J.H. Newman’s The Dream of Gerontius and Karm Scerri

Abstract

Karm Scerri, the former organist of Luҫon Cathedral - until his internment for four years in a German camp in France - and later the organist of St John’s Co-Cathedral, was a foremost composer of liturgical music of the twentieth century Malta. The theme of this article is a hand-written letter by Scerri which was discovered by accident by the author. This document is proof that Scerri was requested by Joseph Augustine Sammut to adapt Cardinal John Henry Newman’s theological poem The Dream of Gerontius for organ music. Furthermore, this document supports the claim that Scerri was not aware that Newman’s work had already been the subject of a musical composition and much less of the fact that the latter was one of the major works by the leading British composer Edward William Elgar.