Gurney had a strong interest in music from an early age and began composing when he was fourteen. He also sang in the Gloucester Cathedral choir for seven years. In 1911, he won a scholarship to the Royal College of Music, but was a difficult student because of his temperment and mood swings. In 1913, he suffered a mental breakdown, but returned to his studies after a short rest. His studies were interrupted again, this time by the First World War and by 1916, he had arrived in France as a private in the 2nd/5th Gloucesters. He put aside his music briefly in order to write poetry and produced two collections which were later published; Severn and Somme (1917) and War's Embers (1919). He was wounded in the shoulder in April 1917, but returned to the front shortly afterwards. In September 1917, he was gassed at Ypres and spent recovery time in Edinburgh. In March of the following year he suffered another breakdown, and he was finally discharged from the army in October. Gurney was said to have suffered from 'deferred shell-shock' and his mental health was said to be directly affected by this. Following the war, he returned to the RCM and studied briefly under Vaughn Williams, but he left before completing his studies. He continued to write and compose, producing works for orchestra, songs, chamber music and some instrumental pieces. By 1922, his health had deteriorated to the point where his family had him declared insane. He spent the next fifteen years in asylums until his death from tuberculosis when he was only 47. In spite of being institutionalized, Gurney continued to write and compose and produced a further eight collections of verse. He is among the sixteen Great War Poets commemorated at Poet's Corner in Westminster Abbey. Today, he is regarded as a major poet of the twentieth century. His other works include Blunden's Collection (1954) and P. J. Kavanaugh's Collected Poems (1982). |
