Elgar Season
2/4. Elgar and Religion. Four commentators reflect on aspects of Elgar in the context of his time, and explore the contradictions and enigmas in his complex and paradoxical personality. Elgar's masterpiece The Dream of Gerontius was given a notoriously inadequate first performance, which may have undermined the composer's Catholic faith. After Gerontius he began a trilogy of oratorios based on the life of Christ and the Apostles but completed only two of them - The Apostles and The Kingdom. Pianist and conductor Stephen Hough , himself a Catholic, wonders how deeply Eigar's faith was rooted.