and the work ends with overlapping Amens. Dedication and superscription Elgar dedicated his work "A.M.D.G." (Ad maiorem Dei gloriam, "To the greater glory of God", the motto of the Society of Jesus or Jesuits), following the practice of Johann Sebastian Bach, who would dedicate his works "S.D.G." (Soli Deo gloria, "Glory to God alone"). Underneath this he wrote a line from Virgil: "Quae lucis miseris tam dira cupido?" together with Florio's English translation of Montaigne's adaptation of Virgil's line: "Whence so dyre desire of Light on wretches grow?" At the end of the manuscript score, Elgar wrote this quotation from John Ruskin's Sesame and Lilies: This is the best of me; for the rest, I ate, and drank, and slept, loved and hated, like another: my life was as the vapour and is not; but this I saw and knew; this, if anything of mine, is worth your memory. Richter signed the autograph copy of the score with the inscription: "Let drop the Chorus, let drop everybody—but let not drop the wings of your original genius." Recordings Henry Wood made acoustic recordings of four extracts from The Dream of Gerontius as early as 1916, with Clara Butt as the Angel. Edison Bell issued the work in 1924 with Elgar's tacit approval (despite his contract with HMV); acoustically recorded and abridged, it was swiftly rendered obsolete by the introduction of the electrical process, and soon after withdrawn. HMV issued live recorded excerpts from two public performances conducted by Elgar in 1927, with the soloists Margaret Balfour, Steuart Wilson, Tudor Davies, Herbert Heyner, and Horace Stevens. Private recordings from radio broadcasts ("off-air" recordings) also exist in fragmentary form from the 1930s. The first complete recording was made by EMI in 1945, conducted by Malcolm Sargent with his regular chorus and orchestra, the Huddersfield Choral Society and the Liverpool Philharmonic. The soloists were Heddle Nash, Gladys Ripley, Dennis Noble and Norman Walker. This is the only recording to date that employs different singers for the Priest and the Angel of the Agony. The first stereophonic recording was made by EMI in 1964, conducted by Sir John Barbirolli. It has remained in the catalogues continuously since its first release, and is notable for Janet Baker's singing as the Angel. Benjamin Britten's 1971 recording for Decca was noted for its fidelity to Elgar's score, showing, as the Gramophone reviewer said, that "following the composer's instructions