-
-
The Dream of Gerontius. The Libretto.
Such is the popularity today of Elgar's oratorio that it is easy to overlook the fact that Newman's poem, which Elgar took as the basis of his libretto, had experienced remarkable success in its own right long before Elgar turned his serious attention to it. It was reprinted numerous times during Newman's own lifetime, translated into French and German, and carried by eneral Gordon whose handwritten notations were metriculously copied by admirers onto their own copies after Gordon's death at Khartoum.
Although Elgar was forced by impending deadlines to work quickly in adapting Newman's poem into a workable libretto, it cannot have been an easy task. Although the libretto for Part One of the oratorio required a fairly limited reduction of Newman's text, Part Two was a different matter. Newman's poem is more than twice the length of Elgar's libretto, requiring Elgar to omit whole sections from Newman's poem while maintaining the narrative thrust which gives the work such vitality. Today, Newman's poem can be regarded as something of a period piece, a dramatic representation of the Catholic theology of death written to enlighten a largely uneducated Catholic congregation. It is through Elgar's libretto that the poem lives on.
Space prevents a reproduction of Newman's complete text here, although it can be found in full in Elgar Edition's Gerontius ompanion The Best of Me, complete with Gordon's markings and with the words retained in Elgar's libretto distinguished by use of italics.
PART 1
Prelude
Gerontius
Jesu, Maria – I am near to death,
And Thou art calling me; I know it now,
Not by the token of this faltering breath,
This chill at heart, this dampness on my brow –
(Jesu, have mercy! Mary, pray for me!)
’Tis this new feeling, never felt before,
(Be with me, Lord, in my extremity!)
That I am going, that I am no more.
’Tis this strange innermost abandonment,
(Lover of souls! great God! I look to Thee.)
This emptying out of each constituent
And natural force, by which I come to be.
Pray for me, O my friends: a visitant
is knocking his dire summons at my door,
The like of whom, to scare me and to daunt
Has never, never come to me before;
So pray for me, my friends, who have not strength to pray.Assistants
Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison, Kyrie eleison.
Holy Mary, pray for him.
All holy Angels, pray for him.
Choirs of the righteous, pray for him.
All Apostles, all Evangelists, pray for him,
All holy Disciples of the Lord, pray for him.
All holy Innocents, pray for him.
All holy Martyrs, all holy Confessors,
All holy Hermits, all holy Virgins,
All ye Saints of God, pray for him.Gerontius
Rouse thee, my fainting soul, and play the man;
And through such waning span
Of life and thought as still has to be trod,
Prepare to meet thy God.
And while the storm of that bewilderment
Is for a season spent
And, ere afresh the ruin on me fall,
Use well the interval.Assistants
Be merciful, be gracious; spare him, Lord,
Be merciful, be gracious; Lord, deliver him.
From the sins that are past;
From Thy frown and Thine ire;
From the perils of dying;
From any complying
With sin, or denying
His God or relying
On self, at the Last;
From the nethermost fire;
From all that is evil;
From power of the devil;
Thy servant deliver,
For once and for ever.
By Thy birth, and by Thy Cross
Rescue him from endless loss;
By Thy death and burial,
Save him from a final fall;
By Thy rising from the tomb,
By Thy mounting up above,
By the Spirit’s gracious love
Save him in the day of doom.Gerontius
Sanctus fortis, Sanctus Deus,
De profundis oro te,
Miserere, Judex meus,
Parce mihi, Domine.
Firmly I believe and truly
God is Three, and God is One;
And I next acknowledge duly
Manhood taken by the Son.
And I trust and hope most fully
In that Manhood crucified:
And each thought and deed unruly
Do to death, as He has died.
Simply to His Grace and wholly
Light and life and strength belong.
And I love, supremely, solely,
Him the holy, Him the strong.
Sanctus fortis, Sanctus Deus,
De profundis oro te,
Miserere, Judex meus,
Parce mihi, Domine,
And I hold in veneration,
For the love of Him alone,
Holy Church, as His creation,
And her teachings, as His own.
