1972  Is Music the Food of Grief?

I remember only two occasions in 1972 when Harvey took me out of my case to play; both very soon after his mother, Gladys, had died on 14 May. She had been suffering from Bulbar Palsy, a form of Motor Neurone Disease.

Following a conversation with the College Principal, Revd Dr John Habgood, about a strange ‘out of body’ experience soon after the funeral, Harvey and I spent an evening in the Principal’s flat, playing Antonin Dvorak’s Sonatina, with the Principal’s wife Mrs Rosalie Habgood (a professional pianist) at the piano.  It was a strange encounter. Harvey played me very badly. It was something other than nervousness – it was the effect of intense grief for the one who bore him, the one who brought him to birth, seriously affecting both our bodies.  Resonance was hard to trace or to hear.

(John & Rosalie Habgood outside their Queens College flat c.1972)

The second occasion was a performance in the Great Hall of the University, when Harvey and I played in the 2^nd Violin section of the University Orchestra.

The music was Edward Elgar’s ‘Dream of Gerontius’, so familiar to both of us.  Harvey had studied this great work for his ‘A’ Level Music exam in 1964, and in 1965 (you may remember) he had sung in the chorus at a performance in St Paul’s Cathedral with the RAM under the direction of Sir John Barbirolli.

This time, the conductor was Prof. Ivor E Keys (what a great name for a music professor!), and the soloist was none other than the world-famous Janet Baker. It was during the opening section of Part 2, when the music evokes something of the sounds of heaven, with the soloist singing: ‘I hear no more the busy beat of time…..’  Now, Harvey and I played this section exquisitely.  Was he, through me, letting his body begin to release his grief for his dear mother?

(Inside the Great Hall, Birmingham University)

One more thing –

In the Summer of 1972, Harvey arranged to visit the Meissner family in Vienna again.  When he set off, by plane this time, I think I suffered from ‘separation anxiety’, as I know I was greatly disappointed to be left alone in my case in Harvey’s study throughout the vacation period!

I mention this episode because Harvey seemed to be separating off his musical passions into his theological aspirations. On one occasion, he asked Eduard Meissner to help him prepare a sermon he was to preach in German in the Vienna Methodistischekirche.  Was he ‘conducting’ through his preaching?

(Sudeten Germans forced to walk past dead Jews, 1945)

On another occasion, he began to learn from Helene and Eduard Meissner some of the horrific experiences they endured during their expulsion from the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia in 1945.  He could hardly believe that Czech people (‘Tschechisch!’ – a word which can be ‘spat out’) were capable of the same murderous cruelty as their Nazi occupiers had been.  This part of WW2 history was totally new to Harvey, and it was a devastating revelation.  I’m sure his body was now having to absorb questions of death and atonement which were then no more than academic theories in his theological studies.  For a couple of weeks here in Vienna, was Helene Meissner, in Harvey’s unconscious but grieving mind, becoming his replacement ‘mother figure’, sounding forth, and spitting out, the struggle and pains of a Christian approach to death?

(Northern Ireland ‘Troubles’ in 1972)

It is interesting that Harvey had felt the need to mention the current ‘troubles’ in Northern Ireland during his preaching at the Viennese Methodist Church (Gemeinde), helped by Eduard Meissner, a Sudeten expellee.

Next time we find our young Preacher-Conductor falling in love, and how this resonated through body and soul………………………