Ivor Bertie Gurney (28 August 1890 – 26 December 1937) was an English poet and
composer, particularly of songs. He was born and raised in
Gloucester
Gloucester ( ) is a cathedral city and the county town of Gloucestershire in the South West of England. Gloucester lies on the River Severn, between the Cotswolds to the east and the Forest of Dean to the west, east of Monmouth and east ...
. He suffered from
bipolar disorder
Bipolar disorder, previously known as manic depression, is a mental disorder characterized by periods of depression and periods of abnormally elevated mood that last from days to weeks each. If the elevated mood is severe or associated with ...
through much of his life and spent his last 15 years in psychiatric hospitals. Critical evaluation of Gurney has been complicated by this, and also by the need to assess both his poetry and his music. Gurney himself thought of music as his true vocation: "The brighter visions brought music; the fainter verse".
Life
Ivor Gurney was born at 3 Queen Street,
Gloucester
Gloucester ( ) is a cathedral city and the county town of Gloucestershire in the South West of England. Gloucester lies on the River Severn, between the Cotswolds to the east and the Forest of Dean to the west, east of Monmouth and east ...
, in 1890, as the second of four surviving children of David Gurney, a tailor, and his wife Florence, a seamstress.
He showed musical ability at an early age. He sang as a chorister at
Gloucester Cathedral from 1900 to 1906, when he became an articled pupil of
Dr Herbert Brewer at the cathedral. There he met a fellow composer,
Herbert Howells
Herbert Norman Howells (17 October 1892 – 23 February 1983) was an English composer, organist, and teacher, most famous for his large output of Anglican church music.
Life
Background and early education
Howells was born in Lydney, Gloucest ...
, who became a lifelong friend. Alongside Gurney and Howells, Brewer's third pupil at this time was
Ivor Novello, then known as Ivor Davies. He also enjoyed an enduring friendship with the poet
F. W. Harvey, whom he met in 1908.
The adults of most significance in Gurney's early life were the Rev. Alfred H. Cheesman, and two sisters, Emily and Margaret Hunt, who nurtured Gurney's interests in music and literature. Gurney began composing music at the age of 14, and won a scholarship to the
Royal College of Music
The Royal College of Music is a conservatoire established by royal charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, UK. It offers training from the undergraduate to the doctoral level in all aspects of Western Music including performanc ...
in 1911. He studied there with
Charles Villiers Stanford
Sir Charles Villiers Stanford (30 September 1852 – 29 March 1924) was an Anglo-Irish composer, music teacher, and conductor of the late Romantic era. Born to a well-off and highly musical family in Dublin, Stanford was educated at the ...
, who also taught
Ralph Vaughan Williams,
John Ireland
John Benjamin Ireland (January 30, 1914 – March 21, 1992) was a Canadian actor. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his performance in ''All the King's Men'' (1949), making him the first Vancouver-born actor to receive an Oscar nomin ...
,
Marion Scott,
Rebecca Clarke,
Frank Bridge
Frank Bridge (26 February 187910 January 1941) was an English composer, violist and conductor.
Life
Bridge was born in Brighton, the ninth child of William Henry Bridge (1845-1928), a violin teacher and variety theatre conductor, formerly a m ...
,
Arthur Bliss
Sir Arthur Edward Drummond Bliss (2 August 189127 March 1975) was an English composer and conductor.
Bliss's musical training was cut short by the First World War, in which he served with distinction in the army. In the post-war years he qu ...
,
Herbert Howells
Herbert Norman Howells (17 October 1892 – 23 February 1983) was an English composer, organist, and teacher, most famous for his large output of Anglican church music.
Life
Background and early education
Howells was born in Lydney, Gloucest ...
and many others. Stanford told Howells that Gurney was potentially "the biggest of them all", but he was "unteachable".
