GURNEY, Ivor (Bertie)
b Gloucester, 28 August 1890
d Dartford, 26 December 1937, aged forty-seven

He was a chorister at Gloucester Cathedral in 1900, then an articled pupil to the organist there. He went to the Royal College of Music to study under Stanford. After World War I, in which he was wounded, gassed and shell-shocked, he returned to the Royal College to study under Vaughan Williams. He left in 1921 and returned to Gloucester, but became mentally unstable; he died of tuberculosis in a mental hospital. He published one volume of poetry during the war and another in 1919, both enjoying some success; but his greatness lies in his eighty-two published songs, most of which were written between 1919 and 1922. Two hundred more songs remain in MS.

1919 (29)

The Apple Orchard, for violin and piano

1919-20 (29-30)

Five Preludes for piano

Scherzo for violin and piano

1920 (30)

Five Western Watercolours, for piano

Gurney also wrote: Six sonatas for violin and piano; five string quartets; A Gloucester Rhapsody, for orchestra.