Date/Time
16/11/2019 (19:30)

Location
Bedford Corn Exchange

Conductor Michael Rose.

With Bedfordshire Symphony Orchestra, leader Caroline Waters.

Soloists Alison Kettlewell (mezzo soprano), Peter Hoare (tenor), Ben Bevan (bass).

The Dream of Gerontius is based on a poem of 1866 by John Henry Newman (1801 – 1890) which Elgar adapted and shortened. In it he found a story of private and universal significance, the journey of the soul on the point of death, facing judgement.  The first performance, in 1900 was not well received, but Elgar revised the work and  it was performed with greater success, first in Germany, and then with the Worcestershire Philharmonic Society and at the Three Choirs Festival in 1902.  The choral sections of the work are innovative and dramatic, and the soloists (mezzo-soprano, tenor and bass) perform  beautiful and expressive melodies.

Elgar said of the work;

‘This is the best of me; for the rest, I ate, drank, and slept, loved and hated, like any other; my life was as a vapour, and is not; but this I saw and knew; this, if anything of mine, is worth your memory.’