Word: gerontius
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Elgar might have remained an obscure provincial composer if he had not been encouraged by his wife, a general's daughter. At 43 he won fame at last with his thunderous oratorio, The Dream of Gerontius. As Edwardian England wandered toward World War I, his reputation rose on a great wave of public nostalgia...
...there was another, less roast-beefy side to Elgar ("I must go out and buy some strychnine," he said in a moment of self-criticism), and from that side came his best music-The Dream of Gerontius, Enigma Variations, the Falstaff symphonic poem, his two symphonies. Such pieces have few of Elgar's faults and most of his virtues: the imaginative orchestration, the mystical harmonies, the broad, marching orchestral drive, and the peaceful lyrical passages, which rise and fall as gently as the rolling English countryside Elgar used to roam for inspiration...
...Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F. On Saturday evening at 8.15 P.M. over WEAF the Boston Symphony Orchestra, assisted by Jesus Maria Sanroma, will play the Mozart Symphony in E flat major; Professor Edward Burlingame Hill's Concertino for the piano and orchestra; the Prelude to the oratorio "Gerontius" by Sir Edward Elgar in memory of the composer who died last week; and Debussy's fascinating La Mer instead of the new symphony by one Gilere. Toscanini will conclude the Beethoven cycle in New York on Sunday afternoon with the Missa Solemnis, one opus of Beethoven that...
Elgar's fame as a composer reached London by way of Germany. The Dream of Gerontius had been given in the provinces but no one thought to call it a masterpiece until Conductor Hans Richter presented it in Düsseldorf and Richard Strauss acclaimed it. The Enigma Variations, Elgar's best-known symphonic work, was Richter's piece de resistance when he toured England in 1899. Five years later Elgar was knighted and the new King Edward pronounced Pomp and Circumstance "a very fine...
...thin but adeptly trained voices procured from the local free schools, several famed singers, participated. Large and earnest audiences turned out for the proceedings. On the opening day, the assemblage (some 4,000) rose and sang America. After this rousing start, Sir Edward Elgar's Dream of Gerontius was performed with John McCormack as Gerontius. The famed Irish tenor, in a role that called for a more robust voice than his, sang creditably. On the second day, with the chorus augmented by 150 songsters from the parochial schools, was given Bach's Passion According to St. John...