Sir Edward Elgar, 1st Baronet (1857-1934)
Autograph music manuscript, sketches for The Dream of Gerontius, op. 38, [1900]
'These are giddy old Devils': sketches for The Dream of Gerontius.

Sketches for material including the fugue ('Dispossed, aside thrust') of the Demons' Chorus in part II, titled at head 'Fuga / a tre voci / Demons / mem. / These are giddy old Devils'. In pencil, approx. 35 bars in 9 systems of two or three staves on two pages, 300 x 232mm, one fugal phrase noted 'Answer', a later theme marked 'fantastico', the recto cancelled in red crayon with the letter 'K', pencil numbering '4' on verso.

Provenance:
(1) Bonhams, 23 November 2010, lot 63.

(2) Schøyen Collection, MS 5473.

The Demons' Chorus interrupts the journey of the Soul and the Angel towards the judgement throne towards the beginning of part II of the work. After an initial chorus ('Low-born clods of brute earth') in which they express their disdain of mankind in a series of short phrases, the demons' rage comes to a peak in this intense fugal section. The first system of this sketchleaf notates the vocal line ('Dispossessed, Aside thrust, Chuck'd down ...') against a semiquaver figure in the bass clef, corresponding broadly with the vocal and string parts at the tenor entry in figure 36, p.108 ff. of the first edition; the time signature is 2/4 rather than the 4/4 of the final version. Additional unidentified sketches on the verso including a brief theme in C minor marked 'fantastico' and an extensive pianissimo section in 3/4.

The Dream of Gerontius was composed for the Birmingham Music Festival of 1900, setting the poem by John Henry Newman: although the initial performance bordered on a disaster, it soon came to be accepted as one of Elgar's greatest works.