Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius
Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius
The Gramophone Choice
Alice Coote mez Paul Groves ten Bryn Terfel bass-bar Hallé Youth Choir; Hallé Choir and Orchestra / Sir Mark Elder
Hallé CDHLD7520 (94’ · DDD · T/t) Buy from Amazon
For all sorts of reasons, Barbirolli’s famous Hallé account (EMI) has lived in everyone’s hearts for decades. It still will, because there is something about the immediacy and wholeheartedness of its vision that speaks as directly as ever. Mark Elder’s approach is more elusive. He draws us patiently, unerringly, into the profound mystery of the piece, judiciously weighing its theatricality against its inwardness. It is reverent in the best sense, with breathless pianissimos and a potency of atmosphere that takes hold from the moment we enter the dying man’s room. Just listen to the Hallé strings in the Prelude, or the introduction to Part 2. The stylistic finesse of the playing, the very particular articulation, the inbred portamento – all these qualities are testament to the fantastic work Elder has done with the orchestra.
It is, by a mile, the best-sounding Gerontius we have had, handsome in its depth and breadth, with great spatial perspectives and a wonderful sense of how the score is layered. On to this impressive sound stage comes Paul Groves’s Gerontius with a near-perfect blend of poetic restraint and high emotionalism – though some may feel that the ‘operatic’ hot-spots, ‘Take me away!’ being, of course, the hottest of them – are wanting in that last degree of heft. Elder and his sound team might have given us something more startling with that chord of ‘utmost force’ in the moment Gerontius finally glimpses his creator.
No lack of force or presence in Bryn Terfel’s proclamation to ‘Go forth!’ – the portals of heaven open to that, as indeed they do with the arrival of the heavenly host for the great ‘Praise to the Holiest’ chorus. The Hallé Choir bravely gather momentum in that, thanks to Elder’s insistence on clear rhythmic articulation, and he achieves a simply stonking crescendo on the final chord, leaving the organ to plumb infinite depths.
Of course, Janet Baker’s timbre still haunts every measure of the Angel’s music, but the wonderful Alice Coote conveys great confidentiality in her highly personalised reading. ‘Softly and gently’ is gloriously enveloping – and maybe that’s the word which ultimately best describes this fine and most satisfying recording.
Additional Recommendations
The Dream of Gerontius*. Cello Concerto**
*Gladys Ripley contr *Heddle Nash ten *Dennis Noble bar *Norman Walker bass **Paul Tortelier vc Huddersfield Choral Society; **BBC Symphony Orchestra; *Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra / Sir Malcolm Sargent
Testament mono SBT2025 (120‘ · ADD · T) Recorded *1945, **1953. Buy from Amazon
This pioneering set has come up newly minted in these superbly engineered transfers taken from 78rpm masters. That only enhances the incandescence and fervour of the reading itself, in virtually all respects the most convincing the work has received. Sargent’s conducting, influenced by Elgar’s, is direct, vital and urgently crafted with an inborn feeling for the work’s ebb and flow, and an overall picture that comprehends the piece’s spiritual meaning while realising its dramatic leanness and force. Heddle Nash’s Gerontius is unrivalled in its conviction and inwardness. He’d been singing the part since 1930, and by 1945 the work was in his being; he sang it from memory and had mastered every facet. ‘Take me away’ is like a searing cry of pain from the depth of the singer’s soul. Gladys Ripley is a natural and communicative Angel, her flexible and appealing tone always a pleasure. The Liverpool Philharmonic lives up to its reputation at the time as the country’s leading orchestra (in particular the sonorous string section), and the members of the Huddersfield Choral Society sing as if their lives depended on it.
Tortelier’s Cello Concerto presents the ‘classical’ approach as compared with the ‘romantic’ one of du Pré, and is the best of Tortelier’s readings of the work on disc, with his tone and phrasing at their firmest and most telling. A considered and unaffected reading among the best ever committed to disc.
Coupled with Parry Ode at a Solemn Music, ‘Blest Pair of Sirens’. I was glad
Felicity Palmer sop Arthur Davies ten Gwynne Howell bass London Symphony Chorus and Orchestra / Richard Hickox
Chandos CHAN8641 (114' · DDD · T) Buy from Amazon
Hickox gives us a peculiarly immediate and urgent interpretation – not dissimilar from Rattle’s on EMI – that has us thinking more than ever that Gerontius is an opera in everything but name, or at least a dramatic cantata, not an oratorio. His speeds tend to be quick, but only once, in ‘Sanctus fortis’, does the tempo feel hurried. Being a choral trainer of many years’ standing, he naturally enough persuades his choirs to sing with an impressive unanimity of purpose and with perhaps a wider range of dynamics than any other conductor. Perhaps an element of dignity and grandeur such as you find in Boult’s and Barbirolli’s EMI readings, both appreciably more measured, is missing, but little else. The sound of the chorus and excellent orchestra surpasses that on the Rattle version, Watford Town Hall proving as ever a good venue for the recording of large forces.
Arthur Davies has a stronger, more secure voice than any other tenor who has recorded Gerontius and, unlike several of them, he’s in his prime as a singer. ‘Mary, pray for me’ and ‘Novissima hora est’ are sung with the appropriate sweet sadness, the duet with the Angel tenderly, and he enters with terrified power at ‘Take me away’. He doesn’t have the individuality of utterance or special affinity with the text, as for instance at ‘How still it is!’, that you get with Heddle Nash (for Sargent) and Sir Peter Pears (for Britten), or even quite the agony of the soul projected by Mitchinson (for Rattle), but it’s an appreciable performance, firmly projected. Felicity Palmer’s Angel is less successful. The intentions are right, the understanding is there, but the means to carry them forward are faulty: her singing, once she puts pressure on the tone, is uncomfortable to hear. Gwynne Howell is just about the best Priest and Angel of the Agony in any version. His warm, firm bass-baritone easily encompasses the different tessituras of the two ‘parts’. This is a fine modern version.