Gurney possessed a dynamic personality, but he had been troubled by
mood swing
A mood swing is an extreme or sudden change of mood. Such changes can play a positive part in promoting problem solving and in producing flexible forward planning, or be disruptive. When mood swings are severe, they may be categorized as par ...
s that became apparent during his teenage years. He had a difficult time focusing on his work at college and suffered his first
breakdown
Breakdown may refer to:
Breaking down
*Breakdown (vehicle), failure of a motor vehicle in such a way that it cannot be operated
*Chemical decomposition, also called chemical breakdown, the breakdown of a substance into simpler components
*Decompo ...
in 1913.
[Pamela Blevins, "Ivor Gurney and Marion Scott: Song of Pain and Beauty".] After taking a rest, he seemed to recover and returned to college.
Gurney's studies were interrupted by
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, when he enlisted as a private soldier in the
Gloucestershire Regiment in February 1915. At the front, he began writing poetry seriously, sending his efforts to his friend, the musicologist and critic Marion Scott, who worked with Gurney as his editor and business manager. He was in the midst of writing the poems for what would become his first book, ''Severn and Somme'', when he was wounded in the shoulder in April 1917. He recovered and returned to battle, still working on his book and composing music, including the songs "In Flanders" and "By A Bierside".
Sidgwick & Jackson
Sidgwick & Jackson is an imprint of book publishing company Pan Macmillan. Formerly it was an independent publisher; as such it was founded in Britain in 1908. Its notable early authors include poet Rupert Brooke and novelist E.M. Forster. In mo ...
accepted ''Severn and Somme'' in July, with publication set for the autumn. In the meantime, Gurney was
gassed in September the same year and sent to the
Edinburgh War Hospital, where he met and fell in love with a
VAD nurse, Annie Nelson Drummond, but the relationship later broke down.
There remains some controversy about the possible effects of the gas on his mental health, even though Gurney had clearly shown signs and symptoms of a
bipolar disorder
Bipolar disorder, previously known as manic depression, is a mental disorder characterized by periods of depression and periods of abnormally elevated mood that last from days to weeks each. If the elevated mood is severe or associated with ...
since his teens.
[Blevins, Pamela, "New Perspectives on Ivor Gurney's Illness, The Ivor Gurney Society Journal, vol. 6, 2000, pp. 29–58; Blevins, Pamela, Ivor Gurney and Marion Scott: Song of Pain and Beauty, The Boydell Press, 2008.] "Being gassed (mildly)
is parenthesiswith the new gas is no worse than catarrh or a bad cold," Gurney wrote in a letter to Marion Scott on 17 September 1917. After his release from hospital, he was posted to
Seaton Delaval
Seaton Delaval is a village in Northumberland, England, with a population of 4,371. The largest of the five villages in Seaton Valley, it is the site of Seaton Delaval Hall, completed by Sir John Vanbrugh in 1727.
In 2010 the armed robbery of ...
, a mining village in
Northumberland
Northumberland () is a county in Northern England, one of two counties in England which border with Scotland. Notable landmarks in the county include Alnwick Castle, Bamburgh Castle, Hadrian's Wall and Hexham Abbey.
It is bordered by land ...
, where he wrote poems, including "Lying Awake in the Ward". His volume ''Severn and Somme'' was published in November 1917.
Mental illness
In March 1918, Gurney suffered a serious mental breakdown, triggered at least in part by the sudden ending of his relationship with Drummond.
He was hospitalised in the Gallery Ward at
Brancepeth Castle, County Durham, where he wrote several songs, despite the piano sounding, he said, like "a boiler factory in full swing because of the stone walls". In June he threatened suicide, but he did not attempt it.
Gurney slowly regained some of his emotional stability and in October was honourably discharged from the army. Gurney received an unconventional diagnosis of nervous breakdown from "deferred"
shell shock
Shell shock is a term coined in World War I by the British psychologist Charles Samuel Myers to describe the type of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) many soldiers were afflicted with during the war (before PTSD was termed). It is a react ...
.
The notion that Gurney's instability should primarily be attributed to "shell shock" was perpetuated by Marion Scott, who used this term in the initial press releases after Gurney's death, as well as in his entry for ''
Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians
''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' is an encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language ''Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart'', it is one of the largest reference works on the history and theo ...