And I take with joy whatever
Now besets me, pain or fear,
And with a strong will I sever
All the ties which bind me here.
Adoration aye be given,
With and through the angelic host,
The Dream of Gerontius
To the God of earth and heaven,
Father, Son and Holy Ghost.
Sanctus fortis, Sanctus Deus,
De profundis oro te,
Miserere, Judex meus,
Mortis in discrimine.
I can no more; for now it comes again,
That sense of ruin, which is worse than pain,
That masterful negation and collapse
Of all that makes me man.
… And, crueller still,
A fierce and restless fright begins to fill
The mansion of my soul.
And, worse and worse,
Some bodily form of ill floats on the wind,
with many a loathsome curse
Tainting the hallowed air, and laughs,
and flaps its hideous wings,
And makes me wild with horror and dismay.
O Jesu, help! pray for me, Mary, pray!
Some Angel, Jesu! such as came to Thee
In Thine own agony …
Mary, pray for me. Joseph, pray for me.
Mary, pray for me.Assistants
Rescue him, O Lord, in this his evil hour,
As of old so many by Thy gracious power: –
Noe from the waters in a saving home; (Amen).
Job from all his multiform and fell distress; (Amen).
Moses from the land of bondage and despair; (Amen).
David from Golia and the wrath of Saul; (Amen).
– So, to show Thy power,
Rescue this Thy servant in his evil hour.Gerontius
Novissima hora est; and I fain would sleep, The pain has wearied me ... Into Thy hands, O Lord, into Thy hands ...Priest and Assistants
Proficiscere, anima Christiana, de hoc mundo!
Go forth upon thy journey, Christian soul!
Go from this world! Go, in the Name of God
The Omnipotent Father, Who created thee!
Go, in the Name of Jesus Christ our Lord,
Son of the living God, Who bled for Thee!
Go, in the Name of the Holy Spirit,
Who Hath been poured out on thee!
Go in the name
Of Angels and Archangels; in the name
Of Thrones and Dominations; in the name
Of Princedoms and of Powers; and in the name
Of Cherubim and Seraphim; go forth!
Go, in the name of Patriarchs and Prophets;
And of Apostles and Evangelists,
Of Martyrs and Confessors, in the name
Of holy Monks and Hermits; in the name
Of holy Virgins; and all Saints of God.
Both men and women, go! Go on thy course;
And may thy place today be found in peace,
And may thy dwelling be the Holy Mount
Of Sion: through the Same, through Christ Our Lord.PART 2
Soul of Gerontius
I went to sleep; and now I am refreshed.
A strange refreshment for I feel in me
An inexpressive lightness, and a sense
Of freedom, as I were at length myself,
And ne’er had been before. How still it is!
I hear no more the busy beat of time,
No, nor my fluttering breath, nor struggling pulse;
Nor does one moment differ from the next.
This silence pours a solitariness
Into the very essence of my soul;
And the deep rest so soothing and so sweet
Hath something too of sternness and of pain.
Another marvel: someone has me fast
Within his ample palm; … A uniform
And gentle pressure tells me I am not
Self-moving, but borne forward on my way,
And hark! I hear a singing; yet in sooth
I cannot of that music rightly say
Whether I hear, or touch, or taste the tones.
Oh, what a heart-subduing melody!Angel
My work is done,
My task is o’er,
And so l come,
Taking it home,
For the crown is won,
Alleluia.
For evermore.
My Father gave
In charge to me
This child of earth
E’en from its birth,
To serve and save,
Alleluia,
And saved is he.
This child of clay
To me was given,
To rear and train
By sorrow and pain
In the narrow way,
Alleluia.
From earth to heaven.Soul
It is a member of that family
Of wondrous beings, who,
Ere the world were made,
Millions of ages back, have stood around
The throne of God.
I will address him,
Mighty One, my Lord,
My Guardian Spirit, all hail!Angel
All hail!
My child and brother, hail!
