Three Choirs Festival: The Dream of Gerontius

Programme

This masterpiece of British choral music is a work unlike any other.

Depicting a man’s final hours on earth and his soul’s journey to judgement, The Dream of Gerontius contains some of Elgar’s most moving and powerful music, from the quiet but fervent opening to the sublime ‘Angel’s Farewell’. Life and death, angels and demons, love and faith, all are explored in heart-rending music that Elgar himself described as “the best of me”.

The concert opens with the Prelude to Wagner’s Parsifal, a huge musical influence on the composition of Gerontius. An unmissable evening and a fitting climax to the 2026 Festival from one of its greatest sons.