The Dream of Gerontius
IN reflecting on the life of an outstanding individual, it’s easy to fall into the trap of imagining their existence as one long triumphal march, great moments stacking up one on top of another. On closer examination, that seldom turns out to be the case, and it wasn’t with Sir Edward Elgar, praised in his lifetime by Richard Strauss as ‘the first English progressivist’. Elgar was a self-taught musician
