Average Rating: (4 out of 5 stars)
The Way It Should Sound
Elgar was a Catholic. This put him at a serious disadvantage in breaking into the Anglican social and musical establishment of his day. But his Catholicism did render one great service to music: it acquainted him with Cardinal John Henry Newman’s poem The Dream of Gerontius, called by one British commentator “the happiest effort to represent the unseen world that has been made since the time of Dante.” (Gerontius, from the Greek, means “the old man.”)
Whether one is a believer or a skeptic is unimportant in the face of such sublime music. Gerontius is a work of sustained genius, concentrated power and deep humility. (Elgar himself lost his faith toward the end of his life, but always considered Gerontius one of the works of which he was proudest.)
Why buy the David Hill recording, when there are others by the likes of Barbirolli, Boult and Sargent? Well, each of those has flaws, including some of the the soloists. More seriously, they simply strike me as too operatic -- too slick, too mannered. By contrast, this performance stands squarely in the best English oratorio tradition: clear, strong and direct. Hill is a committed Elgarian, the orchestra plays beautifully, and the soloists and chorus are excellent. Just listen to Matthew Best at the end of Part I (“Proficiscere, anima Christiana”). The only negative is that the chorus is a bit too distant for easy comprehension of the text; but the text is included with the notes, so this is not a serious drawback.
In short: I would not depart for my desert island without this recording.
Submitted by beecroft_robert (Bethesda, Maryland, USA) 
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