By the end of the summer in 1900, Elgar, aged 43, had completed The Dream of Gerontius and learned to ride a bike. The Dream was performed on the penultimate night of this year’s Proms (11 September) and we heard, through Sir Simon Rattle’s thoughtful account, the Wagnerian leitmotifs weaving through the score like well-defined cycle tracks. Several themes are announced by the strings in the Prelude, which the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra played with full-­bodied radiance at Rattle’s chin-jutting command. Had the players read the late Cardinal Newman’s beautiful poem on the physical sensations of death and the nature of Purgatory? It sounded that way. The violins shimmered vividly in eerie octaves as tenor Toby Spence’s Gerontius sang of “strange i