“This is the best of me”, wrote Edward Elgar after the final measure of his Dream of Gerontius. Premiered in 1900, in Great Britain the work has long been a standard work in the repertoire of large oratorio choirs. Elgar’s moving, poetic setting of the eponymous poem by Cardinal John Henry Newman is about a dying man and his journey beyond death to God.

Before the eyes of the listeners, a musical image of the soul is created which flies past mocking demons to God with its protecting angel at ...