Petrenko & Elgar

Address

Ørestads Boulevard 13,
2300 København

Petrenko & Elgar

Description

»It is the best of me« wrote Elgar at the end of the score of The Dream of Gerontius. Many agree that this Romantic large-scale work for voices and orchestra is the English composer's masterpiece. Elgar was a Roman Catholic, but his faith was far from unshakeable. He was deeply moved by a poem by the English cardinal John Henry Newman entitled The Dream of Gerontius, in which an ordinary person is confronted with the end of life and is carried into heaven, while the experience is described along the way. Elgar set the poem to music for large choir, three soloists and orchestra in a work that stands entirely on its own - even though some have compared it to Wagner's Parsifal in its metaphysical sublimity and unusual harmonic beauty. The English-based Vasily Petrenko, who conducted a deeply moving performance of Elgar's Symphony No. 1 in 2017, leads soloists, DR Symfoniorkestret and DR Koncertkoret in Elgar's strangely beautiful and uplifting meditation on human mortality. Programme: Elgar / The Dream of Gerontius