LONG REMEMBERED HILLS ("Music and Place")
2002 / BBC2 Open University.
Summary: Documentary about how the English composers Ivor Gurney and Herbert Howells were influenced by the Gloucestershire countryside.
Ivor Gurney (1890 -
1937) and Herbert
Howells (1892 - 1981) were childhood
friends whose careers took very different turns.
Gurney (one of
England's finest composers of classical song),
after great initial promise, had his career cut
short by madness and ill health.
Howells by contrast
lived long and was musically prolific. Both were
musically driven by their passion for the
Gloucestershire countryside and in particular the
hills around Gloucester itself, and are considered
to be important figures in the renaissance in
English music that took place in the early 20th
century.
Both Gurney and Howells were organ scholars at
Gloucester cathedral (along with Ivor Novello). In
1910 they attended the premier of
Ralph Vaughan
Williams's "Fantasia
on a theme by Thomas Tallis" in Gloucester
cathedral (pictured left), an event which left an
indelible impression on both young men and
convinced them that they were destined to become
composers.
Another source of profound musical inspiration
proved to be their walks on the nearby
Cotswold hills. They
would often sit on Chosen
Hill (image above and right), half way
between Gloucester and
Cheltenham, and take
in the grand view of the
Malverns. It was there
that Gurney urged Howells to allow this landscape
to become the inspiration for his future musical
work. There is no doubt that the natural beauty of
the Gloucestershire countryside was also
absolutely fundamental to Gurney's artistic
vision, both musically and poetically.
Both won scholarships to study at the
Royal College of Music
in London (Gurney in 1911, Howells, a year later)
where they studied under Sir
Charles Stanford. It was there that Gurney
wrote his first song cycle,
the Elizas, which
included one of his finest songs
"Sleep". However,
despite Gurney's great musical talent, signs began
to emerge of the incipient madness that would
later consume him.
During World War I,
Howells was exempted
from service on the basis of ill health (Grave's
disease). Gurney, on
the other hand volunteered for the front, serving
in the Royal Gloucester regiment. Here he wrote
poetry based on his war experiences, and this was
eventually published in a collection called
"Severn and Somme". He
also managed to compose some music including a
setting of F W Harvey's poem
"In Flanders", which
included the words:
I'm homesick for my hills again,
my hills again,
To see above the Severn plain,
unscabbarded against the sky,
the blue high blade of Cotswold lie.
In 1916, Howells wrote
his first major piece, the brilliant (Piano)
Quartet in A minor,
inspired by the magnificent view of the Malverns
visible from his beloved Chosen Hill. It was
dedicated to his friend Ivor Gurney.
Gurney returned from
the war, wounded and shell-shocked, resuming his
musical studies this time under Vaughan Williams.
However his psychological decline was becoming
steadily more apparent, and eventually he dropped
out of the Royal College altogether, returning to
live with his family in Gloucester. Here, between
1917 and 1922 he wrote much of his best music, despite
the deterioration in his mental health. Eventually he was certified
insane and committed to an asylum in Kent.
The career of Howells,
by contrast, went from strength to strength. He
became a teacher at the Royal College of Music and
a brilliant and prolific composer, particularly of
sacred choral music. His life was not immune from
tragedy, however, and in 1935 he suffered the
devastating loss of his 9 year old son, Michael,
from Polio. Howells's grief eventually found
expression in his critically acclaimed
"Hymnus Paradisi",
premiered at Gloucester cathedral. Later he wrote
the Missa Sabrinensis
(Mass of the Seven), again inspired by the
Gloucestershire countryside, in particular his
childhood memories of the
River Severn.
Ivor Gurney continued
to write poetry in the Asylum although no more
music flowed from his pen after 1925. He pined
constantly for the Gloucestershire hills, refusing
even to walk in the asylum grounds because they
were "no substitute". He died in 1937 and was
buried in the churchyard at Twigworth in the
shadow of Chosen Hill.