“When the full story of Ivor Gurney can ultimately be told, nothing more tragic in the history of music and verse will be found.” – Gerald Finzi
Ivor Gurney is today one of British music’s more neglected composers. But a century on from the first world war – which so shaped his life – his songs and poetry, drawing on a love of Nature and the countryside, deserve our attention.
Gurney (1890–1937) saw action at both the Somme and Ypres, surviving being gassed and wounded. His first collection of poetry, Severn and Somme (1917), explores the imaginative relationship ...
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