Available now at long last on commercial release is one
of the finest music documentaries ever made. Song of Summer is a film
produced and directed by Ken Russell for BBC Television's arts programme
Omnibus and first shown on 15th September 1968. But it is more than
a film about Delius: it is a vivid and deeply moving account of how
the 22-year-old Eric Fenby worked with the blind and paralysed composer,
an ordeal and an achievement surely without parallel in the history
of music. Through a painfully slow process of dictation emerged, amongst
other works, the magnificent Songs of Farewell, the orchestral tone-poem
A Song of Summer (from which the film takes its title), and the third
violin sonata. More harrowing still is how Fenby nursed the dying Delius
during the three weeks that Jelka Delius was absent, undergoing an operation
in hospital, with Delius dying only two days after her return. All this
is wonderfully portrayed through direction and performances of incomparable
quality.
Whatever may be said of Russell's later work either
in the cinema or for television, his early BBC films culminating in
Song of Summer represented the work of an exciting and extraordinary
talent. After serving in the Merchant Navy and the RAF, Russell unsuccessfully
ventured into ballet and acting before taking up photography. On the
merits of some short films that he had made, in 1959 he was offered
a job at the BBC, succeeding John Schlesinger. Before tackling Delius,
with the encouragement of Huw Weldon, Russell had made films on Elgar
(1962), Bartók (1964), Debussy (1965) and other subjects, not
exclusively related to music such as Le Douanier Rousseau (1965), Isadora
Duncan (1966) and Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1967). Here an imaginative
mind either benefited from or worked cleverly within the Corporation's
restraints. It was with the excesses of his next film, on Richard Strauss
(1969), that he parted company with the BBC. The policies governing
BBC arts programmes over thirty years ago were strange indeed. When
Russell came to make his earlier Monitor documentaries on Prokofiev,
Bartók and Elgar, no actor was allowed to speak the composer's
words. While in the Elgar film three non-speaking actors portrayed the
composer at different stages of his life, no close-ups were permitted.
It is fortunate that such attitudes no longer prevailed when Russell
came to make his Delius film in 1968.
In the director's commentary that is spoken in the DVD
version over a replay of the film, Russell explains how he had wanted
for some time to make a film on Delius but his previous treatments had
been either too romantic or too melodramatic. He had been drawn first
to the young Delius in his Florida days and had even tried filming an
impressionistic Spring sequence for which he took a crew to the Lake
District, with an actor portraying Delius and a girl who would jump
naked into a lake. Fortunately, one might say, it rained for five days
and he was forced to abandon that idea. It was only when he read Eric
Fenby's book, Delius as I knew him (which was re-issued in 1966) that
he found the ideal basis for a script.
Whereas Huw Weldon's commentary roots the Elgar film
firmly in the realms of documentary, Song of Summer, with its limited
use of narrative, extends the boundaries into drama. Russell's great
skill is not just in the camera work but in the images he created, and
even more importantly in his extraordinarily successful fusion of music
and image. Who can ever forget in the Elgar film the sound of the Introduction
and Allegro accompanying the composer as he cycled vigorously through
Worcestershire countryside? Images such as the crucifixes on the Malvern
Hills are indelibly etched on the viewer's mind, just as in the Bartók
documentary the sad picture of the old composer straining an ear as
he listened to his folk-song cylinders is not easily forgotten. Song
of Summer is full of such brilliant touches. With the photography of
Dick Bush combined with Russell's imaginative directing, Song of Summer
surely represents a golden era in television documentary. Arts programmes
of this calibre are just not being made today.
The one question anyone watching this film will want to ask is whether,
by and large, it is accurate. In 1986 I put this question to Eric Fenby
and he picked out only three details that had troubled him:
Unfortunately I was ill throughout the whole filming and saw the
film for the first time at home. Had I ever been on the set, several
things would have been quite different. Ken Russell was very anxious
to be faithful to the script. Jelka would not have appeared slightly
dotty, nor giggly in describing her mountain descent. She was a highly
intelligent woman who came from a family of German diplomats, spoke
several languages from childhood fluently, and was remarkably equable
in character considering the sustained daily pressures on her. My
father was portrayed without collar and tie playing chess. I never
saw him without collar and tie; he was something of a dandy and couldn't
play chess. I was shocked when the scene with the priest was included
for it is not in my book. Russell, like me, being a Catholic, it was
meant for his ears alone. Otherwise it was a remarkable representation.
The erring priest was played by Russell himself.
