I’ll build a stairway to purgatory
With a new step ev’ry day!
Wish it could be more, well, momentary
But Heaven, I’m on my way!
I’ll catch a glimpse
And then it’s suff’ring, Ha ha!
Since! I’m merely human, Ha ha!
I’ll build a stairway to purgatory
With a new step ev’ry day!
No, Thomasina has not turned into a crazy religious tap dancer, it’s just how things are turning out this week. In this case: eight more sleeps before The Dream of Gerontius gets another hearing in Sydney.
It’s a strange but exhilarating piece and there’s a lot no one’s going to tell you about it.
For example, it tends to be publicised with all the usual “uplifting” verbiage that’s automatically applied to religious choral works. But a normal religious choral work this is not. Gerontius is not a liturgical setting – it’s not a straightforward mass or even a requiem – and it’s not a nice dramatic interpretation of a Bible story either. It’s kind of weird and a bit intense, with shades of Wagner (think Parsifal). It’s also a masterpiece, and that cuts through all the misunderstandings that have plagued it.
It offers a very personal interpretation of faith and death, where a requiem, whether fiery or consoling, would give us some distance. Gerontius is an old man (which is not something I have to tell those who’ve studied classical languages or who love etymologies). He’s lived life to the full and for real, which means Elgar can give him “full-blooded” music. It’s soul-baring too. Gerontius has questions and fears and he feels pain (and he needs to be a super-dooper tenor).
And Gerontius is very, very “Catholic”. Elgar was Catholic. The text is from a 900-line poem by Cardinal Newman, who, the Liminal Being reports, is about to be canonised. Gerontius dies – well and good, this happens in music. But he goes to purgatory, which is something that doesn’t happen so often in music, Iron Maiden aside. There’s a tantalising glimpse of heaven as the theology dictates, but then it’s off to join the other tormented souls. Thank God for the Anglicans, I say.
The Dream of Gerontius didn’t get off to a great start: ill-chosen soloists, poorly prepared choir (the chorusmaster died, the replacement brought out of retirement was repelled by the subject), the conductor Hans Richter got his hands on the final score only 10 days out. So, a bad performance combined with all the reservations that English Protestants were bound to have about a text that was not only Catholic but quirkily so.
Even now, when we’re a whole lot more relaxed about such things and when The Dream of Gerontius has been fully recognised as Elgar’s great masterwork, this piece continues to carry the whiff of bad press. For example, well before I first heard it, when I knew of it only by name and had only the vaguest idea of what it was about, I’d managed to acquire the perception that Gerontius was a difficult piece, long and boring.
Actually, it is long: 1 hour and 40 minutes of music. The rest of the bad press is bunkum. Because, as I discovered and as I’ve been reminding myself in recent weeks, when you actually listen to Gerontius in all its drama and deep feeling, and when you succumb to Elgar’s over-the-top gestures – the demons are my favourite, ha ha! – it’s not just good music but profoundly moving.
But it does belong to that category of work where, if you don’t understand where it’s coming from you could easily end up feeling as unsympathetic as the grouchy chorusmaster of the premiere. To that end, and in response to requests, I’m linking here to an SSO audio feature devised and presented by David Garrett: The Dream of Gerontius – A Catechism. It’s based on a pre-concert talk and, as the title would suggest, it uses questions and answers to get to the heart of Elgar’s spiritual inspiration. [The feature is streaming only, 24 minutes.]