Huddersfield Choral Society and their 120 years of history with Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius

Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius, featured heavily in recently released film The Choral, has been recorded for release by Huddersfield Choral Society (HCS), conducted by Martyn Brabbins, on 30 January. We talked to Gaynor Haliday, historian and member of the choir, about how the history of Elgar’s work is intimately connected to Huddersfield Choral’s own story, and how Alan Bennett’s screenplay mirrors HCS’s journey through the First World War.

In the film, the Choral solve the problem of losing their male voices by recruiting anyone and everyone who wants to sing. Gaynor’s previous research on education during this period gives a compelling explanation as to how young people from families of mill workers in that community would have had the skills to quickly pick up such a complicated choral work. In the 1880s, the Huddersfield School Board employed an instructor of singing, David William Evans, to teach in their schools, responding to a national grant programme that paid up to one shilling per child who could sing. From the first year of his teaching, he presented a concert for parents with a chorus of up to 600 singing demanding works like ‘Hallelujah Chorus’ from Messiah. Most were children from the homes of the labouring classes and soon 100% of Huddersfield schools earned the highest grant, which meant all children in Huddersfield could sing by reading music. Gaynor points out that they had not only nurtured singers, but an enthusiastic audience for choral music – 'David Evans had introduced these children and their parents, to these big, complicated choral works. The children would have been singing them in their homes, where there was no recorded music, so it was in their heads, it was in their blood.'

The film is not a complete mirror of the Huddersfield Choral story, however. Where the fictional Choral has a turbulent relationship with the composer, Huddersfield Choral were a favourite of Elgar and he conducted them himself in 1917 in a Grand Elgar Night which included Gerontius. Elgar – and all composers at that time – would have known that their works would be performed by choral societies made up of amateur singers, as there were no other choirs with these forces at the time. The standard of singing of HCS and choral societies across the country was exceptionally high and they performed regularly with professional orchestras and soloists.

What Huddersfield Choral, and anyone who has ever been a part of a committee-run choir can agree on, is that Bennett’s depiction of the inner workings of a choral society is uncannily accurate, including how creative decisions are often driven by necessity and available resources. The archives of Huddersfield Choral show that finances had a big part to play in the decision to mount the very popular Elgar Night, as they were looking for a big draw to recoup losses accrued in a previous season.

Like choral society members across the UK, current members of Huddersfield Choral are delighting in finding how the film reflects their history, as well as how it deviates. But it has been a particular pleasure for them to see how Elgar’s music has become the star of this film, introducing a new audience to this music they love and that has played such a huge part in their development and success. Their new recording of Gerontius was made in spring 2025, performing with the Orchestra of Opera North, and conducted by their long-time collaborator and artistic advisor Martyn Brabbins, with soloists Karen Cargill, David Butt Philip and Roland Wood.