What wouldest thou?Soul
I would have nothing but to speak with thee
For speaking’s sake. I wish to hold with thee
Conscious communion; though I fain would know
A maze of things, were it but meet to ask,
And not a curiousness.Angel
You cannot now
Cherish a wish which ought not to be wished.Soul
Then I will speak.
I ever had believed
That on the moment when the struggling soul
Quitted its mortal case, forthwith it fell
Under the awful Presence of its God,
There to be judged and sent to its own place.
What lets me now from going to my Lord?Angel
Thou art not let but with extremest speed
Art hurrying to the Just and Holy Judge.Soul
Dear Angel, say,
Why have I now no fear of meeting Him!
Along my earthly life, the thought of death
And judgement was to me most terrible.Angel
It is because
Then thou didst fear, that now thou dost not fear,
Thou hast forestalled the agony, and so
For thee the bitterness of death is passed.
Also, because already in thy soul
The judgement is begun.
A presage falls upon thee, as a ray
Straight from the Judge, expressive of thy lot.
That calm and joy uprising in thy soul
Is first-fruit to thee of thy recompense,
And heaven begun.Soul
Now that the hour is come, my fear is fled;
And at this balance of my destiny,
Now close upon me, I can forward look
With a serenest joy.
But hark! upon my senses
Comes a fierce hubbub, which would make me fear
Could I be frighted.Angel
We are now arrived
Close on the judgement-court; that sullen howl
Is from the demons who assemble there
Hungry and wild, to claim their property,
And gather souls for hell. Hist to their crySoul
How sour and how uncouth a dissonance!
Demons
Low-born clods
Of brute earth,
They aspire
To become gods,
By a new birth,
And an extra grace,
And a score of merits,
As if aught
Could stand in place
Of the high thought
And the glance of fire
Of the great spirits,
The powers blest,
The lords by right,
The primal owners,
Of the proud dwelling
And realm of light –
Dispossessed,
Aside thrust,
Chucked down,
By the sheer might
Of a despot’s will,
Of a tyrant’s frown,
Who after expelling
Their hosts, gave,
Triumphant still,
And still unjust
Each forfeit crown
To psalm-droners,
And canting groaners
To every slave,
And pious cheat
And crawling knave,
Who licked the dust
Under his feet.Angel
It is the restless panting of their being;
Like beasts of prey, who, caged within their bars,
In a deep hideous purring have their life,
And an incessant pacing to and fro.Demons
The mind bold
And independent
The purpose free,
So we are told,
Must not think
To have the ascendant.
What’s a saint?
One whose breath
Doth the air taint
Before his death;
A bundle of bones,
Which fools adore,
Ha! Ha!
When life is o’er.
Virtue and vice,
A knave’s pretence.
’Tis all the same;
Ha! ha!
Dread of hell-fire,
Of the venomous flame,
A coward’s plea.
Give him his price,
Saint though he be,
Ha! ha!
From shrewd good sense
He’ll slave for hire;
Ha! Ha!
And does but aspire
To the heaven above
With sordid aim,
And not from love.
Ha! ha!Soul
I see not those false spirits; shall I see
My dearest Master, when I reach His throne!Angel
Yes – for one moment thou shalt see thy Lord.
One moment but thou knowest not my child,
What thou dost ask: that sight of the Most Fair
Will gladden thee, but it will pierce thee, too.Soul
Thou speakest darkly, Angel! and an awe
Falls on me, and a fear lest I be rash.Angel
There was a mortal, who is now above
In the mid glory: he, when near to die,
Was given communion with the Crucified –
Such, that the Master’s very wounds were stamped
Upon his flesh; and, from the agony
Which thrilled through body and soul in that embrace,
Learn that the flame of the Everlasting Love
Doth burn ere it transform ...Choir of Angelicals
Praise to the Holiest in the height
And in the depth be praise:Angel
Hark to those sounds!
They come of tender beings angelical,
Least and most childlike of the sons of God.Choir of Angelicals
Praise to the Holiest in the height,
And in the depth be praise:
In all His words most wonderful;
Most sure in all His ways!
