David Stewart wrote:

>I bought the Dream of Gerontius as recommended by many of you.  I got the
>Boult recording as I was told it is reliable.  I have listened to it with
>and without the score but I am pretty sure most of it is going over my
>head.  There are bits which I can relate to but I don't think I am quite
>getting the rest.

Boult is my favorite recording, but I admit it is a bit difficult to hear
words articulated well. Newer versions overcome this difficulty.  The
second problem is that few people are familiar with the text by John Henry
(Cardinal) Newman. The text concerns a vision of Christian death as
introducing one to eternal life. But it's much more complex than this. It
is a struggle to resolve one's views about Victorian England (and the
vision one might have from that perspective) and the utterly spiritual
vision devoid of "context." Here come together the trials of this life,
what significance, if any, they have with our expectations about death. The
dream also addresses how something that is temporal and less than perfect,
like humans, "crosses over" into the eternal and the perfect (the realm of
the divine). An understanding of the theory of purgatory is also helpful.
The doctrine simply imputes "guilt" to those who have not satisfied
(kharma) the consequences (effects) of their sin through works of charity
and mercy, but have already been forgiven the sins themselves. Souls who
have not satisfied the consequences of their sins, but have been forgiven
them, are purified in purgatory before their admission into heaven.

Elgar was a passionate Roman Catholic and almost contemporaneous with
Newman. I don't know if they ever met. But the dream sequence is
orthodox in every respect.

D. Stephen Heersink
San Francisco
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