of lines from the poem by John Henry Newman provoked hostility and derision on two main counts. Firstly, the subject matter was considered far too Roman Catholic with its mentions of purgatory; and secondly, the musical idiom was so unlike anything that performers had previously encountered, especially in standard oratorios with their succession of set pieces.

It is not surprising, however, that the work soon became popular in Germany, where it had no less a champion that Richard Strauss. Contemporary trends in German music had deeply influenced Elgar, especially the work of Wagner. Elgar heard Parsifal twice at Bayreuth in 1892 and commentators have noted the similarities between the two works.

Nearly 120 years later Gerontius is almost universally acknowledged as a masterpiece and several of Newman’s texts (“Praise to the Holiest” and “Firmly I believe and truly”) have become popular hymns. Once dismissed as a work “reeking of incense,” Elgar’s oratorio now enjoys a much wider appeal because it deals directly and disarmingly with that most universal of subjects –...