Michael Hurd was born on
December 19th, 1928, in Park Road, Gloucester, the son
of a cabinet-maker and upholsterer. The family moved first
to Reservoir Rd., and then settled in Southfield Rd,
which was very convenient for Michael’s education at the
Crypt School. Here he became one of the leaders in the school’s
cultural life, taking part in drama and writing music
for a scaled-down version of ‘Hamlet’. He also composed
various songs, including a daringly chromatic setting of
Shakespeare’s ‘Fear
no more the heat o’ the sun’ (Cymbeline) There
were also settings of what he had been reading at the
time, including
poems by Shelley and Thomas Lovell Beddoes.
To put this music down on
paper required a knowledge of notation, and for this
Michael was largely self-taught. He never had any piano lessons
either, and learnt to play by experience – this meant that
his piano technique was always adequate rather than startling,
but by the time he left school he could cope with early Beethoven
Sonatas. This is typical of how Michael seemed to have
an instinctive grasp of anything to do with music, drawing
down
knowledge and skill almost from thin air.
This burgeoning musical productivity
required advice, and for this Michael turned to Alexander
Brent-Smith, a well-known local composer and lecturer. Brent-Smith
had once taught at Lancing College, where amongst his pupils
was Peter Pears. His ‘Elegy’ (in memory of Elgar) was one
of the pieces whose performance was planned for the 1939
Three Choirs Festival at Hereford, which had to be aborted
owing to the outbreak of war. (Another piece to suffer similarly
was Finzi’s ‘Dies Natalis’). Brent-Smith was sufficiently
impressed with Michael’s work to encourage him to make
music his career, and he was able to persuade the authorities
at
Oxford to allow him to change schools from English to
Music.
Military service with the
Intelligence Corps followed, and a posting to Vienna
enabled Michael to indulge a fast-growing passion for
Opera. At
this stage, he was passionately devoted to Puccini, but he
brought back from Vienna a vocal score of Korngold’s ‘Die
Tote Stadt’ – hardly known in England at that time – as well
as familiarity with the operas of Richard Strauss and Mozart,
stalwarts of the Vienna repertoire. This was the beginning
of a lifelong enthusiasm for the music of Korngold, which
it was the more easy for him to indulge as Korngold’s
music became better known and eventually achieved almost
iconic
status.
Another musical influence
from around this time was the eccentric composer Rutland
Boughton, famous for the opera ‘The Immortal Hour’, which
had notched up nearly 400 performances in the early 1920’s. Boughton’s
star had faded now, and he had bought a smallholding near
Newent in West Gloucestershire. Michael approached him for
advice, and this led to a friendship which was only terminated
by Boughton’s death in 1960, and to Michael’s writing the
first biography of Boughton, much of which was written while
Boughton was still alive. Michael was devoted to the music
of Boughton, though not so blinkered that he could not see
its shortcomings. He sought every opportunity of encouraging
the performance of Boughton’s music, from a performance of
the cantata ‘Bethlehem’ at Aylesbury (Boughton’s birthplace)
in 1957; to a presentation of the opera ‘The Lily Maid’ at
Chichester in 1985. In more recent years he had a hand
in arranging revivals of some of the music by the BBC and
by Hyperion records. His lifelong advocacy of this neglected
music has led to much reappraisal, so that Boughton is
probably held in higher regard now than for several decades.
Then came Pembroke College,
Oxford, where he read Music under Bernard Rose and Thomas
Armstrong, the University’s leading music tutors of the day.
He was President of the University Music Society. Later,
he had private lessons with Lennox Berkeley.
Michael also received advice
and encouragement from Arthur Benjamin, then a Professor
at the RCM, and a friendship with Hans Werner Henze might
have been stimulating on both sides, only Henze became
increasingly politicised, reflecting this is his music. With this sort
of thing Michael was very much out of tune, and the friendship
came to nothing. This is not to say that Michael did not
have his Causes, and amongst the fringe movements which he
supported was CND – he went on some of the earliest Aldermaston
marches. And when writing his Concerto da Camera in 1979,
he used a motto theme of three notes (CBE) at the beginning
of each movement (in different combinations) which, when
written in German, spells out the initials of another fringe
movement which he avidly supported. For Michael was a gentle,
liberal-minded sort of person who would readily go along
with such movements though he was basically apolitical.
