1965-66  Second year with Harvey at the RAM

Crucifixion

Our second academic year at the Royal Academy of Music started well enough.

Harvey was very pleased with his performance of Handel’s ‘Messiah’ at Queens Road Methodist Church, Watford, on Saturday 25 September 1965.  At his mother Gladys’s suggestion, he brought together singers and orchestra players (including friends from the London Philharmonic Choir, local church choirs, and students from the RAM) and conducted the famous oratorio, just like the ‘old days’, before the church building had to be demolished.

Harvey’s impression of Queen’s Road Methodist Church

It was a wonderful, ambitious and rewarding experience for Harvey – never to be forgotten.

[Opening notes of ‘Messiah’ in Handel’s hand]

At the Academy, Clarence Myerscough started to prepare us for the LRAM diploma examination.  This qualification had to be passed, in all three sections – theory, hearing tests, performance – before proceeding to the final year of study.

At the same time, Eric Fenby agreed to enrol Harvey for the BMus degree course at London University.

Things started to go wrong in November after the LRAM exam.  Harvey failed the performance part of the diploma by 2%, so he had to try again in March 1966. This time he failed by an even wider margin!  And then he failed the first year exam for the BMus course!

After a painful meeting with Sir Thomas Armstrong (the Academy Principal) and Clarence Myerscough, Harvey chose to relinquish his place and leave the RAM.

His early summer days were spent wandering across the Sussex Downs, completely devastated, trying to come to terms with ‘failure’ and wondering what he could ever do with his life.

Was this sense of failure preparing him for something new, and yet unknown?

I wish Harvey had picked me up and played me more at this time (he hardly touched me), if only because such feelings of emptiness, devastation and abandonment were emotions already etched into my own body and frame, as readers will remember from my ‘crucifixion’ experiences with Samuel Wesley and others.

As it happened, Harvey, in his adolescent body, was bearing everything alone, without realising that I, in my older age, was longing to resonate with him. 

His self-obsession prevented him from hearing me.