To us His elder race He gave
To battle and to win,
Without the chastisement of pain,
Without the soil of sin.
The younger son He willed to be
A marvel in His birth:
Spirit and flesh His parents were;
His home was heaven and earth.
The Eternal blessed His child, and armed,
And sent Him hence afar,
To serve as champion in the field
Of elemental war.
To be His Viceroy in the world
Of matter, and of sense;
Upon the frontier, towards the foe,
A resolute defence.Angel
We now have passed the gate, and are within
The House of Judgement …Soul
The sound is like the rushing of the wind –
The summer wind – among the lofty pines.Choir of Angelicals
Glory to Him, Who evermore
By truth and justice reigns;
Who tears the soul from out its case,
And burns away its stains!Angel
They sing of thy approaching agony,
Which thou so eagerly didst question ofSoul
My soul is in my hand: I have no fear –
But hark! a grand mysterious harmony:
It floods me, like the deep and solemn sound
Of many waters.Angel
And now the threshold, as we traverse it
Utters aloud its glad responsive chant.Choir of Angelicals
Praise to the Holiest in the height
And in the depth be praise;
In all His words most wonderful;
Most sure in all His ways!
O loving wisdom of our God!
When all was sin and shame,
A second Adam to the fight
And to the rescue came.
O wisest love! that flesh and blood
Which did in Adam fail,
Should strive afresh against the foe,
Should strive and should prevail;
And that a higher gift than grace
Should flesh and blood refine,
God’s Presence and His very Self,
And Essence all divine.
O gen’rous love! that He who smote
In man for man the foe,
The double agony in man
For man should undergo;
And in the garden secretly,
And on the cross on high,
Should teach His brethren and inspire
To suffer and to die.
Praise to the Holiest in the height,
And in the depth be praise:
In all His words most wonderful;
Most sure in all His ways!Angel
Thy judgement now is near, for we are come
Into the veiled presence of our GodSoul
I hear the voices that I left on earth.
Angel
It is the voice of friends around thy bed,
Who say the ‘Subvenite’ with the priest.
Hither the echoes come; before the Throne
Stands the great Angel of the Agony,
The same who strengthened Him, what time He knelt
Lone in the garden shade, bedewed with blood.
That Angel best can plead with Him for all
Tormented souls, the dying and the dead.Angel of the Agony
Jesu! by that shuddering dread which fell on Thee;
Jesu! by that cold dismay which sickened Thee;
Jesu! by that pang of heart which thrilled in Thee;
Jesu! by that mount of sins which crippled Thee;
Jesu! by that sense of guilt which stifled Thee;
Jesu! by that innocence which girdled Thee;
Jesu! by that sanctity which reigned in Thee;
Jesu! by that Godhead which was one with Thee;
Jesu! spare these souls which are so dear to Thee;
Souls, who in prison, calm and patient, wait for Thee,
Hasten, Lord, their hour, and bid them come to Thee,
To that glorious Home, where they shall ever gaze on Thee.Soul
I go before my Judge …Voices on earth
Be merciful, be gracious; spare him, Lord.
Be merciful, be gracious; Lord, deliver him.Angel
Praise to His Name!
O happy, suffering soul! for it is safe,
Consumed, yet quickened, by the glance of God.
Alleluia! Praise to His Name!Soul
Take me away, and in the lowest deep
There let me be,
And there in hope the lone night-watches keep,
Told out for me.
There, motionless, and happy in my pain,
Lone, not forlorn –
There will I sing my sad perpetual strain,
Until the morn,
There will I sing, and soothe my stricken breast,
Which ne’er can cease
To throb, and pine, and languish, till possest
Of its Sole Peace.
There will I sing my absent Lord and Love: –
Take me away,
That sooner I may rise, and go above,
And see Him in the truth of everlasting day.Souls in Purgatory
Lord, Thou hast been our refuge: in every generation,
Before the hills were born, and the world was,
from age to age Thou art God.
