The Dream of Gerontius

Huddersfield Choral Society, Orchestra of Opera North, RNCM Chamber Choir / Martyn Brabbins
Karen Cargill, soprano; David Butt Philip tenor, Roland Wood baritone.

Hyperion CDA68461/2
https://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/

Few works in the choral canon invite the kind of collector's obsession that Elgar's magnificent oratorio inspires. With nearly every significant recording of The Dream of Gerontius to hand, and the bar raised considerably high over the past few years—not least by Paul McCreesh and the Gabrieli Consort, and Nicholas Collon's compelling account with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra—a new release must earn its place on crowded shelves. This one does.

The timing is significant. This recording was made on 5 April 2025, almost eighty years to the day since the Huddersfield Choral Society made the first complete recording of Gerontius in that same Huddersfield Town Hall, with the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra under Sir Malcolm Sargent for HMV. That 1945 milestone came just as the war in Europe was drawing to its close; the symbolism was not lost then, and it resonates still. Founded in 1836 and affectionately known as The Choral, the Huddersfield Choral Society carries this repertoire in its institutional DNA, and a fascinating essay by Gaynor Haliday in the accompanying booklet explores the society's relationship with the work and its deep connections to the First World War—a resonance sharpened, no doubt, by the release earlier this year of The Choral, Alan Bennett, and Nicholas Hytner's evocative film with Ralph Fiennes, which brought the society to wider public attention.

Martyn Brabbins is no stranger to British music of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and his accumulated understanding of the idiom informs every bar. He crafts the work with genuine thoughtfulness, carefully observes the dynamics, and colours the drama of The Dream of Gerontius with intelligence and diligence. The opening prelude breathes with natural eloquence, the strings of Opera North are scintillating, and the woodwind and brass contribute compelling detail throughout. Brabbins shapes the work's longer arcs with patience and authority, building intensity without forcing the pace.

David Butt Philip is a fine Gerontius, bringing self-assurance and candour to the role, communicating its drama with conviction. Roland Wood makes a powerful Priest in Part I and an impressive Angel of the Agony; Karen Cargill's Angel is admirable, communicating expressive tenderness with the support of excellent orchestral accompaniment. The RNCM Chamber Choir functions exactly as the semi-chorus should — integrated, balanced, and precise.

The Huddersfield Choral Society respond well to Brabbins's direction: their blend is assured, diction clear, and intonation good. I always await with particular anticipation the choral tutti at section 74 — those three great chords and the declamation of Praise to the Holiest — and the Society does not disappoint, capturing Elgar's signature Maestoso marking and building convincingly to its conclusion, if stopping just short of the electrifying charge one occasionally hopes for. The female voices of both choirs, as the Angelicals in the approach to this tremendous section, are superb, and the Demons' Chorus is delivered with authority and assurance.

It is all too easy, as a critic, to sit in lofty halls and lose oneself in comparisons. But this disc, superbly recorded by Hyperion's engineers, is one to savour: a worthy addition to the catalogue and a deeply felt tribute to an extraordinary institution.