Elgar’s 1900 Midlands setting of St John Henry Newman’s The Dream of Gerontius is a rich starting point for delving into English Catholic cultures stretching from the 19th century to the present. Both poem and music contributed to their creators’ reputations in a country in which they were – as Catholics – part of a minority treated with suspicion, prejudice and even violence.
In a flurry of inspiration in a few weeks in 1865, Newman wrote his mystical poem about the journey of the soul after death on scraps of paper. Favourably received in both Catho lic and Anglican communities, the poem received a further boost to its popularity in imperial Britain following the death in 1885 of General Gordon, who kept a copy of Gerontius with particular passages underlined with him on his last military campaign.
