Elgar, Newman and "The Dream of Gerontius": In the Tradition of English Catholicism by Percy M. Young (review)

1 18BOOK REVIEWS arisen, and a new type of association had come of age: the Verband. Having weathered the Kulturkampf and Germany's industrial "take off," CathoUc organizers now constructed vocational associations to fight against socialism and secularism. Emphasizing the shared social responsibiUties of worker and owner, they hoped to strengdien the moral fabric of industrialized society. By the twentieth century, CathoUc federations and trade unions had eclipsed the charitable organizations, and a conflict ignited within the Church. The trade unions had chosen to emphasize Christian rather than CathoUc identity among members. "IntegraUsts" within the associations caUed for greater openness to the modern world. The CathoUc Conference responded by calling for clerical control of the trade unions, whUe the bishops sought to discipline the associations . On the eve ofWorldWar I, the conflict remained unresolved, the Christian Trade Unions had peaked, and associational CathoUcism had reached its zenith. Haider provides a summary of traditional historiography and an analysis of the vast array of clubs and organizations. There are no particularly new arguments or interpretations, and the author does not adequately address issues raised by social historians, such as Urs Altermatt or Michael Klöcker. WhUe the regional focus ofthe study is southwest Germany, Haider devotes most space to national developments. Associations and their histories in Baden andWürttemberg are treated fuUy. The regional history ofpoUtical CathoUcism is woven into the fabric of the larger narrative as weU. Yet, this is primarily a study of German CathoUcism in which Baden and Württemberg necessarily feU into the background . Eric John Yonke University ofWisconsin-Stevens Point Elgar, Newman and "The Dream of Gerontius": In the Tradition of English Catholicism. By Percy M. Young. (Brookfield, Vermont: Scolar Press, Ashgate PubUshing Co. 1995. Pp. xiii, 162. $54.95.) History was made on November 30, 1995, when Queen EUzabeth II became the first British monarch in modern times to attend in the realm a Roman CathoUc reUgious service, Vespers, in this case, to mark the centenary of the founding ofWestminster Cathedral. Herpresence,in the words of Cardinal BasU Hume, was "an affirmation of the place that we CathoUcs have in the nation." It was not always so, of course, given the centuries of anti-CathoUc discrimination . That discrimination, and its impact upon church music, the author, a weU-known critic, composer, musicologist, and honorary feUow at the University ofBirmingham, sketches in the first part of this meticulously wrought slender volume. BOOK REVIEWS119 Lovers of John Henry Newman (1801-1890) and Edward WilUam Elgar (1857-1934) wUl find the second part of this book especiaUy engaging, as Dr. Young traces the genesis ofNewman's beautiful poem from a youthful desire to "make a poem on Faith. ... To end with a feint imagination of the soul just freed from the bonds of the mortal body" to its enfleshment, wondrousty in a single night UiJanuary, 1865, as The Dream ofGerontius. Newman dedicated it, fittingly, to the memory of the Birmingham Oratorian Joseph Gordon (1812-1853), who, though mortally ill, had labored to assist Newman in the "great anxiety" of his trial for criminal Ubel. The CathoUc composer Elgar set Newman's "solemn and mystic" poem to music for the Birmingham Festival in October, 1900. Its successful performance at the Düsseldorf Festival in Germany in 1902 earned Richard Stauss's verdict that "with that work England for the first time became one of the modern musical states." Although the oratorio became recognized as a classic, some of its renditions over the years at the Worcester Festivals, where its text was grossly subjected to mutilations and alterations deemed necessary by Protestant "susceptibiUties ,"testify to the perdurance of that anti-CathoHc discrimination, even in the arts. Dr. Young weU proposes a critical edition of Newman's writings on music. A single caveat I would hazard: that he marshal his details and keep them in line lest they tend to obscure his theme(s), as they do in this small volume. E. Leo McMannus Venice, Florida Correspondance de Giovanni Battista de Rossi et de Louis Duchesne (18731894 ). Edited by Patrick Saint-Roch. [CoUection de L'École Française de Rome, 205.] (Rome: L'École Française de Rome. 1995. Pp. 729) "At...