GPO excels in
Elgar’s Dream
AN altogether satisfying
performance of Elgar’s
The Dream of Gerontius
brought Guildford Phil-
harmonic
season to
Sunday.
Orcheéstra’s
a close on
Satisfying because it found
the Philharmonic Orchestra
playing Elgar in the most compelling way. under conductor,
Vernon Handley — as good an
account of an Elgar composi-
tion as his recording of the
Elgar Symphony No. 2; satisfying because the trio of solo-
ists sounded so right in their
respective roles; and because
the
Philharmoni¢
Choir
achieved many a moment of
choral beauty.
There is a distance ‘about
much of Gerontius, but it is
one which 1s punctuated by
moments of more immediate
and earthy force. It was this
understanding
and
spiritual
feeling that came through so
clearly,in addition to the sense
of reassurance
the whole work.
that underlies
It is a feeling that must grow
from the centre, thus all credit
to Handley for nursing the
music along with care and
deftness which allowed the natural poetry, whether it be the
anguish of Gerontius, the comfort of the priest and the angel,
or the spikiness of the demons,
- to speak for itself.
The composition’s overall
form — and thus the performance as an entity — felt utterly right.
Leading a strong trio of sO-
loists, Kenneth Woollam
brought to the tenor title role a
strength which was also ca-
pable of embracing the work’s
more spiritual moments, such
as the line Santus fortis, Sanctus Deus, which had an ethereal quality. Woollam seemed to
take a little while to get fully
into the music, but once there
he sang fluently and with feeling,
but
never
melodramatically.
No such problem for
Michael Rippon, whose priest
was a commanding and reas-
suring figure from the very
first note. Fine tone and an
eloquent sense of anguish were
to be heard in his Angel of
Agony.
‘Much
was
Angel,
more
“comfortableTM
Bernadette
who
almost
Greevy's
(although Gerontius
motherly
tells us
the angel is a “him”) in her
creamy, smooth tone. Miss
Greevy moved from a perhaps
over-dignified start to give a
most lyrical and often mellow
rendering of Elgar’s music
This was also a characteristic
of much of the Philharmonic
Choir’s singing. Although the
choir’s initial singing was
bland and the thinnish tone of
the choir of archangels was
more tentative “than distant,
there was much to enjoy. They
made a splendid sound in the
final chorus of the first part of
the oratorio, hit the first line of
Praise to the Holiest with a
firmness which was sustained
‘throughout that chorus and
brought a graphic clarity to the
demons’ invective.
Finally, the orchestra; a fine
performance, whether accompanying the soloists, providing
the bnlliant introduction to
Gerontius’s final passage or responding to the Gerontius
Credo with a climax worthy of
the moment.
: i?obert Benjafield
'