Cardinal Newman's poem The Dream of
Gerontius was a well-known and much-loved work in its own right
by the time Elgar came to set it to music in 1900. It had been
translated into French and German and was reprinted during Newman's
lifetime. It achieved further notoriety when General Gordon died at
Khartoum leaving behind a copy with personal annotations that were
then copied by admirers. Elgar, who incidentally had wanted to write
a 'Gordon' Symphony in 1899 but never embarked seriously on the
project, had owned a copy of the poem since 1885 and he was given a
further copy as a wedding present in 1889. In early 1900 he set
about preparing a libretto for Gerontius, later revealing that the
poem had been "soaking in my mind for at least eight years".
Newman's poem falls into seven sections: the first is a prologue on
earth showing the dying dreamer surrounded by priests and
assistants, and the other six parts trace the Soul's progress
through Judgement to Purgatory. Newman's poem has a total of 900
lines, and these needed cutting to be manageable for a musical
setting. Elgar retained most of the prologue to form his Part I, and
he cut down the rest to 300 lines to form his Part II. This formed a
balanced libretto in two parts, and was Elgar's shortest libretto to
date for a full-scale work. This meant there was a new dramatic
contrast between the two states of life and death as presented in
the two parts of the work, and also that the words now wouldn't
confine the music but gave Elgar a flexible framework on which to
develop his musical tapestry.
It is important to remember that in
1900 Elgar had been struggling for recognition for years, and had
only recently enjoyed his first major success when the Enigma Variations
were premiered and instantly lauded in 1899. He thus came to The Dream of Gerontius
with a new assurance and he worked steadily on it through the first
half of 1900, finishing the full score on 3rd August. The premiere
was to take place in Birmingham in October, and there was
consequently very little time for the choral parts to be prepared
and the chorus to learn the music. The Birmingham Festival Chorus
Master who had prepared the choir for King Olaf
a few years earlier and was thus familiar with Elgar's compositional
style, had died suddenly in June. Because the choir had a break
during the summer months, there was even less time for them to
prepare. In addition, the complicated process of proof reading the
parts was compounded because the publisher would not go to the
expense of having the full score copied: there were just ten days
for the conductor Hans Richter to learn the score.
The premiere on 3rd October was
therefore under-rehearsed and somewhat chaotic. It was naturally not
to Elgar's satisfaction and there was a tepid response from the
critics. Shortly afterwards Elgar wrote, "I always said God was
against art… I have allowed my heart to open once - it is now shut
against every religious feeling and every soft, gentle impulse
forever." This was perhaps pessimistic and overdramatic, but it does
show how he felt about his work: earlier that year he wrote, "I've
written it out of my insidest inside" and at the end of the score he
had copied a quotation from Ruskin "this is the best of me": his
disappointment was understandable. Elgar shared a constant
correspondence with his publisher and great friend Jaeger throughout
the conception of the work: Jaeger had written in May "You must not,
cannot expect this work of yours to be appreciated by the ordinary
amateur (or critic!) after one hearing". It was another German,
Julius Buths the Director of the North Rhein Festival, who exceeded
Jaeger's expectations: he heard the premiere and organised further
performances in Düsseldorf for the following two seasons. Richter
conducted the work again in 1903 with the Hallé in Manchester, and
the piece's reputation grew gradually from these early outings into
the towering status it enjoys today as a cornerstone of the choral
repertoire.
For the first performance Jaeger
wrote an analysis of the score that contained many insights into the
meaning of the musical fabric. With the composer's approval, he
labelled Elgar's musical motives, or short melodic ideas, and set
about explaining their genesis through the piece. The orchestral
prelude begins with hushed strings presenting the 'Judgement' theme.
Even more tonally ambiguous is the
'Fear' theme that rises through the hushed strings with each part in
a different, unrelated key. This leads into the 'Prayer' theme,
closely related in melodic style to chant, and then immediately
Elgar transforms the 'Fear' theme into a repetitive figure in the
bass, over which he lays 'Sleep' which he characterised as "lying
down weary and distressed". As the bass ostinato continues, we hear
a descending melody ('Miserere') and then immediately a
chromatically aspiring melody which somehow always falls down again:
'Despair'. All of this material is combined and transformed,
suggesting Gerontius's loneliness and the challenge of his journey
to come, until we reach a sequence ('Commital') in which Elgar uses
a broad melody to build to the prelude's climax. After this the
music ebbs away leaving the 'Judgement' theme alone again once more,
whereupon we hear the first utterance of the mortally ill Gerontius.
As the orchestral prelude ends, it
is important to remember that the orchestra is not hereafter
relegated to second place after an initial showpiece 'overture'
style, but it begins on equal footing with the singers, as
expressive partner and dramatic commentator. Further to the
achievement of synthesising this orchestral and motivic development
style of Wagner with his own harmonic idiom, in The Dream of
Gerontius Elgar developed a technique of writing for the soloist
that allowed a clear understanding but musically flexible setting of
the text. From this moment in the piece, Newman's text at the same
time defines and inspires the composer's melody because of the
speech rhythms of the poetry. From his sketches, we can deduce that
the composer worked tirelessly at capturing the very essence of the
verse in his musical notes, and in the resulting arioso recitative
music.
The chorus play a variety of roles
throughout the piece, initially as Gerontius' friends praying at his
bedside, and later as Demons and Angelicals, and these are essential
in portraying the universality of Newman's theme. On that matter it
is of note that the name 'Gerontius' is never actually sung in the
piece (leading to an unresolvable debate as to the name's
pronunciation!) This specific omission must also contribute to the
universality of the character which Elgar envisaged: "I imagined
Gerontius to be a man like us, not a Priest or a Saint, but a
sinner, a repentant one of course but still no end of a worldly man
in his life, and now brought to book. Therefore I have not filled
his part with Church tunes and rubbish but a good, full-blooded
romantic, remembered worldliness..."
It is significant that Elgar chose
to set the part of the Angel for a woman singer: this would have
been justifiable simply as a contrast in tessitura from the other
roles, but through her guiding the Soul during Part II, Elgar wrote
his greatest love duet which has echoes of maternal guidance and
marital tenderness, and would have much less poignancy if it were
between two male singers. Briefly preceded by an echo of bedside
prayer from Part I, Gerontius's glimpse of God is an unforgettable
musical moment for the uninitiated concert-goer. It is perhaps
surprising to note that Elgar was persuaded at a very late stage to
include it, at the insistence of Jaeger: after initial concerns of
it being vulgar, when Elgar was finally convinced he wrote to his
friend that "of course, it's biggity-big!". The burial service
prayers led by the Priest at Gerontius's passing at the end of Part
I are mirrored by the Angel of the Agony towards the end of Part II
with the eternal prayers for 'souls which are so dear to thee': both
are awesome figures and add a liturgical solemnity to the musical
proceedings. The second is followed by the Angel's farewell, during
which Elgar pulls together all of his musical material as the Soul
passes into Purgatory. We hear the Psalm 'Lord
thou hast been our refuge',
and then echoes from the earlier hymn 'Praise
to the Holiest' and the
Angelicals music, before the ambiguous tonality of the very opening
of the piece is settled, and the key D major emerges on 'Amen'
with a rising, heavenward melody in the strings. |