BBC Concert Orchestra 2025-2026 Elgar: The Dream of Gerontius

‘This is the best of me’, wrote Elgar on completing the Dream of Gerontius. ‘This, if anything of mine, is worth your memory.’

Gerontius is the old man reflecting on his life and contemplating death. Elgar imagined him to be ‘a man like us, not a Priest or a Saint… Therefore, I’ve not filled his part with Church tunes and rubbish but a good, healthy full-blooded romantic, remembered worldliness.’ The result is Elgar’s greatest choral work and possibly his masterpiece, full of drama and some of the composer’s most touching music, from the hushed, emotionally charged opening to the sublime ‘Angel’s Farewell’.

“The tenor, Stuart Jackson, with his imposing physical presence, sang wonderfully well, with a beautiful, powerful, well-modulated voice, impeccable diction and stage instinct.” SCHERZO