Elgar's dream awakens voice from past

The Auckland Choral Society's performance of Elgar's oratorio The Dream of Gerontius has an intriguing historical echo, writes HEATH LEES.

When conductor Peter Watts brings down the baton on the opening A of Elgar's oratorio The Dream of Gerontius this Saturday evening, he will be opening up special memories for himself and some of his singers.

Elgar's Gerontius was the last work Watts sang in as a choir member at Cambridge University before he set off for the Overseas Experience that led to New Zealand.

The year was 1971, Sir David Willcocks' last year at Cambridge, and to mark his retirement, the Gerontius performance became a special tribute. Not only did the famous tenor Peter Pears sing the title role, but the whole occasion was conducted - unforgettably, says Watts - by Benjamin Britten.

Watts isn't the only one to have far-reaching memories about the work. In the semi-chorus, sung by Indra Hughes' choir Musica Sacra, there will be an alto singer whose husband boasts a direct link to one of the first New Zealand performances of Gerontius. What's more, he has a family diary, 90 years old, to prove it.

The diary belongs to Tom Chignell, whose grandfather Philip made daily entries on his way to Auckland in 1911 with the well-known Northern England choir, the Sheffield Choral Society. The journey was part of a world tour, starting in America in the company of Gerontius composer Sir Edward Elgar, who hated every moment of the trip, and returned home before the others set sail for the antipodes.

After weathering a furious storm, duly documented by Chignell on June 22, 1911, the choir was welcomed into Auckland by a New Zealand Herald story that proclaimed, "The visit of the Sheffield Choir to Auckland is at least as interesting and important as was the visit of the All Blacks to Sheffield."

Philip Chignell records that after his arrival he was soon roaming around Auckland "taking any tram to anywhere at a cost of three pence." Sitting on the beach after a major excursion to Herne Bay, he remarked on Auckland's warm winter sunshine of mid-June, but had to forsake this for the city again, and the concert that night.

Alas, the Town Hall was not to be opened until December 1911, so the concert organisers had hired a huge warehouse on the quay. This produced a distinctly cool reaction from Chignell: "A very good rendering of Gerontius was given. The hall, however, is a mere barn, and altogether unworthy, although large, of such an occasion." Chignell makes no mention of an organ either, so presumably that too went by default.

But in an interesting turn, Chignell's diary records that the day after the concert, he was one of a party that went by boat across the harbour then took the train to Takapuna, where he met with, "Mr H. Brett, a local and wealthy musical enthusiast." Unknown to Chignell, this H. Brett was actually Sir Henry Brett, one-time mayor of Auckland, and the benefactor who gifted the present Town Hall organ, itself up and running in full splendour only six months after the choir's departure.

After studying Chignell's diary, Watts feels that Saturday night's performance of Elgar's oratorio will have a kind of roundedness that he hadn't suspected. It's the first performance in the restored Town Hall, the venue the Sheffield choir were just six months too early to use, and it also uses the organ which Henry Brett gifted at the time of the choir's visit.

Better still, Watts notes that after the Sheffield choir had left Auckland, the New Zealand Herald ran an article about better choral singing in Auckland, and how to get it. Watts reckons that the way the Auckland Choral Society is singing now, they've definitely got it, and he's keen to prove this.

* The Dream of Gerontius, Auckland Choral Society, Auckland Town Hall, 7.30 pm, Saturday.