Yesterday's Observer had news of Kate Kennedy's work on resurrecting some of Ivor Gurney’s unpublished songs and poetry from a library archive. She will present some of the songs in a Radio 3 documentary on 20 June which I am greatly looking forward to.
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Me too.Originally posted by gurnemanz View Post
Fifteen years of research - I hope Dr Kennedy had other leavening work along the way.
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Thanks for the link and heads-up. I remember reading that RVW and Finzi had gone through all the song manuscripts when selecting for publication in the 1950s and between them had decided which songs would have done Gurney's reputation no good; more recently someone else (whose name escapes me) did a similar exercise and with the exception of about four or five songs came to the same conclusions. I have often thought it would be good to make up my own mind about them.Originally posted by gurnemanz View Post
That said, I find oddities and awkwardness in even the most well-known of his songs - "Snow" or "All Night Under the Moon", both of which are wonderful but problematic - and I imagine that what Finzi and RVW discovered was that the balance of oddity and awkwardness in some of the later songs outweighed the moments of genius.
That's assuming that they had access to all these manuscripts; did they all go to Marion Scott? It was only after her death that GF and RVW were able to do any meaningful work.
It raises other questions too about our rights even as interested and sympathetic listeners to have access to every last scrap of a composer's work.Comment
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According to the preface in 'A fourth volume of ten songs' (OUP), written by Howard Ferguson, he and Finzi "[...] went through all the manuscripts and selected what appeared to them the best version of each song where several copies existed ... ". I read yesterday tha RVW visted Gurney and discussed his compositions, but was he directly involved in the selections for publication? All will be revealed. I sang through most of vol. 4 yesterday and found them very satisfying.
I am eager to know if he set 'To His Love'. I have myself in 'Songs of Soldier Poets'.
SBz.Comment
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It was Eric Neuville who researched the unpublished songs - findings in a book published in 2014.
The dissertation it is based on can be accessed here: https://digital.lib.washington.edu/r...dle/1773/27118
There is a list of all the songs in the Appendix (or at least all those that Finzi examined. And yes, of course, it was Ferguson rather than RVW who looked at the mss. As Ferguson was later to do to Finzi's mss.)
I see that Ian Venables has also written on the unpublished songs (as well as composing some rather good settings of Gurney's own poetry).Comment
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Fine, fine poet. Much and too much overlooked.Comment
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The Gurney SMP selected on here is beautiful IMVVHO ……
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This is the programme, flagged up by Hannah this morning on Breakfast, on next Sunday evening 20 June: Together with poet Andrew Motion and musicologist Stephen Johnson, Kate Kennedy explores the lost works of Gurney.Originally posted by antongould View PostComment
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It will be a most rewarding listen. I was for thirty years, working in mental health nursing.Don’t cry for me
I go where music was born
J S Bach 1685-1750Comment
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Anyone interested in composers who suffered 'mental health issues' would probably appreciate the work of American psychologist Kay Redfield Jamison on bipolar disorder, and specifically her book on artists of various disciplines:
Jamison, Kay Redfield (1993), Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament, New York: The Free Press, ISBN 0-02-916030-8
I don't recall whether Gurney features in this.Comment
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There was an item about Gurney on the Today programme this morning, shortly before 9 o'clock at about 2.48 on Sounds.Comment
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Not to wish to put a dampener on any of this but a soprano I know recently corresponded with a Gurney scholar who wrote of the "unearthing" and "silenced voice" issues, as outlined in https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...jvx-aiBwo1KcM0 , with some evident suspicion, as follows:
"I have no doubt the Gurney Society would feel some of the claims of 'never looked at' items somewhat exaggerated, and the 'corrections' to his music not always made out of ignorance!
'He was very confident in his technique'; true - but that was his weakness - as Parry said, he was unteachable, and over confident in his technique.
That is the music. As for the poems. P.J.Kavanagh published well over 100 poems written in the asylum, in 1984!
Another look at his work is always welcome, but [not] helped by making exaggerated claims which this review seems to imply. Gurney was by no means a silenced voice!
For example - saying (that) she has unearthed evidence that RVW visited him in the asylum; Pamela Blevens...has no less than 20 entries for RVW in her book on Gurney, one giving a quote from the medical superintendent - 'I consider we should be deeply indebted to Dr Vaughan Williams and Miss Scott (Marion Scott) for the very great interest they take in him.'"
A very sad life, though and arguably an unique one in terms of the balance between the writing of music and poetry...Comment
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I am not qualified in any way to comment on the greater part of your post, AH; but I would suggest the above comments would be consistent with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder in Gurney. The characeristic of a manic phase (and see my post #11 above) would likely be a sense of omnipotence.Originally posted by ahinton View Post
Of course: absolutely.A very sad life, though and arguably an unique one in terms of the balance between the writing of music and poetry...Comment
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That does indeed sound perfectly plausible.Originally posted by kernelbogey View Post
The sad thing is when - as appears might be the case here - someone comes up with "discoveries" and "hitherto undocumented material" that turns out not to be so; this sort of thing is usually perpetrated by someone seeking kudos for their "research"...Comment
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