Paul McCreesh's recording of Elgar's 'The Dream of Gerontius' has been awarded Vocal Recording of the Year in Limelight Magazine's 2024 Recording of the Year Awards!
Announcing the win, the magazine wrote:
Out on the Signum Classics label, Paul McCreesh’s interpretation of Elgar’s setting of John Henry Newman’s poem into sharp relief, wrote Limelight reviewer Tony Way. “Together, the singers and players under McCreesh’s visionary direction reveal a breathtaking wealth of detail.”
The poem speaks to Newman’s conversion to Catholicism but McCreesh believes the work speaks to everybody – believers or otherwise. “Somehow it conveys the idea of the everyman dreaming of a different afterlife – there’s a tremendous amount of hope in this piece.”
The original review from Limelight Magazine by Tony Way read:
The grand scale of Gerontius is a perfect match for Paul McCreesh, now a seasoned purveyor of sonic spectaculars . . . McCreesh is at pains to realise a sound world as close to Elgar’s as possible, providing detailed booklet-notes about his choices.
Allied to the Elgarian soundscape McCreesh achieves in this recording is the remarkable acuity of the massed vocal forces that consist of the Gabrieli Consort, McCreesh’s youth choir Gabrieli Roar and the Polish National Youth Choir.
This represents another win for the record by Paul McCreesh and his Gabrieli Consort & Players on the heels of The 2024 Gramophone Award for Best Choral Recording.
