For many, Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius represents the pinnacle of the late Victorian choral tradition. The composer's contemporaries, however, saw it somewhat differently. The overtly Catholic subject matter caused disquiet in Protestant establishment circles, while Elgar's style was deemed overly Wagnerian. At the time of the work's premiere some considered it to be a natural successor to Parsifal, and consequently dangerous and inherently modernistic.

Colin Davis has always sought to anchor Elgar's work in the European mainstream; Gerontius's debt to Wagner was very much to the fore in his performance with the London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. Davis avoided self-conscious piety and religiosity, taking us on an emotional and spiritual journey in which fears of mortality, conveyed with shocking vividness, gave way to a sense of monumental awe and wonder. The orchestral textures were sensuously coloured, and the vast symphonic structure flawlessly paced and handled.

Gerontius was sung by David Rendall, a late replacement for the indisposed Ben Heppner. Rendall is a notable Tristan: once past a few moments of uncertainty at the start, the weight of his voice and the intensity of his declamation were frequently telling in his delineation of Gerontius's progress from agony to ecstatic resignation. Anne Sofie von Otter was the Angel, at once unearthly yet humane, heart-tugging in the final sections, in which you briefly felt you were contemplating eternity. Alastair Miles carefully contrasted the Priest's forthrightness with the mystic fervour of the Angel of the Agony. The choral singing, thrilling in its immediacy and clarity, can only be described as electrifying from start to finish.