Just an alert about this forthcoming BBC Four programme on Ivor Gurney tonight at 9 pm:
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Many thanks for this alert aeolium - I just hope that it's as good as it needs to be, for Gurney's sake. -
Well, I thought it was very good (apart from the title - it's surely going too far to say that Gurney loved the first world war). There were plenty of readings from his poetry, and the accompanying music was all by Gurney. The documentary was an excellent introduction to Gurney's life and work for anyone who knew little about it. I liked the early comments about Gurney's almost compulsive walking, that he was a poet/composer who needed to be in motion for his muse to come.
If I had any minor quibbles it would be that there was not that much about Gurney's two great friendships, with Herbert Howells and the Gloucestershire poet F W Harvey. Gurney would sometimes turn up in the early morning at the Howells family house in Lydney having walked from Gloucester through the night, and both of them were at first performances of the Tallis Fantasia at Gloucester (Three Choirs Festival) and the Sea Symphony in London. Iain Burnside has written a fine play - A Soldier and a Maker - about the relationship of the two men, which was performed two years ago at the Cheltenham Festival. I think also it would have been good to mention Gurney's more ambitious works like the orchestral work The Gloucestershire Rhapsody (performed at Cheltenham a few years ago).
Gurney's was clearly a life of much suffering due to his mental condition (what a fate for someone who loved walking in the Gloucestershire countryside to be stuck in an asylum in a Kentish town), but he achieved much despite it. It's good that there is a new window dedicated to his memory in Gloucester cathedral.Comment
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I have recorded this and will watch it properly eventually. I did have it on last night but was doing other things at the same time (not a good idea), so wasn't really concentrating. He certainly had a sad life for the most part.
My impression was that neither his music nor his poetry would qualify him to be called a 'genius', as the programme claimed. Talented, certainly, but surely not original enough to called more than that. However, I shall have another, more attentive look.Comment
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Splendid programme quietly conducted by genuine experts, not hogging the camera, revealing whole strata of both Gurney and the campaigns. Moving stuff.
Certainly do agree about the Howells angle: in fact, the music was significantly underplayed. Surprise?Comment
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One thing that interested me, but was not comented upon in the programme, was that while Gurney was something of an innovator in the realm of poetry, he was not in his music, which (from what I have heard of it) was very much in a post-Elgar style shared with Quilter and later taken up by Finzi, whom he knew, as was mentioned.Comment
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Yes, the programme was arguing that while Gurney's pre-war and wartime poetry was essentially conventional in a kind of Georgian style, it was his later work which broke away from those conventions. But as you say, I don't think this happened with the music, at least what I've heard of it.Originally posted by Serial_Apologist View Post
It's good that there is a new biography being written as the Michael Hurd one is now 35 years old and not based on the latest evidence, for instance a significant number of unpublished poems from the asylum period which will hopefully be included in a new OUP edition of his poetry.Comment
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Thanks aeolium for flagging this up.
I've just watched it on catch up,very moving.
Marvelous programme.Comment
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And my thanks too for highlighting the programme. I had seen it was on and then promptly forgot. it happens a lot.....
And what an excellent programme - both in content and presentation. Take a presenter who knows his subject and can discuss it in an intelligent way and then leave him to it. I knew little about Gurney before the broadcast other than the visit from Edward Thomas' widow, Helen, which received a brief mention. I now know more and will explore further. A tragic and painful life....and there but for the grace.......
To have been present at the first performance of the Tallis Fantasia would have been a moment to remember.Comment
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That was such an inspired thought from Helen Thomas to take Ordnance Survey maps of Gloucestershire to the asylum in Kent so that Gurney could revisit in his mind's eye the places where he had walked.the visit from Edward Thomas' widow, Helen, which received a brief mention
I think I read somewhere (perhaps in a biography of Howells) that after that first performance of the Tallis Fantasia, Gurney and Howells walked about the Gloucester streets talking about it and other matters to do with music and poetry and suddenly noticed that it was getting light...Comment
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Those who enjoy Gurney's music and poetry may well enjoy this:
Robert Edric's: In Zodiac Light which, in fictional form, traces Gurney's life at the Dartford alysum.O Wort, du Wort, das mir Fehlt!Comment
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Some few years ago (at least 10?) there was a documentary about Gurney that highlighted his friendship with both Howells and another chorister (wait for it) Ivor Novello.
Roses are shining in Picardy...Last edited by Pabmusic; 02-04-14, 10:44.Comment
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Anthony Boden wrote:
"A turning point for both Howells and Gurney was reached in 1910, a year in which the Three Choirs Festival was held in Gloucester. Howells had asked Brewer if there was to be any new work in the Festival programme. 'Yes', Brewer replied, 'a queer mad work by an odd fellow from Chelsea – something to do with Tallis'. "Comment
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Just to point out - it is being repeated tonight on BBC4 , TV at 00:00. As I missed this 1st time round, I'll make sure I record it.Comment
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