Elgar Memorial Window - Worcester Cathedral, UK
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The year following Elgar's death, the Elgar Memorial Window was unveiled at the Cathedral which shows a scene from Elgar's work "The Dream of Gerontius". This is unusual in that the Memorial to a Catholic Composer, featuring a work whose text is by a Catholic Cardinal, is to be found in an Anglican Cathedral.
Waymark Code: WM5MAZ
Location: United Kingdom
Date Posted: 01/21/2009
Views: 13
In later life Elgar was to write to a friend: 'Yesterday I went to Worcester and had the joy of sitting in the old library of the Cathedral amongst the manuscripts I have often told you of - the view down the river across to the hills just as the monks saw it and as I have seen it for so many years - it seems so curious to feel that I played among the tombs and in the cloisters when I could scarcely walk, and now the Dean and canons are so polite and show me everything new, alterations, discoveries etc. It is a sweet old place, especially, to me, the library into which so few go.'
The window, designed by Archibald Nicholson, was the result of an appeal by Ivor Atkins (friend of Elgar’s and longtime organist of Worcester Cathedral) and the dean of the cathedral, William Moore-Ede. Its construction proceeded rapidly in the ancient building, and the dedication occurred on September 3, 1935 at the Worcester meeting of the Three Choirs Festival, a little over a year after Elgar’s death. As was fitting for a fallen cultural hero, Viscount Cobham, then Lord Lieutenant of Worcester, unveiled the memorial.
The Elgar window is an idealized representation of several scenes from The Dream of Gerontius. It is constructed of three panels, capped by six smaller arched windows In the center, Gerontius appears in two manifestations. In the lowest panel, he is the sick, dying old man from Part I of the oratorio. His attendants pray for him, underscored by the text “Go forth upon thy journey, Christian Soul” (Part I, rehearsal number 69). This prayer sends the viewer into the second segment of the window above, where Gerontius, transformed into the Soul, is borne aloft toward the throne of Christ by an obviously masculine Angel. Surrounding the throne, right, left, and above, are other angels hovering around a rainbow; they sing a hymn (from Part II of Gerontius, rehearsal number 60), “Praise to the Holiest in the height, and in the depths be praise.” The window’s side panels feature holy figures, including local saints with nationalistic connotations—Dunstan, Oswald, and Wulstan—the musical figures Saint Cecilia and Gregory the Great, plus a number of the persons mentioned in the Part I prayers of Gerontius, which are labeled for those not familiar with popular hagiographic iconography. Close by the window is a more specific memorial plaque, with the inscription “Edward Elgar O.M., Master of the King’s Musick, 1857–1934, Proficiscere Anima Christiana De Hoc Mundo.” This Latin phrase, drawn from the liturgy, is sung by the Priest at the end of the first part of Gerontius (Part I, rehearsal number 68).
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