Bring us not Lord, very low; for Thou hast said,
Come back again, ye sons of Adam.
Come back, O Lord! how long: and be entreated for
Thy servants.Angel
Softly and gently, dearly ransomed soul,
In my most loving arms I now enfold thee,
And o’er the penal waters, as they roll,
I poise thee, and I lower thee, and hold thee.
And carefully I dip thee in the lake,
And thou, without a sob or a resistance,
Dost through the flood thy rapid passage take,
Sinking deep, deeper, into the dim distance.
Angels, to whom the willing task is given,
Shall tend, and nurse, and lull thee, as thou liest;
And Masses on the earth, and prayers in heaven,
Shall aid thee at the Throne of the Most Highest.
Farewell, but not for ever brother dear,
Be brave and patient on thy bed of sorrow;
Swiftly shall pass thy night of trial here,
And I will come and wake thee on the morrow.Souls
Lord, Thou hast been our refuge, etc. Amen.Choir of Angelicals
Praise to the Holiest, etc. Amen. -
Cardinal Newman's poem The Dream of Gerontius was a well-known and much-loved work in its own right by the time Elgar came to set it to music in 1900. It had been translated into French and German and was reprinted during Newman's lifetime. It achieved further notoriety when General Gordon died at Khartoum leaving behind a copy with personal annotations that were then copied by admirers. Elgar, who incidentally had wanted to write a 'Gordon' Symphony in 1899 but never embarked seriously on the project, had owned a copy of the poem since 1885 and he was given a further copy as a wedding present in 1889. In early 1900 he set about preparing a libretto for Gerontius, later revealing that the poem had been "soaking in my mind for at least eight years". Newman's poem falls into seven sections: the first is a prologue on earth showing the dying dreamer surrounded by priests and assistants, and the other six parts trace the Soul's progress through Judgement to Purgatory. Newman's poem has a total of 900 lines, and these needed cutting to be manageable for a musical setting. Elgar retained most of the prologue to form his Part I, and he cut down the rest to 300 lines to form his Part II. This formed a balanced libretto in two parts, and was Elgar's shortest libretto to date for a full-scale work. This meant there was a new dramatic contrast between the two states of life and death as presented in the two parts of the work, and also that the words now wouldn't confine the music but gave Elgar a flexible framework on which to develop his musical tapestry.
It is important to remember that in 1900 Elgar had been struggling for recognition for years, and had only recently enjoyed his first major success when the Enigma Variations were premiered and instantly lauded in 1899. He thus came to The Dream of Gerontius with a new assurance and he worked steadily on it through the first half of 1900, finishing the full score on 3rd August. The premiere was to take place in Birmingham in October, and there was consequently very little time for the choral parts to be prepared and the chorus to learn the music. The Birmingham Festival Chorus Master who had prepared the choir for King Olaf a few years earlier and was thus familiar with Elgar's compositional style, had died suddenly in June. Because the choir had a break during the summer months, there was even less time for them to prepare. In addition, the complicated process of proof reading the parts was compounded because the publisher would not go to the expense of having the full score copied: there were just ten days for the conductor Hans Richter to learn the score.
The premiere on 3rd October was therefore under-rehearsed and somewhat chaotic. It was naturally not to Elgar's satisfaction and there was a tepid response from the critics. Shortly afterwards Elgar wrote, "I always said God was against art… I have allowed my heart to open once - it is now shut against every religious feeling and every soft, gentle impulse forever." This was perhaps pessimistic and overdramatic, but it does show how he felt about his work: earlier that year he wrote, "I've written it out of my insidest inside" and at the end of the score he had copied a quotation from Ruskin "this is the best of me": his disappointment was understandable. Elgar shared a constant correspondence with his publisher and great friend Jaeger throughout the conception of the work: Jaeger had written in May "You must not, cannot expect this work of yours to be appreciated by the ordinary amateur (or critic!) after one hearing". It was another German, Julius Buths the Director of the North Rhein Festival, who exceeded Jaeger's expectations: he heard the premiere and organised further performances in Düsseldorf for the following two seasons. Richter conducted the work again in 1903 with the Hallé in Manchester, and the piece's reputation grew gradually from these early outings into the towering status it enjoys today as a cornerstone of the choral repertoire.