After taking his degree,
Michael taught at the Royal Marines School of Music at
Deal from 1953 – l959, as Professor of Theory, living in a lovely
apartment right on the sea front. But the death of his
parents gave him more independence, and responding to
a suggestion
from an Oxford friend, the writer David Hughes, and his
wife, the actress Mai Zetterling, Michael moved to live
near them
in Hampshire and became a free-lance musician and author.
Michael’s compositions are
many and varied, but perhaps the best-known to the general
public are the seven ‘jazz-cantatas’ which he wrote from
1966 – 1982. Schools have always been eager to perform
these, which make an instant appeal even to non-musical pupils
with their witty lyrics and catchy tunes. ‘Jonah-Man Jazz’ (1966)
and ‘Hip-hip Horatio’ (1974) are two of the most popular,
and the very titles betray the skittish irreverence with
which he approached his subjects. Other titles include ‘Swingin’ Samson’ (1973)
and ‘Rooster Rag’ (1975). He always said that he took particular
care that the piano part should not be too difficult, since
it was probably going to be played by a primary school teacher
without any claims to virtuosity. No special demands are
made of the singers either, since they would most likely
be untrained pupils only capable of singing in unison. This
attention to the ability of the performers has ensured these
unpretentious cantatas a sure place in school music-making,
and it is typical of Michael’s care to make all his music
performable.
His more serious compositions
are chiefly vocal. Local performances include the ‘Missa
Brevis’ given at the Gloucester Three Choirs Festival in
1968, the opera ‘The Widow of Ephesus’ (with libretto by
David Hughes’) at the Stroud Festival in 1971, and ‘Shore
Leave’ at the Gloucester Three Choirs Festival in 1998. His
most ambitious work is probably ‘Shepherd’s Calendar’, a
Choral Symphony with words by John Clare, which was commissioned
by the Southampton Choral Society in 1975. Many other groups
commissioned works from Michael, of which mention might be
made of ‘Canticles of the Virgin Mary’ (Farnham Festival,
1965), ‘Charms and Ceremonies’ (Downs School, Malvern, 1969), ‘The
Phoenix and the Turtle’ (Canterbury Singers, 1974) and ‘This
Day to Man’ (Chichester Singers, l979). More recently, his
operas ‘The Aspern Papers’ (based on Henry James) and ‘The
Night of the Wedding’ have been performed as part of the
Port Fairy Spring Music Festival in Melbourne, Australia,
in 1995 and 1998 respectively. This was a Festival which
Michael himself had had a part in setting up in 1990,
together with an Australian friend, the composer Michael
Easton,
who died tragically young in 2004.
Though Michael only wrote
a few orchestral pieces, all have now been recorded. ‘Overture
to an Unwritten Comedy’ dates from 1970 (revised 1979); ‘Dance
Diversions’ was commissioned by the Havant Symphony Orchestra
in 1972; ‘Sinfonia Concertante’ was first performed by the
Kathleen Merritt String Orchestra in 1973, and ‘Concerto
da Camera’ was written for the oboist Geoffrey Bridge and
the Havant Chamber Orchestra in 1979. This last piece is
especially attractive, and has been given several performances
locally in recent years by Robin Hales and Diana Nuttall,
in a version for oboe and piano. Listening to these pieces,
one is constantly struck by their readily approachable style – their
gentle half-colours are quite devoid of bombast or rhetoric
and this makes them unmistakeably English. It is a characteristic
of all Michael’s music that it is always beautifully crafted
yet easy to listen to. Not for him the over-intellectual
abstruseness of so much 20th century music – he is writing
to give pleasure to his performers and delight to his listeners. He
always expressed a fondness for the music of Poulenc,
a composer who wrote with the same ends in mind.
He never expressed much liking
for the music of other French composers, however, apart
from Berlioz, and was particularly critical of Ravel
(‘He can’t
climax’ – a strange remark when you think of ‘La Valse’!). The
shimmering vagueness of Debussy or the tenderly civilised
restraint of Fauré had little appeal. Nor was he very enthusiastic
about Russian music, with the exception of Rachmaninov, whose
superbly well-written pianism he admired greatly. It
was English music that chiefly attracted him, together
with
a little German and Italian Opera.
