Sir Edward's Dream

"Meister Elgar," said Richard Strauss, "is the first English progressive musician." The year was 1902, and Strauss had just heard Edward Elgar's massive oratorio, The Dream of Gerontius. Since then, Gerontius has remained one of the most widely praised-and least frequently heard --monuments of English music. Last week Manhattan concertgoers had a chance to hear the full Gerontius score for the first time in a quarter-century. The occasion: a performance by the New York Philharmonic and the Westminster Choir under Guest Conductor Sir John Barbirolli.

Based on the poem by Cardinal Newman, Gerontius is a mystical, minutely detailed vision of man's death and of his soul's fearful but triumphant journey toward judgment. Roman Catholic Elgar first thought of setting the poem to music when he received a copy of it from a priest on his wedding day. But he let ten years elapse, during which he became increasingly aware of the gusts of new music blowing across the Channel from the Continent. When he finally got around to composing Gerontius (for the Birmingham Festival of 1900), he broke away from the standard English oratorio style, fused orchestra and vocal sound after the manner of Wagner's music dramas.

The result of Elgar's experimentation is a work stately in movement, glowingly rich in orchestral texture and full of haunting harmonies. As performed by the Philharmonic last week, it had moving moments of penitential despair mixed with moments of ecstatic fulfillment climaxed by the soaring "Choir of the Angelicals":

Praise to the Holiest in the height, And in the depth be praise: In all His words most wonderful; Most sure in all His ways.

At the beginning of the performance, Conductor Barbirolli turned to the audience and remarked that it was about to hear a "sublime masterpiece." Gerontius, as Barbirolli's sympathetic performance demonstrated, is considerably less than a masterpiece. But it is considerably more than the musical antique a generation of concertgoers has taken it to be.

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