Another moment in the film that might seem to have the
mark of Russell was confirmed by Fenby as being genuine: 'I have often
been asked whether or not the sprinkling of rose petals over his body
was a touch of Ken Russell's fantasy. No, that actually happened at
daybreak that morning. Strange, perhaps, to English ways, but it was
Jelka's wish, and she did it herself from a wheel-chair.' As for Max
Adrian's Delius, Fenby commented: 'Max Adrian was exactly as I remember
Delius. I coached him in the inflexions of Delius's voice, and the way
he sat, the way he held his hands. And, of course, what really I think
was the most remarkable piece of acting in that very remarkable film,
to my mind, was the speed of the dictation, because I had given them
various samples from my book Delius as I knew him of how to do
it. But I didn't think it would be possible for them to do it so remarkably
because Delius dictated with the very greatest rapidity.' Asked about
the representation of himself in that film, he replied: 'I can only
say from what one can judge from that kind of experience, which must
be something unique and a great privilege, was to find somebody so sensitive
chosen by Ken Russell as Christopher Gable.'
One of the film's many strengths is the convincing performance
by Christopher Gable in his first television acting role. Gable had
previously made his name in ballet, resigning from the Covent Garden
Royal Ballet in 1967 in order to pursue an acting career. Russell had
wanted to use him in a film on Vaclav Nijinsky that never materialised.
After Song of Summer he appeared in Russell's films The Boyfriend (1971,
also with Max Adrian) and The Rainbow (1989). In 1982 he went on to
found the Central School of Ballet, London, and five years later was
appointed Artistic Director of the Northern Ballet with which he will
be remembered by many in the role of L. S. Lowry in Gillian Lynne's
ballet A Simple Man. He died in 1998, from cancer.
Another question that viewers will want to ask is 'Was
the film made in France at Grez-sur-Loing?' Those who have visited Grez
will know that the answer is quite definitely no. But France had been
considered. Fenby related how he and Ken Russell had gone on a scouting
trip to Grez when the making of the film was being discussed.
We had been sent for the week-end by the BBC to see
if the original settings might be used in making the proposed film.
We met the new owner of the house, Madame Merle d'Aubigné,
who had asked us to tea in the garden. She was somewhat alarmed at
the prospect of a film being made on her doorstep, but I saw at a
glance she had no cause to worry. My old quarters had been pulled
down, the music-room had been made into bedrooms, the out-buildings
and studios had been renovated and the garden bore evidence of much
attention. From that moment I accepted the change. The tale of the
Deliuses was over, and with it the place where it was lived. And as
we walked up the village street with its television aerials on every
chimney and modern sports cars parked by the verge, I felt a great
relief of mind as if I had laid some ancient ghost.
Budgetary considerations soon put France out of the
question and instead somewhere within easy reach of London had to be
chosen. A suitable location was apparently found in Surrey. The opening
sequence was, however, filmed in fields near Scarborough and - another
touch of authenticity - the gramophone used in the film was Delius's.
Eric had other memories of the making of the film:
I little thought, when I was struggling to take down
Delius's music at Grez, that one day I should see the scene enacted
in my own home. Ken Russell's film was disturbingly life-like. I had
not seen it before its public showing, being myself out of action
during the weeks of shooting. Even so, Christopher Gable, playing
me, had asked me to spare his feelings and keep away from the set.
Eventually I was called to the studios to record the music of the
scene where Delius, propped up in bed, listens to Percy Grainger and
me playing The Song of the High Hills in the music-room. On my arrival
I found Russell immersed in directing a 'retake' of my first meeting
with Delius which, apparently, had not satisfied Max Adrian. I was
ushered into the studio to wait, and was just in time to hear that
deliberate and unforgettable greeting 'Come in, Fenby!' I had mimicked
Delius weeks before at Russell's suggestion as a guide to Adrian to
learning his lines and behaving like Delius, but this was too much
for me - the voice, the inflection, the image of Delius sitting there,
a rug over his knees, with a great screen about him, slowly extending
his hand in welcome. I lived that momentous moment again, I am unashamed
to say, and not without a tear. Max Adrian told me later that of all
the roles he had ever played he had never before had such difficulty
in ridding himself of involvement.
The recording proceeded with some interjections addressed to a mysterious
character called 'Spud', who functioned unseen behind the sets, in
charge of the sound equipment. In shots of the actor playing Grainger,
otherwise excellent in the part, the poor fellow's lack of rhythm
in simulating a keyboard technique contrived an ingenious solution
from Russell. He instructed me to lie on the floor, out of range of
the camera, and work 'Grainger's' arms from below appropriately in
time with a 'play-back' of the music which Gable and I had recorded
previously. Then, when shots of his hands were required, Russell asked
me to take his place. The camera revealed a further incongruity as
yet unnoticed by us all. His trousers were checked and mine were plain.
So mine were whipped off and his put on, and camera and music resumed
in unison. This was my active contribution to the film, apart from
collaborating with Russell on the script.
