Reviews
Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius (Sunday 16th Nov 2008) - LCS with The Derbyshire Singers
"Rarely comest thou spirit of delight"
(Epigram from Shelley on Elgar's 2nd Symphony)
I first discovered Gerontius in a piano score in a friend's garage in the early 60s. I played through what I could cope with, memorised the text, and then bought the LPs.
In time, since it was rare to hear any other choral work by Elgar, I had attended over 30 performances and found I could not enjoy a performance without analysing it bar by bar.
So it was with a degree of trepidation that I agreed to attend the performance at Blackheath Halls to be given by the Lewisham Choral Society with The Derbyshire Singers (in a joint performance) on Sunday 16th November 2008.
Elgar marks the opening of the prelude as crochet=60 - literally the dying seconds of his protagonist. I counted the beats - perfection - the orchestra glowed with exultant brass and sumptuous strings.
My ideal Gerontius needs a full, rich tone but above all the intelligence to respond minutely to the text. In this performance I found him. Christopher Lemmings has beauty of tone, power and the theatrical response needed for the text.
The bass soloist has a difficult task in that he has two very diverse roles to sing. The priest in part one has a high lying tessitura and must project a sense of noble security.
In part two, as the Angel of the Agony, the vocal line is reversed, lying in a lower, darker register and in tortured, chromatic lines; an anguished plea not a serene farewell. --------- Matthew Hargreaves stood in at a few hours' notice for the indisposed Brindley Sherratt and sang the roles with much assurance.
The Angel whom we meet in part two will for so many hearers always be Dame Janet Baker. This is a role mezzo sopranos work towards. Juliette Pochin was giving a debut performance and was a delight, my only reservation being that she needs to tidy up some of her enunciation. It will come with repeated performances.
Of the choir, I can only express myself in superlatives. The semi-chorus conveyed what Elgar wanted: a sound coming from another place. The full chorus blazed in splendour in the climactic chorus "Praise to the Holiest".
As I had been impressed by the opening, I found the last bar perfect. The chorus ends fractionally before the pause marked in the score for the orchestra so we have the effect of an eternal song floating across the ether.
All praise is due to the Society's conductor, Stefan Reid, who was such a faithful interpreter of this complex and innovatory score.
Elgar's music needs advocates who can by performance share their affection for it with their audience. Lewisham Choral Society and the Aurelian Orchestra did that to perfection. It will, I believe, be a long time before I hear a performance to satisfy me in the way this one did.
Martin Passande
(London Branch Chairman of the Elgar Society 1992-2008 and a member of the Society since the 1960s)