''.
Gurney seemed to thrive after the war and was regarded as one of the most promising men of his generation, but his mental distress continued to worsen.
He studied for a brief time with
Ralph Vaughan Williams upon returning to the Royal College of Music, but he withdrew from the college before completing his studies. His second volume of poetry, ''War's Embers'', appeared in May 1919 to mixed reviews. He continued to compose, producing a large number of songs, instrumental pieces, chamber music, and two works for orchestra: ''War Elegy'' (1920) and ''A Gloucestershire Rhapsody'' (1919–1921). His music was being performed and published. However, by 1922, his condition had deteriorated to the point where his family had him
declared insane.
It has been speculated that Gurney's mental problems may have resulted from
syphilis, contracted either while he was a music student before the war, or perhaps while serving as a soldier in France. Blevins, Gurney's biographer, however, concludes that he did not suffer from syphilis. The issue has also been discussed, more recently, by Cambridge academic and broadcaster Kate Kennedy.
Gurney spent the last 15 years of his life in
psychiatric hospital
Psychiatric hospitals, also known as mental health hospitals, behavioral health hospitals, are hospitals or wards specializing in the treatment of severe mental disorders, such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, eating disorders, dissociat ...
s, first for a short period at
Barnwood House in Gloucester, and then at the
City of London Mental Hospital,
Dartford, where he was diagnosed as suffering from "delusional insanity (systematised)". Gurney wrote prolifically during the asylum years, producing some eight collections of verse. His output included two plays in
Shakespearean
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
style – ''Gloucester Play'' (1926) and ''The Tewkesbury Trial'' (1926). During this time he appeared to believe himself to be William Shakespeare in person. He continued also to compose music but to a far lesser degree. An examination of his archive suggests that up to two-thirds of his musical output remains unpublished and unrecorded.
[
By the 1930s Gurney wrote little of anything, although he was described by Scott as being "so sane in his insanity".
]
Death and legacy
Gurney died of tuberculosis
Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, i ...
while still a patient at the City of London Mental Hospital, shortly before dawn on 26 December 1937, aged 47. He was buried in Twigworth
Twigworth is a small village near Gloucester in Tewkesbury (borough), the Borough of Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, England. The population of Twigworth Parish was 340 people in mid-2014 in 170 households. A planning application for 725 new homes ...
, near Gloucester. The service was conducted by his godfather, Rev. Alfred Cheesman. Gurney was "a lover and maker of beauty", it was stated on his gravestone. (The stone was replaced after it was damaged – the original is now stored inside Twigworth church.) Marion Scott preserved Gurney's manuscripts and letters and worked with composer Gerald Finzi
Gerald Raphael Finzi (14 July 1901 – 27 September 1956) was a British composer. Finzi is best known as a choral composer, but also wrote in other genres. Large-scale compositions by Finzi include the cantata '' Dies natalis'' for solo voice and ...
to ensure that his legacy should not be forgotten.
On 11 November 1985, Gurney was among 16 Great War Poets commemorated on a slate stone unveiled in Westminster Abbey
Westminster Abbey, formally titled the Collegiate Church of Saint Peter at Westminster, is an historic, mainly Gothic church in the City of Westminster, London, England, just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is one of the Unite ...
's Poet's Corner
Poets' Corner is the name traditionally given to a section of the South Transept of Westminster Abbey in the City of Westminster, London because of the high number of poets, playwrights, and writers buried and commemorated there.
The first poe ...
. The inscription on the stone was written by a fellow Great War poet, Wilfred Owen
Wilfred Edward Salter Owen MC (18 March 1893 – 4 November 1918) was an English poet and soldier. He was one of the leading poets of the First World War. His war poetry on the horrors of trenches and gas warfare was much influenced b ...
: "My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity."
