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  • Elgar in Oberlin: A Meeting of Worlds
  • Steven E. Plank (bio)

John Cardinal Newman’s mystical poem The Dream of Gerontius (1865) lyrically records the transitus of the soul, passing from life through death into purgatory and the afterlife. The journey vividly contrasts different worlds: the earthly world of the living and the spiritual world of the dead; the world of the temporal and the world of the eternal; the world of burden and the world of release. Best known in its musical setting by Sir Edward Elgar, a commission for the Birmingham Festival of 1900, this monumental oratorio is one that may also invite us to consider the contrasts of worlds. In this cosmography of performance history and reception, performances of the oratorio by the Oberlin (Ohio) Musical Union in 1907 and 1908 offer an especially interesting case.1 Few non-liturgical works can claim a greater Roman Catholic identity than The Dream of Gerontius by pedigree, aura, and distinctive content. By contrast, Oberlin, Ohio, in the early twentieth century was indeed the home to a conservatory and college of distinction, but the town of Oberlin was small and rural, the ethos of town and gown alike Protestant and historically evangelical. In examining the contrasts of these worlds and their intersection in several notable performances of Elgar’s oratorio, we may glean not only a broader understanding of the reception of Elgar’s music, but also a more detailed understanding of U.S. musical life in the early twentieth century. [End Page 472]

The Two Worlds

The Roman Catholic Gerontius

The Roman Catholicism of The Dream of Gerontius is rarely far from the surface, clearly manifest in the Virgin Mary’s intercessory role, references to Masses for the dead, purgatory, and the use of Latin liturgical formulas for the commendation of a soul. With these direct evocations came an early awareness of potential difficulty. In June before the work’s October premiere, Elgar’s close friend and confidant, August Jaeger, predicted difficulty on account of the Roman Catholic references. Writing to Elgar, he noted

There is a lot of Joseph & Mary about the work; very proper for a Roman Catholic lying at death’s door to sing about, but likely to frighten some d____d fools of Protestants. I had a long talk to the Secretary of one of the big Glasgow Societies yesterday & showed him proofs & so generally enthused over the work that I hope he will strongly recommend “Gerontius” to his Society. But he at once, on reading the words spoke of the “Roman Catholic Element” being so prominent!! “Tommy Rot” you say; Ditto Says I, who am rather an Agnostic than anything else. But alas!, one must deal with people as one finds them, & if, without Bowdlerising a superb poem one can remove Mary & Joseph to a more distant Background, it may not be a bad thing!2

Elgar’s response—“As to the Catholic side, of course it will frighten the low church party but the poem must on no account be touched!”—revealed a full understanding of the situation, but also an insistence that the poem remain unedited.3 Religious bias may even have affected the problematic first performance at Birmingham. Some have suggested, for instance, that the problems of the premiere may have resulted in part from the strongly Protestant antipathy of the chorus master, the elderly W. C. Stockley.4

As Jaeger’s experience with Glasgow presaged, the Catholicity of the work would indeed pose a problem in securing performances in certain venues. In his thoughtful essay, “Measure of a Man: Catechizing Elgar’s Catholic Avatars,” Charles Edward McGuire has documented the difficulties the oratorio faced in Anglican cathedrals, noting that the work was “banned for nearly a decade in Gloucester Cathedral as ‘inappropriate,’ and performances in the Anglican cathedrals at Worcester and Hereford took place only after large segments of the text were bowdlerized.”5 E. Wulstan Atkins’ memoir of his father, Sir Ivor, Organist of the cathedral from 1897 to 1950, chronicles the Worcester bowdlerization. Significantly the changes in the text were omissions, rather than outright alterations, [End Page 473] with a courteous eye to the copyright holder and a respectful...

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