Dream of Gerontius - Elgar

Judging by the recent performances of theirs that I have heard, the Guinness Choir is currently on an upward curve.

This impression was well reinforced by Sunday's performance of Elgar's Dream of Gerontius under David Milne, in which the security and freshness of the sopranos was a consistent pleasure.

Elgar's treatment of Cardinal Newman's vision of the journey of a soul mixes the mystical and the dramatic in a way that can seem almost operatic.

David Milne's handling of the music was unusually level-headed, not without urgency in climaxes, but, on the other hand, apparently not much concerned with probing the music's very special atmosphere.

Much in the success of any Gerontius hinges on the solo tenor, and John Elwes's responded vividly, with precise communication of words and emotion, to the circumstances of Gerontius's spiritual journey.

There were forthright contributions from both Lynda Lee (The Angel) and Michael George (The Priest and the Angel of the Agony). George shifted readily into stentorian mode (too much so, for my taste, at the end of Part I), and Lee showed a consistency of line that made her sound more matter-of-fact than tender.

Yet, although the mixture of elements was such that one might have expected the music to drag, it didn't, and the performance held one's interest in spite of being so often more dispassionate than the music would seem ready to bear.