In 2000, a stained-glass window
Stained glass is coloured glass as a material or works created from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant religious buildings. Although tradition ...
was installed in and dedicated to the memory of Ivor Gurney. A memorial to Gurney was erected in 2009 Sint-Juliaan, near Ypres
Ypres ( , ; nl, Ieper ; vls, Yper; german: Ypern ) is a Belgian city and municipality in the province of West Flanders. Though
the Dutch name is the official one, the city's French name is most commonly used in English. The municipality c ...
, close to the spot where he was the victim of a mustard gas attack in 1917.
A sculpture by Wolfgang Buttress
Wolfgang Buttress (born 1965) is an English artist. He creates multi-sensory artworks that draw inspiration from our evolving relationship with the natural world. Buttress explores and interprets scientific discoveries, collaborating with archi ...
entitled ''The Candle'' was unveiled in 2011 in Victoria Dock, Gloucester Docks
Gloucester Docks is an historic area of the city of Gloucester. The docks are located at the northern junction of the River Severn with the Gloucester and Sharpness Canal
The Gloucester and Sharpness Canal (also known as the Gloucester and ...
; it is inscribed with lines from Gurney's poem "Requiem" around the base. There is also a blue plaque memorial to Gurney in Eastgate Street, Gloucester.
In April 2014, BBC Four broadcast a documentary about Gurney, entitled ''The Poet Who Loved the War'', presented by Tim Kendall, which focused on how the First World War had in some ways helped Gurney through the periods of depression he suffered and helped him become one of the war's foremost poets.
In June and July 2014 Gurney was the subject of BBC Radio 3's ''Composer of the Week'', based on Dr Kate Kennedy's biography, ''Ivor Gurney: Dweller in Shadows'', as part of the station's Music in the Great War series. The programmes included a number of Gurney's pieces, especially recorded by the BBC.
Works
Compositions
Gurney wrote hundreds of poems and more than 300 songs but only set a handful of his own poems to music, the best-known being "Severn Meadows". His well-known compositions include his ''Five Elizabethan Songs'' (or 'The Elizas' as he called them), written in 1913-14 while he was still a student at the Royal College of Music. The song cycles ''Ludlow and Teme'' (published 1923) and ''The Western Playland'', (published 1926), both settings of poetry by A. E. Housman
Alfred Edward Housman (; 26 March 1859 – 30 April 1936) was an English classical scholar and poet. After an initially poor performance while at university, he took employment as a clerk in London and established his academic reputation by pub ...
, were prepared for publication with the help of admirers and friends, including Gerald Finzi and his wife Joy
The word joy refers to the emotion evoked by well-being, success, or good fortune, and is typically associated with feelings of intense, long lasting happiness.
Dictionary definitions
Dictionary definitions of joy typically include a sense of ...
, Howard Ferguson
George Howard Ferguson, PC (June 18, 1870 – February 21, 1946) was the ninth premier of Ontario, from 1923 to 1930. He was a Conservative member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1905 to 1930 who represented the eastern provinci ...
and Marion Scott. Oxford University Press issued two sets of ten songs in 1938, a year after his death, selected and edited by Finzi and Ferguson. Three further sets of ten songs came out in 1952, 1959 and 1979.
Gurney set to music many of the poems of his contemporaries, including at least nineteen poems written by Edward Thomas, six of them collected in the orchestral song cycle ''Lights Out'' published in 1926, and at least seven by W. H. Davies
William Henry Davies (3 July 1871 – 26 September 1940) was a Welsh poet and writer, who spent much of his life as a tramp or hobo in the United Kingdom and the United States, yet became one of the most popular poets of his time. His themes inc ...
. All of Gurney's settings from the Canadian poet Bliss Carman
William Bliss Carman (April 15, 1861 – June 8, 1929) was a Canadian poet who lived most of his life in the United States, where he achieved international fame. He was acclaimed as Canada's poet laureate during his later years.
In Canada, Car ...
's '' Sappho: One Hundred Lyrics'' (1904) were gathered together in a new collection, ''Seven Sappho Songs'' by Richard Carder in 1998.
