Talk:The Dream of Gerontius

Untitled
About the classification: Elgar objected somewhat to this being called an oratorio, but he didn't have a better word. He just called it a "setting to music of a poem". He did consent to including it in the Oratorio section of the Novello catalogue.

Questions and Invitations
I don't think I have done a consistent review of the piece in musical terms; this may be weak. I'd be happy for anyone to rewrite it. DavidBrooks 15:33, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The synopsis appears twice: once briefly as an outline of the plot and then in more detail during the description of the music. Is this redundant? I think having a brief, compact introduction is helpful. DavidBrooks 08:03, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I live in the U.S., so I used American spellings out of habit for this most English of entries (except for "catalogue" in this talk page). I don't know if that looks too bizarre to English eyes. Fix it if you want. DavidBrooks 15:33, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

After Janet Baker, who "owned" the Angel; who owns it now? Alfreda Hodgson? Yvonne Minton? Who are the new British mezzos? David Brooks 06:52, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I don't see the famous Barbirolli recording with Janet Baker and Richard Lewis in the notable recording section although one of it's sessions is shown as a jpg. I will add it when I get the chance, in a day or so. But feel free to add it if you want; I won't get upset! Ed (talk) 17:26, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

(1/18/09) I've added the recording as best I could. I'm not quite sure why the whole entry is shown in italics. I've only provided a link to Barbirolli's name at the end of the entry. Change as you see fit. Ed (talk) 16:49, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

The poem
One day someone may write an entry on the poem itself. If that happens, I suggest that be disambiguated at the top of this article, and not that we create a separate disambiguation page. My guess is that someone who goes to "The Dream of Gerontius" is more likely to be looking for the oratorio than the original poem, but that could be showing my bias as a musician and not a poetry guy. DavidBrooks 08:04, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Elgar as Roman Catholic
Am I right in thinking that C.V. Stanford, upon hearing the work, said, "It stinks of incense"? Wspencer11 16:29, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Reportedly, yes. It might fit as a parenthetical illustration in the first para of Additional Notes. David Brooks 17:40, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

The article says Elgar followed Bach in signing his music AMDG. This is actually the motto of the Jesuits. Bach's music was signed Soli Deo Gloria--which, while similar in meaning, has a different origin, being a characteristically Protestant phrase. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 140.247.152.151 (talk)
 * I don't have access to a definitive bio, and the idea that Bach used A.M.D.G. among other signatures seems to be widespread (including in the Ad maiorem Dei gloriam article). If you want to make the sentence less definitive, go ahead. David Brooks (talk) 17:34, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Mark Elder's recording...?
I made the link change because of what I understood WP's position to be based on this: Naming_conventions_(names_and_titles). So would putting "Sir" outside the link but with no other redirect present be OK? --Wspencer11 (talk to me...) 13:17, 9 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Naming is separate from linking. All the discussion I've seen has tended to putting the Sir in the brackets - it effectively does become part of the name.  There might be more room to quibble about whether he was actually "Sir" at the time of the recording though.  David Underdown (talk) 13:54, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Orphaned references in The Dream of Gerontius
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of The Dream of Gerontius's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "answers": From Julius Buths: Answers.com From William Henry Reed: Answers.com 

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 19:13, 27 April 2010 (UTC)