Morfydd Owen the Biopic

Photo of Morfydd Owen, National Library of Wales

Morfydd Owen, the Welsh composer once a "Forgotten Icon", now justly respected,  with recordings like Portrait of a Lost Icon (please read more here) and the premiere of Nocturne at the BBC Proms (please read more here). Now she's a media celebrity, with a made for TV biopic in her honour, available HERE from SC4 in Welsh with English subtitles if you watch on BBC i-player.
The biopic seems aimed at general audiences with a focus on Owen's marriage to Ernest Jones rather than on her music.  The film is period romance, with a dark edge. Many marriages, especially at that time, were based on the abuse of power, and this was almost certainly not a match of equals. Morfydd is portayed as neurotic, on the verge of a breakdown, her last illness as much mental as physical.  Given that Jones was a colleague of Sigmund Freud, he would have thought in terms of penis envy and hysteria,  a"female problem" shifting blame onto the patient rather than the trauma.  So why would he marry a woman who clearly had public status and a career ? The circumstances of Owen's death are mysterious, and would probably now be investigated by the police and General Medical Council. Why did Jones to operate on his wife on his own instead of driving her to hospital ? Perhaps it was something more scandalous than appendicitis.  Jones was undoubtedly manipulative, but whether he was evil, we are in no position to know. The film accepts Freudian assumptions - Jones's point of view - while depicting him in a sinister light. 

But what was Morfydd's side of the story ?  She was not naive, nor a natural victim.  She moved in avant garde circles, meeting D H Lawrence, Ezra Pound and Prince Yusupov, one of the conspirators who assassinated Rasputin, and was well aware of what being a "New Woman" meant.  It's possible that she married Jones not just for security but becasuse she was curious about the newness of his profession.  Her sultry "gypsy" looks were exotic. At 25, she wasn't marrying young like so many women did at the time. The biopic doesn't really develop Owen's personality and background. To have created the career in a male dominated hierarchy shows strength of chracater.  To have been a staunch churchgoer - and  a possibly what we'd now call a nationalist - among the fast set in London show that she wasn't afraid of being herself whatever others around her might do. Strong women do stay in abusive relationships but there's evidence that Owen realized early on that the marriage was a mistake.  She was probably more unsure than she seemed on the surface, but again, we have no means of speculation what might have been had she lived.

Though the film includes clips of Owen's music, the focus is more on the costume drama aspects of the tragedy.  But it would make a great difference if her music received more detailed attention.  Owen's music "was" her life.  Owen left some 200 surviving scores by the time of her death at the age of 26, a considerable output by any standards.  She was prolific, producing a wide range of works, including large orchestral pieces, chamber music, songs and works for piano, and works for the stage.  Even as a student, first in Cardiff and later in  London,  she was highly regarded. To this day, Owen's tally of prizes awarded by the Royal Academy of Music remains unrivalled.  Though she was not part of the male English Establishment, Owen needs no special pleading.  Her music stands on its own merits,highly individual and original.  Her work was published in the Welsh Hymnal when she was 16.

Unlike far too many supposedly "lost" composers, Owen's substantial reputation  doesn't rest on sentimentality or gender alone, but is based on substantial evidence.  Owen's connections in London gave her an entrée to what was happening in the arts on an international level - she heard Stravinsky, and knew about Debussy, Ravel and other developments.  Owen's Nocturne (mentioned here) is superb, as good as anything by other composers in Britain at the time, many of whom were much older and better placed than she was.  Ralph Vaughan Williams found himself creatively after he went to Paris, aged 37. What might Owen have achieved, if she'd lived longer and had the right opportunities ? One day no doubt we'll get a more developed portrait of Morfydd Oween, but until then, this biopic will raise greater interest in this most remarkable of women.

Britten's Endgame Bridcut

Currently online on BBC TV4, Britten's Endgame, John Bridcut's film about Britten's last years and last works. Recommended - it's a sensitive and sensible account, much better than most of the oppportunist stuff that's flooded the market this centenary year. Britten's life is so meticulously documented that there isn't much "new" material to use. Hence the sensationalist marketing on non-facts like the idea that Britten was killed by syphilis. Britten was poorly all his life, as this film re-confirms. He was debililitated by anxiety, sometimes vomiting before key events. As one of his associates says in the film, he was so used to being ill that he programmed illnesses into his schedule. Perhaps he was hypochondriac, but more likely the illnesses related to creative crises. Paul Kildea cites Britten's illness in America as evidence of the onset of VD. On the other hand, America was a traumatic period for the composer, resolved by his return to Britain and by Peter Grimes.

Bridcut takes us to Venice, a city where artists have dreamed for centuries. Aschenbach goes searching for change, and glimpses extraordinary, troubling beauty. Some critics sitll condemn Death in Venice, perhaps because it's not easy listening. But that's exactly why it's such a powerful work. As Bridcut shows, Britten was a driven man, under desperate pressure to complete the work. Peter Pears called it "an evil work". The stress might have contributed to Britten's heart condition and stroke, but Pears might have understood .how much it revealed about Britten's innermost dilemmas. For me Death in Venice is the closest Britten comes to  explaining himself, as man and as artist. Tadzio represents a golden ideal. He's seen as an incarnation of Apollo, an eternal inspiration for enlightenment, growth and art. Aschenbach was an intellectual, classically educated and straight. But Tadzio transforms his soul. He can't possess the boy: it might even spoil the dream. Britten was prepared to sacrifice his health to give the opera life.

The current fashion for interpreting Britten through his sexuality is trite, and probably homophobic. Bridcut shows the interview in which David Hemmings says Britten didn't overstep the mark. Throughout his entire career, Britten protests the destruction of innocence. If Tadzio had responded, would Aschenbach run a mile? Ironically, the dancer who played the original Tadzio may have been involved with Peter Pears who was far more omnivorous than the uptight Britten. Myfanwy Piper suggested that the dancers perform naked in authentic Greek fashion. Britten demurred.

Many who knew Britten personally are still active today. Bridcut shows clips from an interview with Janet Baker, for whom Britten wrote Phaedra, an even more intense work of thwarted lust, punished by death. He also shows James Bowman who created the Voice of Apollo, and Michael Berkeley, a true insider and a composer in his own right. Bridcut is far less successful with other "modern" material. Why Joe Phibbs and Mark Anthony Turnage instead of Oliver Knussen or even Harrison Birtwistle? Both of the latter were shaped by Britten for better or worse. there is no "Britten School".  He was unique. He didn't teach but created the Britten-Pears Foundation and the Aldeburgh Festival so that other musicians could find their own way.

There is a battle raging over Britten's legacy. Bridcut stresses the disregard Berio and some of the avant garde had for Britten (and Shostakovich) as if somehow that would make him more mainstream and marketable, by default. But the situation is far more complex. At Darmstadt battles raged between Nono, Berio and Hans Werner Henze, who worshipped Britten and modelled himself upon him. Britten's music is infinitely more innovative than he gets credit for, which is why he is also hated by many in retrogressive "British Music" circles.  There are far too many who would castrate Britten and reinterpret him as bland and conventional. Hence the popularity of one-dimensional, superficial opera productions. Tom Sutcliffe's film, Britten : a Failure is so venomous that it's shown on youtube, not distributed theough mainstream chanels. Those who think Britten isn't trendy enough should reflect on what British music would be like if it wasn't for Britten,. Unfortunately too many people swallow the myth that music has to follow a strict divide between tonality and atonality, modern and anti-modern. Real artists, like Britten, are doggedly individual and follow their own vision, even if it kills them. Remember Aschenbach, and Death in Venice!

photo : Nino Barbieri