Programme Notes

THE BACH CHOIR 13 FEBRUARY 2014 / THE DREAM OF GERONTIUS 15 PROGRAMME NOTES TOD UND VERKLÄRUNG RICHARD STRAUSS (1864-1949) ‘‘The idea occurred to me to represent, in a tone poem, the death Although the work runs for around 25 minutes without a break, it of a person who had striven for the highest ideals. The sick man falls into four sections. Ritter’s poem sets the scene of the first: lies in bed asleep, breathing heavily and irregularly. Agreeable ‘‘… you perceive nothing but the quiet ticking of the wall clock in dreams make him smile in spite of his suffering; his sleep the room, whose horrific silence suggests the proximity of death’’. becomes lighter; he awakens. Once again he is racked by terrible Whether the repeated rhythmic pattern played by the strings and pain; his limbs shake with fever. As the attack draws to a close timpani is Ritter’s ticking clock or, as has been widely suggested, and the pain subsides, he reflects on his past life; his childhood the artist’s faltering heartbeat, the mood is quiet, with arching passes before him, his youth with its striving and its passions. woodwind and violin solos over harp accompaniment. Then, while the pain resumes, the fruit of his life’s journey appears to him - -- the idea, the ideal which he has tried to realise, A faster tempo and a much more agitated feel to the music to represent in his art, but which he has been unable to perfect, introduces the second section, which depicts the artist’s fight with because it was not for any human being to perfect it. The hour of death. As Ritter puts it ‘‘The urge to live, and the power of death! death approaches, the soul leaves the body, in order to find What a horrendous struggle!’’ perfected in the most glorious form in the eternal cosmos that which he could not fulfil here on earth.’’ ‘‘Dying is just as I composed it in Death So wrote Richard Strauss to his friend Friedrich von Hausegger in 1894; Strauss was responding to Hausegger’s request for and Transfiguration.’’ information about his creative processes, four years after the first performance of Tod und Verklärung, conducted by the composer. The artist wins the fight, and the third section describes his life in What is interesting is that Strauss was not drawing on personal all its different stages: childhood innocence, heroic exploits, and a experience; it was to be another two years after the work was passionate love scene, but the faltering heartbeat figure returns composed before he experienced life-threatening illness himself and the tam-tam - -- a type of gong - -- finally signifies the moment of (fortunately making a full recovery). The poem by Strauss’s close death. friend Alexander Ritter (1833-1896) that was included as a preface to the full score on its publication was thought by some to Ritter ends with this: ‘‘But out of the realm of heaven, what he has have provided the idea for the work, but was in fact written after been longing for and seeking resounds mightily towards him: the work was composed, and expands on Strauss’s ideas. redemption of the world, transfiguration of the world!’’ Beginning Although clearly not a great poet, Ritter was at the time a well- quietly the music gradually builds higher and higher, the journey of regarded composer and violinist; it is Ritter who is credited with the soul finally coming to an end in peace and tranquility. persuading Strauss to leave behind the music of Mendelssohn and Schumann which had influenced his very early works, and to Strauss went on to write many more increasingly ambitious tone explore the symphonic poem, or tone poem, a symphonic work poems including Also sprach Zarathustra (1896), inspired by the usually in one long movement in which the music paints a picture writing of Nietzsche, and An Alpine Symphony (1915). He lived to or tells a story. the age of 85 when, as he lay on his deathbed he remarked ‘‘Dying is just as I composed it in Death and Transfiguration’’. Composed in 1889 when Strauss was just 25, Tod und Verklärung was his second work in this form; he was no doubt encouraged by © Katharine Richman 2014 the very favourable reaction of critics to Don Juan, which was premiered with the composer conducting one year earlier. Translation of Alexander Ritter’s poem by John Dunston THE BACH CHOIR 13 FEBRUARY 2014 / THE DREAM OF GERONTIUS 17 THE DREAM OF GERONTIUS EDWARD ELGAR (1857-1934) TEXT BY BLESSED JOHN HENRY NEWMAN (1801-1890) Ann Elgar’s conversion to Roman Catholicism shortly before her such as yourself, deliberately to commit myself to it, I dare say I fourth child Edward’s birth meant that, to the dismay of his shall print it by itself.’’ father, Elgar was baptised and raised a Catholic. He remained a Catholic for the rest of his life, but the depth and intensity of his A first edition of Gerontius published independently of The Month faith is subject to scholarly debate. is dated 2 November 1865 - -- All Souls’ Day. Gerontius was well circulated and had an ineffable influence on people both within John Henry Newman was born in London on 21 February 1801, and and without the Catholic faith; writing to Lady Chatterton on 18 had a more turbulent theological journey; initially baptised into the September 1870, Newman elaborated: Church of England, he underwent an evangelical conversion at the age of fifteen, before going to Oxford where he was a leading ‘‘As to my own Gerontius, it was not the versification which sold it, member of the Oxford Movement whose aim was to revitalise the but the subject. It is a RELIGIOUS subject which appeals strongly spirit of the Church of England along apostolic and Catholic lines. to the feelings of everyone. I heard of one farmer who was a most Newman was ordained an Anglican Priest in 1825 but, following an unlikely man to care about poetry, who took to it when he was ill - -- ultimately unsatisfactory relationship with the Church of England, it was to him a prayer or meditation. It directed his thoughts to the he was received into the Roman Catholic Church in 1845 and next world, from no merits of its own but from its subject.’’ ordained a Catholic Priest in 1847. Finally, in 1879, Newman was created a Cardinal by Pope Leo XIII. He was beatified by Pope Notable people who treasured the poem include General Gordon, Benedict XVI in 2010. an Evangelical Christian whose heavily annotated copy of Gerontius was with him during his final moments in 1884 after The Poem being wounded at the taking of Khartoum, and Newman’s militant Heavily influenced by Dante Alighieri’s (c.1265- -- 1321) great theological adversary Charles Kingsley, whose vehement attack allegorical poem The Divine Comedy (throughout which Dante is on his Roman conversion prompted Newman to write his 1864 guided through Hell and Purgatory by Virgil, and Heaven by autobiography, Apologia Pro Vita Sua. Beatrice), Newman’s Gerontius details the final moments of a dying man, his death and, guided by his guardian angel, his The Music and Synopsis: This is the best of me... journey to judgement and Purgatory. What prompted Newman to Following Elgar’s increasingly positive reputation and popularity, write his longest poem at the age of nearly 64 and at a very busy he was approached in 1898 by the Birmingham Triennial Music time is unknown, but he completed the manuscript on fifty-two Festival to compose a new choral work for the forthcoming scraps of paper between 17 January and 7 February 1865. On 11 meeting in October 1900. Elgar was in good company, the Festival October 1865 he wrote to his friend T.W. Allies: having already given premieres of several significant works including Mendelssohn’s Elijah (1846) and Gounod’s Mors et Vita ‘‘On the 17 January last it came into my head to write it. I really (1885). Dvořák had first considered setting a German version of cannot tell how, and I wrote on till it was finished, on small bits of Gerontius in 1888, but instead submitted his Requiem (1891). Elgar paper. And I could no more write anything else by willing it, than I accepted and initially considered Gerontius as a suitable text, could fly.’’ having known and loved the poem for several years. As time ran out, with other engagements and projects pressing Elgar’s time, he Earlier that year, at the request of Frances Margaret Taylor for a panicked; at first he considered other texts for setting but finally, contribution to the then fledgling but soon prominent Catholic with only ten months to go, he wrote to the Festival rejecting the monthly periodical The Month, he allowed Gerontius to be commission. Following a meeting with the Festival Chairman on published in two parts in the May and June issues of the same New Year’s Day 1900, Elgar was persuaded to provide a setting of year. Writing to Lady Charles Thynne on 29 October 1865, The Dream of Gerontius, and the following day he travelled to the Newman revealed his surprise at the work’s popularity: Birmingham Oratory to discuss abridging Newman’s lengthy epic. Gerontius was significantly curtailed and when composer, ‘‘I am much pleased, and half surprised, that you and others should publisher and Festival were finally satisfied, Wednesday 3 like The Dream of Gerontius. It was written by accident - -- and it was October was agreed on for the premiere. Elgar worked hard over published by accident.

Load more