For the first performance Jaeger wrote an analysis of the score that contained many insights into the meaning of the musical fabric. With the composer's approval, he labelled Elgar's musical motives, or short melodic ideas, and set about explaining their genesis through the piece. The orchestral prelude begins with hushed strings presenting the 'Judgement' theme. Even more tonally ambiguous is the
'Fear' theme that rises through the hushed strings with each part in a different, unrelated key. This leads into the 'Prayer' theme, closely related in melodic style to chant, and then immediately Elgar transforms the 'Fear' theme into a repetitive figure in the bass, over which he lays 'Sleep' which he characterised as "lying down weary and distressed". As the bass ostinato continues, we hear a descending melody ('Miserere') and then immediately a chromatically aspiring melody which somehow always falls down again: 'Despair'. All of this material is combined and transformed, suggesting Gerontius's loneliness and the challenge of his journey to come, until we reach a sequence ('Commital') in which Elgar uses a broad melody to build to the prelude's climax. After this the music ebbs away leaving the 'Judgement' theme alone again once more, whereupon we hear the first utterance of the mortally ill Gerontius.
As the orchestral prelude ends, it is important to remember that the orchestra is not hereafter relegated to second place after an initial showpiece 'overture' style, but it begins on equal footing with the singers, as expressive partner and dramatic commentator. Further to the achievement of synthesising this orchestral and motivic development style of Wagner with his own harmonic idiom, in The Dream of Gerontius Elgar developed a technique of writing for the soloist that allowed a clear understanding but musically flexible setting of the text. From this moment in the piece, Newman's text at the same time defines and inspires the composer's melody because of the speech rhythms of the poetry. From his sketches, we can deduce that the composer worked tirelessly at capturing the very essence of the verse in his musical notes, and in the resulting arioso recitative music.
The chorus play a variety of roles throughout the piece, initially as Gerontius' friends praying at his bedside, and later as Demons and Angelicals, and these are essential in portraying the universality of Newman's theme. On that matter it is of note that the name 'Gerontius' is never actually sung in the piece (leading to an unresolvable debate as to the name's pronunciation!) This specific omission must also contribute to the universality of the character which Elgar envisaged: "I imagined Gerontius to be a man like us, not a Priest or a Saint, but a sinner, a repentant one of course but still no end of a worldly man in his life, and now brought to book. Therefore I have not filled his part with Church tunes and rubbish but a good, full-blooded romantic, remembered worldliness..."
It is significant that Elgar chose to set the part of the Angel for a woman singer: this would have been justifiable simply as a contrast in tessitura from the other roles, but through her guiding the Soul during Part II, Elgar wrote his greatest love duet which has echoes of maternal guidance and marital tenderness, and would have much less poignancy if it were between two male singers. Briefly preceded by an echo of bedside prayer from Part I, Gerontius's glimpse of God is an unforgettable musical moment for the uninitiated concert-goer. It is perhaps surprising to note that Elgar was persuaded at a very late stage to include it, at the insistence of Jaeger: after initial concerns of it being vulgar, when Elgar was finally convinced he wrote to his friend that "of course, it's biggity-big!". The burial service prayers led by the Priest at Gerontius's passing at the end of Part I are mirrored by the Angel of the Agony towards the end of Part II with the eternal prayers for 'souls which are so dear to thee': both are awesome figures and add a liturgical solemnity to the musical proceedings. The second is followed by the Angel's farewell, during which Elgar pulls together all of his musical material as the Soul passes into Purgatory. We hear the Psalm 'Lord thou hast been our refuge', and then echoes from the earlier hymn 'Praise to the Holiest' and the Angelicals music, before the ambiguous tonality of the very opening of the piece is settled, and the key D major emerges on 'Amen' with a rising, heavenward melody in the strings.