Final concert: The Dream of Gerontius by Elgar

AVROTROS Friday Concert closes the season with a hearty exclamation point. After all, The Dream of Gerontius is nothing less than that other masterpiece by Edward Elgar. The work for three soloists, choir and orchestra is rarely performed due to its large scoring. A shame, because an immersion in this world of the man of the Enigma Variations is thus a once in a lifetime experience.

Edward Elgar composed The Dream of Gerontius in 1900 after John Henry Newman's poem of the same name. The text is about the journey of a pious man's soul from his deathbed to his judgment before God and his purification through purgatory. Elgar turned it into a kind of oratorio, though he refused to call it that, which impressively focuses on human mortality.

At the end of the manuscript, Elgar wrote, "This is the best I have to offer. For the rest, I ate and drank and slept, loved and hated, just like everyone else. My life was like dissipating vapor and then again it was not, for this I saw and knew: if there is anything of mine worthy of your remembrance, it is this work.' Duly noted.