Michael also wrote
music for many plays - e.g. a dramatic version of Laurie
Lee’s ‘Cider with Rosie’ (1963) and William Saroyan’s ‘Playthings’ produced
by Mai Zetterling in 1980,. There is some film music,
too, for Mai Zetterling’s ‘Flickorna’ (1968) and ‘Scrubbers’ (1982). He
has written music for son et lumière productions, as
well as for the ‘fringe’ performances of Shakespeare
at recent Gloucester Three Choirs Festivals.
But besides all this, Michael
was a prolific author, writing short biographies
of Benjamin Britten and Michael Tippett, and longer definitive
biographies of Rutland Boughton (‘Immortal Hour’, 1962,
revised 1993 as ‘Rutland Boughton and the Glastonbury
Festivals’)
and Ivor Gurney (‘The Ordeal of Ivor Gurney’, 1978). He wrote ‘An
Outline History of European Music’ for Novello’s in 1968,
edited the revised Oxford Junior Companion to Music in
1979, and has contributed articles to many music reference
books,
including Grove’s Dictionary and the Athlone History
of Music in Britain. As a thank you offering to his
publishers, he wrote a history of the publishing house
of Novello’s
in 1981.
It is as an authority on
English music of the late 19th and early 20th centuries
that Michael’s musical scholarship stands out. Read the sleeve
notes of a CD of lesser-known music of this period, and they
will probably have been written by Michael. Listen to a
radio talk on the same subject, and he will have had something
to say about it. His house near Petersfield contained
a massive collection of scores of such music, much of
it unknown
or forgotten, but he could always find something interesting
in it, and was expert at communicating his enthusiasm
to all his friends.
He worked hard for music
in Hampshire, conducting annual performances of amateur
opera in works by Gilbert & Sullivan, other early 20th century
lighter composers, and even American musicals; and he was
also closely connected with the programmes and administration
of the Farnham Festival. He gave music lectures all over
the country, and work for the British Council took him further
afield, to such ex-colonial territories as Ghana, Sierra
Leone, Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), Hong Kong, India and Malaysia. To
direct performances of his music, he visited Sweden,
Holland, and the USA.
Michael was a friend who
was always fun to be with, providing stimulating and
witty conversation together with a slightly irreverent
and totally
unstuffy manner. I knew him since schooldays, for more
than 60 years, and amongst many memories I recall an
occasion
when he seemed to be distracted and inattentive during
an English lesson. ‘Are you listening?’ demanded the
teacher. Then
came the ultimate put-down answer – ‘Oh Sir, I was just
composing my new love-duet’. Alas, there will be no
more love-duets, or jazz-cantatas or biographies or lectures. Michael
Hurd died from cancer in Portsmouth Hospital on August
8th.
Geoffrey
Peck
(Crypt School, Gloucester, and
St.
John’s College, Oxford
)
PUBLICATIONS
by Michael Hurd
Short Biographies (chiefly
intended for schools)
Elgar (Faber & Faber,
1969)
Vaughan-Williams (Faber & Faber,
1970)
Mendelssohn (Faber & Faber,
1971)
Benjamin Britten (Novello ‘Short
Biographies’, 1966)
Michael Tippett (Novello ‘Short
Biographies’, 1978)
Young Persons’ Guides
Young Persons’ Guide to Concerts (Routledge & Kegan
Paul, 1962)
Young Persons’ Guide to English
Music (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1965)
Young Persons’ Guide to Opera (Routledge & Kegan
Paul, 1966)
Young Readers’ Guide to Music
(Soldiers’ songs & marches) (OUP, 1966)
Biographies
‘Immortal Hour’ – a biography
of Rutland Boughton (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1962)
‘The Ordeal of Ivor Gurney’ (OUP
1978)
‘Rutland Boughton and the
Glastonbury Festivals’ (a revision and expansion of 10) (OUP
1993)
Other books
The Composer (OUP, 1968)
An Outline of European Music (Novello,
1968, revised 1988)
The Oxford Junior Companion
to Music (Editor) (OUP, 1979)
The Orchestra (Phaidon,
1981)
Vincent Novello – and Company (Granada
Publishing, 1981)
Letters of Gerald Finzi and
Howard Ferguson (co-editor) (The Boydell Press, 2001)
