1988-99  Fourth Station – the Watershed Years with a Question

After 5 years in South London, Harvey was stationed in Haywards Heath, West Sussex, to take responsibility for the churches in the Mid-Sussex Circuit.

(Haywards Heath, Sussex)

These 11 years can be perceived, and heard, as a watershed.  Harvey, while exercising a full ministry throughout a large area with 11 churches, was still chasing the dragon of his past ‘failures’, and questions about his musicality. He became increasingly drawn towards more academic ‘brain’ work and less interested in practical music-making.

(Rudolph Bultmann 1884-1976)

In 1993 he took a 3-month sabbatical, and he compared the lives and works of Arnold Schoenberg (composer) and Rudolf Bultmann (theologian).

(Arnold Schoenberg 1874-1951)

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Harvey threw himself into this project, finding many areas which held out great promise for fruitful comparison – e.g. both Bultmann & Schoenberg were vilified for introducing progressive ideas, Schoenberg’s ‘12-note’ method of composition and Bultmann’s programme of ‘Demythology’ in the New Testament.

In July Harvey spent time in Marburg, Germany (where Bultmann had taught at the university there) and in Vienna (where Schoenberg lived in his early years).

Harvey left me at home with the family!  However the sabbatical work resonated in so many things for me, including my years in Germany (meeting Karl Barth and Friederich Schleiermacher, etc), my memories of powerful Vienna influences over the years (Vienna Congress on 1815, meeting Beethoven, etc), and my association with the Meissner Sudeten family, with whom Harvey met once again in Austria.  How I wished I could have joined him!

In 1995 Harvey enrolled for a part-time Masters’ Degree in ‘Music and Aesthetics’ at the University of Sussex, with the Methodist Church contributing funds towards the financial costs.  All the work for this was done in Harvey’s ‘spare time’!

It was very exciting and demanding.  He was introduced to the writings of Immanuel Kant, G W F Hegel, our ‘friend’ Friedrich Nietzsche, T W Adorno, and to works of many contemporary musicians, as yet unknown to either of us – Jonathan Harvey, Morton Feldman, Luciano Berio. 

For his final Essay, Harvey compared the hermeneutics of H-G Gadamer with the theological soundtrack of Ludwig van Beethoven’s ‘Missa Solemnis’.

I have a QUESTION –

I would like to ask those of you who may be reading this post – Would you welcome some further comments about all this? I have been able to recognize and resonate with a multitude of sounds and meanings from this ‘watershed’ period my player’s life.  And I would love to explore them further!

Please let me know of any thoughts, comments or ideas you may have.