Inevitably, in trying to compress into a seventy-five-minute
film the events spanning (intermittently) over five years, the director
required some licence in order to produce a satisfactory whole. This
resulted in a few oddities. Delius and Fenby could not have listened
to Appalachia on 78s: the work was not recorded until 1938. Jelka in
reality may not have fumbled with the 78s quite as much as she does
here (evidence of that 'dottiness'), but when Delius chides her for
putting on the wrong side of The Walk to the Paradise Garden (the start
of side 2 - one bar before figure 9) she corrects herself by putting
on the 'other side' which starts a mere six bars further on ! The 78
side then runs out before the very end, obviously film time being too
precious for the work to be heard to its conclusion. The mountain climbing
sequence, in which Delius is carried to the summit to see one last sunset
before his blindness became total, was for convenience shot in the Lake
District, but it was surely a mistake to have Delius seen at one moment
carried across so recognisable a beauty spot as Buttermere. And at the
end the radio announcement of Delius's death gives the wrong year for
his birth - 1863 instead of 1862 (an error that used to be found even
in some music dictionaries).
Some moments are musically extremely moving: when, for example, Song
of Summer swells up orchestrally after Fenby and Delius have successfully
worked on a tiny section of the score at the piano, and again when all
the passion in that work surges forth while Jelka is sprinkling rose
petals over Delius's body. Then there is the clever music loop endlessly
repeating three bars from 'Winter Landscape' in North Country Sketches
to suggest the monotony of the Grez routine. The blending of two pianos
playing The Song of the High Hills into the orchestral version is another
neat piece of continuity, leading to that magnificent choral climax
when, after so much cloud and mist, Delius actually witnesses a sunset.
These moments never fail to stir. Percy Grainger provides a much needed
few moments of comic relief, his feet-first entry being a delightful
Russell touch.
Russell is comparatively sparing in the use of music: in the original
film almost five minutes elapse before a note of Delius's is heard,
and then so well chosen: the magical entry of women's voices from the
Prelude to Act 111 of Hassan as Fenby enters the Delius house filled
with canvases by Edvard Munch. 'I was now left alone,' Fenby described
the moment in Delius as I knew him. 'A full-sized face of mad Strindberg
by Munch frowned down at me over the foot of the bed, and over the head
was a framed photograph of Nietzsche. More fantastic creations of Munch,
dark with suicide, hung high up on the walls.' Russell seems to have
assembled a veritable Munch museum. Visible in the house are such famous
works as Puberty, The Dance of Life, Madonna, The Kiss, Jealousy, The
Death of Marat 1, The Scream, and a portrait of Friedrich Nietzsche.
There, too, is Gauguin's Nevermore (it would have been the copy made
by Jelka), appropriately on full view in the final scene.
The version of Song of Summer available on video and DVD is a fraction
shorter than the original Omnibus film which began with a masterstroke
of deception: a 1'20" sequence showing part of a Laurel and Hardy
film on a cinema screen and Eric Fenby improvising an accompaniment
on a cinema organ. As he recalled in 1969 : 'I was a church organist
before I went to Delius, but once when a cinema organist was ill I had
to take his place. When I told Ken about this he immediately decided
to put it in the opening of the film, so I had to improvise on the BBC
organ to a Laurel and Hardy film, having not touched an organ for twenty-five
years!' For copyright reasons this sequence had to be omitted in this
commercial release, although the packaging states 'featuring music specially
composed by Eric Fenby'. The video and DVD versions open with the title
frame 'Ken Russell's Song of Summer' whereas originally the film's title
'Omnibus presents Song of Summer' did not appear until start of the
railway journey. Another much shorter sequence has inexplicably been
removed: the scene of Fenby, rosary in his hand, to the words 'Music
had nearly led me to the church; it had certainly converted me to the
Roman Catholic faith. It had also led me here.'
In the same way that the Elgar film provided a tremendous
boost to the general public's interest in the composer and his music
(then at a very low ebb), so Song of Summer introduced a large television
audience to Delius. Just as with the familiar James Gunn portrait of
Delius, the image it created was so strong that it is invariably the
Delius of the last years to comes to people's minds whenever his name
is mentioned. The release of the Elgar film, scheduled for Autumn 2001,
should be imminent. In the mean time no-one interested in Delius should
be without a copy of Song of Summer. It has not dated at all and it
repays repeated viewing (in fact it has been the most repeated of all
Ken Russell's BBC films) and remains a fine tribute to Eric Fenby's
sacrifice and self-less devotion.
Stephen Lloyd
British
Film Institute
Written by Ken Russell and
Eric Fenby and based on the book Delius as I knew him by Eric Fenby. Produced
and directed by Ken Russell. Starring Max Adrian as Frederick Delius,
Maureen Pryor as Jelka Delius, and Christopher Gable as Eric Fenby. 
BFIVD518