It has been suggested that there is something of Schubert
Franz Peter Schubert (; 31 January 179719 November 1828) was an Austrian composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras. Despite his short lifetime, Schubert left behind a vast ''oeuvre'', including more than 600 secular vocal wor ...
and Schumann
Robert Schumann (; 8 June 181029 July 1856) was a German composer, pianist, and influential music critic. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest composers of the Romantic era. Schumann left the study of law, intending to pursue a career a ...
, but considerably less of the prevailing folk idiom of the time, in the intensity of Gurney's musical language. He had a preference for setting dark ballads, as Schubert, Loewe and Brahms
Johannes Brahms (; 7 May 1833 – 3 April 1897) was a German composer, pianist, and conductor of the mid-Romantic period. Born in Hamburg into a Lutheran family, he spent much of his professional life in Vienna. He is sometimes grouped with ...
had before him, and "knew his Brahms and Schumann backwards, as his piano pieces testify". But where he does lean towards folksong, as in his setting of Belloc's "Ha’nacker Mill", it is often hard to tell whether the melody is original or traditional.
His ''Five Preludes'' for piano were written in 1919-20 and published the following year. He also wrote as many as 20 string quartets, although most of these are lost. The String Quartet in D minor, composed in 1924, received its premiere recording in 2020.
War poet/local poet
Edmund Blunden
Edmund Charles Blunden (1 November 1896 – 20 January 1974) was an English poet, author, and critic. Like his friend Siegfried Sassoon, he wrote of his experiences in World War I in both verse and prose. For most of his career, Blunden was a ...
, at the urging of Gerald Finzi, assembled the first collection of Gurney's poetry which was published in 1954. This was followed by P. J. Kavanagh
P. J. Kavanagh
FRSL (6 January 1931 – 26 August 2015) was an English poet, lecturer, actor, broadcaster and columnist. His father was the ''ITMA'' scriptwriter Ted Kavanagh.
Life
Patrick Joseph Kavanagh worked as a Butlin's Redcoat, t ...
's ''Collected Poems'', first published in 1982 and reissued in 2004. It remains the most comprehensive edition of Gurney's poetry. Gurney is regarded as one of the great World War I poets, and like others of them, such as Edward Thomas, whom he admired, he often contrasted the horrors of the front line with the beauty and tranquillity of his native English landscape – these themes were explored in the 2012 musical play ''A Soldier and a Maker
''A Soldier and a Maker'' is a piece of musical theatre written by Iain Burnside on the life story of the World War l poet and composer Ivor Gurney. It premiered in April 2012 at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, with Richard Goulding as Gu ...
''.
Deliberately unrhetorical in his poetic tone, and writing as a ranker, not an officer, Gurney offered a complex, wry, unheroic view of the soldierly world of the Western Front: presenting not a large statement (for or against war), but an individual experience. Without diminishing the horrors of the front line, Gurney's poems often emphasise the moments of relief. "On Rest" was above all what he called "the relief of knowing mere being". By detailing the "small trifles" of trench life – moments of comradeship, letters from home, singsongs, bread and Fray Bentos
Fray Bentos () is the capital city of the Río Negro Department, in south-western Uruguay, at the Argentina-Uruguay border, near the Argentine city of Gualeguaychú. Its port on the Uruguay River is one of the nation's most important harbours. ...
corned beef, wine, chocolate and café-au-lait Gurney was able (in Blunden's words) to "express part of the Western Front secret... with distinctive, intimate and imaginative quickness." In so far as he had a "manifesto", it was to present "the protest of the physical against the exalted spiritual; of the cumulative weight of small facts against the one large".
