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Mysterious Thresholds
Elgar's 'Dream of Gerontius' at Harrow School
moves ROBERT ANDERSON
At almost Seventy Years On, I had a vaguely wistful feeling to be seated again in the Harrow Speech Room trying to recapture how I felt listening year after year to Winston Churchill urging us to stand firm during that stern wartime period, wondering how I looked while battering the bass drum in the Verdi Requiem, and later while playing the first movement of the Schumann Piano Concerto with the school orchestra, or indeed absorbing in my study-bedroom the many-sided first recording of Elgar's Dream of Gerontius as conducted by Malcolm Sargent.
But that's nostalgia enough. It was thrilling on 27 March 2012 to see the 'Speecher well' boarded over as totally for Elgar as it usually is only for Shakespeare. And the multitude of music-stands made sure that the orchestral demands for any performance of The Dream of Gerontius would be fully met...
Copyright © 30 March 2012
Robert Anderson,
London UK
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