Elgar: Piano Quintet

Prompted by a post at the Stella Maris blog [here] about the composer Edward Elgar and the undoubted difficulties he encountered because of his Catholicism [one only has to think of Stanford's infamous comment about the Dream of Gerontius that it "stinks of incense" to understand very clearly the prejudices commonly in circulation] here is perhaps my favourite work of Elgar's - the Piano Quintet in A minor, performed by Ian Brown with the Sorrel Quartet:




Of course, it wasn't only Roman Catholics who suffered from the Establishment's prejudice. Less than twenty years before the writing of Gerontius, Anglo-Catholic clergy of the Church of England were being imprisoned by the State under the provisions of Disraeli's Public Worship Regulation Act. If to the Establishment of the day, Catholics were the clear and overt enemy, Anglo-Catholics were the sinister and subversive fifth column.

But Fr Abberton is right; the prejudice against Catholicism in any form is still there beneath the surface. Try scratching the veneer of contemporary ecumenical 'tolerance' and you will soon find out. To take a random example, even mention the word ' Ordinariate' in certain circles and .... [light blue touch-paper and retire]