"The Dream of Gerontius,"
Birmingham Festival.
October 3, 1900
"The Dream of Gerontius," Cardinal Newman called his poem, with exquisite modesty. How that poem may stand in the estimation of those who share Cardinal Newman's point of view in regard to religious matters is perhaps an important question, but not one with which musical, or any artistic, criticism is concerned. For nothing is more certain about art than that it is subservient to a person's view of life. Artistic or æsthetic criticism must be humble, and must abstain from trespassing on the ground of faith and morals. Indirectly, indeed, æsthetics may have a bearing on these more serious subjects. For is it not written of religious doctrines, "By their fruits ye shall know them"?—and nothing else is in so complete a sense a "fruit" of a religion as a work of art arising therefrom. Nevertheless, the function of æsthetics is not to commend or blame a view of life, but rather to enquire with what eloquence, with what sincerity, with what measure of convincing power the artist expounds his ideas and communicates his feelings, whatever those ideas and feelings may be. With these reflections I find it necessary to premise my notes on Edward Elgar's new work. The reflections are rather solemn, but the new work is very solemn. It is deeply and intensely religious; it is totally unconventional, and must be discussed in an unconventional manner. First, then, let me state a point of difference from all that I have experienced in listening to other oratorios and sacred cantatas, and, I may say, all other musical works with words made by one person and music by another. The point is that this music, on the whole, is apt to bring home to the listener the greatness of the poem. The composer has not merely chosen from the poem such material as suited him. He has expounded the poem musically, and to the task of expounding it he has brought what may be described without inflation as the resources of modern music. We shall doubtless hear of plagiarism from "Parsifal," and there is indeed much in the work that could not have been there but for "Parsifal." But it is not allowable for a modern composer of religious music to be ignorant of "Parsifal." One might as well write for orchestra in ignorance of the Berlioz orchestration as write any serious music in ignorance of the Wagnerian symbolism. Edward Elgar does nothing so affected as to ignore the development which, for good or for evil, the language of music underwent at the hands of Wagner. His orchestral prelude, however, reverts to an earlier Wagnerian type. It gives a forecast of the whole story in such wise that at the end of it the imagination has to be carried back. We have the last agony of the sick man, his death, and passage to the unseen. The symbols, though employed in the Wagnerian manner, are, nevertheless, thoroughly original, taking us into an atmosphere and a world absolutely remote from all that is Wagnerian. When the voice of Gerontius (assigned to a tenor solo) enters we are carried back to the death-bed—to the prayers of Gerontius and his companions. A series of choruses with intervening and accompanying passages for the solo voice is devoted to the King of Terrors. Here the music touches the various notes in the gamut of feeling, from the agony of terrors to serene confidence. After the parting of Gerontius, with the words "Novissima hora est," a new voice enters, that of the Priest (baritone), chanting "Proficiscere, anima Christiana." Among the supplications for the departed is a chant three times repeated, each of the two parts ending with a choral "Amen" that bears a tender echo of the mediæval "Cantus fictus." An extended section of chorus and semi-chorus bring the first part of the cantata to a peaceful and prayerful ending.
In the second part the soul of Gerontius is winging its way towards the celestial regions, holding colloquy with an angel. There is a Dantesque passage in which a chorus of demons is overheard by the pair—the soul and the angel. Gerontius is encouraged by the angel. Echoes of earthly voices, praying for the departed soul, are borne up from the earth, and in the end the soul of Gerontius is affectionately delivered over to Purgatory by the angel, there to wait suffering indeed, but in resignation and in the assurance of salvation.
Naturally the prevalent poetic note in such a work is the mystical exaltation, now of the contrite sinner, now of the aspiring saint. The chief climax is reached, not at the end, but in the hymn of the Angels, "Praise to the Holiest in the Height," recurring before the departure to Purgatory. But the whole work sings "Praise to the Holiest in the Height and in the Depth." A powerfully contrasting note is heard in the death-agony of Gerontius and, above all, in the chorus of demons occurring in the second part. Here a comparison with Berlioz is simply inevitable—for Edward Elgar's dramatic power admits of comparison with the great masters. His demons are much more terrible than those of Berlioz, who was a materialist in the profound sense—not, that is, in virtue of more or less shifting beliefs, but of unalterable temperament. Infinitely remote from that of Berlioz is the temperament revealed in Edward Elgar's music, which, like parts of the poem, fairly merits the epithet "Dantesque."