Atherstone Choral Society is honoured to join Birmingham Festival Choral Society (BFCS), Coventry Philharmonic Choir and Leamington Chamber Orchestra, under the direction of David Wynne, for this performance of The Dream Of Gerontius. This iconic choral piece is recognised as one of the giants of choral music ranking alongside works such as Handel’s Messiah and JS Bach’s B Minor Mass.

This performance is particularly significant for two reasons.  First, it marks the 125^th anniversary of the premiere which, took place in 1900, in Birmingham Town Hall, under the Musical Direction of the composer, Sir Edward Elgar.

Second, the choir who sang at that first performance on October 3^rd 1900, was none other than Birmingham Festival Choral Society!

In brief, The Dream of Gerontius, the poem by Cardinal, St John Henry Newman follows Gerontius, the main character. as he passes from this life to the next.   Elgar uses the text as the framework for this truly memorable work  which is scored for soloists, double choir and semi chorus, extended orchestra and organ.

At the end of the manuscript score, Elgar wrote this quotation from John Ruskin‘s Sesame and Lilies:

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