At the same time, Gurney was something of a local poet, rooted in Gloucester
Gloucester ( ) is a cathedral city and the county town of Gloucestershire in the South West of England. Gloucester lies on the River Severn, between the Cotswolds to the east and the Forest of Dean to the west, east of Monmouth and east ...
and its surroundings, which remained a touchstone of reality for him, in the front line and later in the asylum. In the preface to his first book, he wrote of "my county, Gloucester, that whether I live or die stays always with me." His tribute poem "Crickley Hill" was described by Edna Longley as "perhaps Gurney's most rapturous expression of local patriotism".[Quoted in J. Stallworthy and J. Potter, eds., ''Three Poets of the First World War'' (Penguin 2011) p. 121.]
Posthumous collections of poetry and letters
*''Severn & Somme and War's Embers'', ed. R. K. R. Thornton. Carcanet Press, 1997
*''80 Poems or So'', ed. George Walter and R. K. R. Thornton. Carcanet Press, 1997
*''Rewards of Wonder: Poems of London, Cotswold and France'', ed. George Walter. Carcanet Press, 2000
*''Best Poems and The Book of Five Makings'', ed. R.K.R. Thornton. Carcanet Press, 1995
*''Collected Poems'', ed. P.J. Kavanagh. Fyfield Books (Carcanet Press), 2004
*''Stars in a Dark Night: The Letters from Ivor Gurney to the Chapman Family''. Anthony Boden (ed.), The History Press, 2004 (2nd edition)
Five Elizabethan songs
*"Orpheus" ( John Fletcher)
*"Sleep" (John Fletcher)
*"Spring" (Thomas Nashe
Thomas Nashe (baptised November 1567 – c. 1601; also Nash) was an Elizabethan playwright, poet, satirist and a significant pamphleteer. He is known for his novel ''The Unfortunate Traveller'', his pamphlets including ''Pierce Penniless,'' ...
)
*"Tears" (anon.)
*"Under the Greenwood Tree" (William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
)
Other songs
collections: ''A First Volume of Ten Songs'' (FV); ''A Second Volume of Ten Songs'' (SV); ''Five Songs'' (FS); ''Lights Out'' (LO); ''Ludlow and Teme'' (LT); ''Seven Sappho Songs'' (SS); ''The Western Playland'' (WP)
Selected poems
The following poems provide an introduction to his work:
*"Strange Hells" – The effect of war on soldiers' psyches
*"The Ballad of Three Spectres" – A soldier's vision
*"Maisemore" – A soldier thinks of home
*"The Estaminet" – Comradeship
*"Purple and Black" – The politics of death
*"To the Poet before Battle" – A soldier poet prepares for the fight
*"To His Love" – A soldier writes to a dead comrade's lover of his death
*"The Silent One" – An account of a moment of terror during a battle
See also
*George Butterworth
George Sainton Kaye Butterworth, MC (12 July 18855 August 1916) was an English composer who was best known for the orchestral idyll '' The Banks of Green Willow'' and his song settings of A. E. Housman's poems from ''A Shropshire Lad''.
Early ...
References
Sources
*
* Kate Kennedy, ed. 'Ivor Gurney: Poet, Composer', Ivor Gurney Society Journal 2007
*Pamela Blevins
"Ivor Gurney and Marion Scott: Song of Pain and Beauty"
The Boydell Press, 2008
*Pamela Blevins, "New Perspectives on Ivor Gurney's Mental Illness", The Ivor Gurney Society Journal, Vol. 6, 2000, pp. 29–58
*Pamela Blevins, "One Last Chance: Dr. Randolph Davis and Ivor Gurney", ''The Ivor Gurney Society Journal'', Vol. 9, 2003, pp. 91–99
External links
*
The Ivor Gurney Trust
The Ivor Gurney Society (UK based site)
Gurney Literary Archive and profile, Oxford University
*
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gurney, Ivor
1890 births
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20th-century classical composers
Alumni of the Royal College of Music
British Army personnel of World War I
English classical composers
English male classical composers
English World War I poets
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20th-century deaths from tuberculosis
Gloucestershire Regiment soldiers
History of mental health in the United Kingdom
People with mental disorders
People from Gloucester
People educated at the King's School, Gloucester
Poètes maudits
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20th-century English composers
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Tuberculosis deaths in England
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