Light On Dark Water

I had planned to give this work some serious attention during Lent, an intention which was only partially executed. It’s roughly 90 minutes long, and a stretch of uninterrupted time of that length is pretty hard to find for me. But I didn’t want to break it up. Moreover, its wide dynamic range makes it unsuited to listening in the car. Eventually I did hear it through several times in fairly big pieces, the last time on my iPod while I watered some newly laid sod. That actually was a rather memorable experience. It was the week after Easter, everything was green, and the weather was cool and sweet, sunny with a light breeze: a day that encouraged the belief that the gateway from this world to the next is not so remote, in any sense, as we (or at least I) generally think.

I would think that any non-believer who took the trouble to listen to Gerontius attentively would consider it a very good work. For a believer, it may be a great one. I didn’t think so at first, but it grew on me. Since I’m trying to keep these brief reviews even briefer, I’ll direct you to this sympathetic Wikipedia article for a detailed description, and I’ll mention just a few things that struck me:

• The prelude is, minute for minute, as beautiful a piece of orchestral writing as anything from the late 19th century (within my less-than-exhaustive knowledge). Only the fact that it doesn’t actually stop, but blends seamlessly into the opening words of Gerontius, keeps it from being a great concert piece.
• The priest’s blessing and sending of the dying man’s soul at its departure (“Go forth upon thy journey, Christian soul!”) is about as good a musical and verbal representation of what a shepherd of souls ought to be like as I can imagine. You can imagine that when this guy tells devils to buzz off, they do.
• The moment of judgment is unforgettable.
• There are a few weaknesses that are in part also weaknesses of the poem. It’s not quite convincing that the words of a dying man would carefully and explicitly touch a series of theological bases; if he were reciting the Creed, yes, but not in his spontaneous words. It’s more noticeable here than in the poem because you feel like the music is having trouble carrying the words.
• One who believes that what is depicted here is basically factual, even though the details are invented, may find that some passages bring tears.

The recording I have is this one by the Bournemouth Symphony and Chorus. I can’t say there’s anything wrong with it, yet I also can’t help feeling that it could be better, that there’s a bit of something missing, and so am interested in hearing another.

Here is what I said about the poem a couple of months ago.

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