Great Billing's musical genius
Valentine Way, Lady Winefride's Walk, Elwes Way and The Elwes Arms. Where am I? In Great Billing, of course, a village with more than its fair share of fascinating history.
In the centre of Great Billing, not far from the pretty little Roman Catholic Church that looks like a refugee from a Spanish hillside aldea (village or hamlet), there is a large bronze plaque.
It shows a portrait of a handsome man with this touching inscription: "In grateful memory of a beloved Squire. Gervase Elwes.
1866-1921. With his whole heart he sung (sic] songs, and loved Him that made him."
The Cary-Elwes family bought Billing Hall from the Thomonds in 1790. Barnabas O'Brien, 6th Earl of Thomond, was MP for Coleraine and was created 1st Marquis of Billing by Charles Stuart.
In 1874 the Rector of Billing, the Reverend Joseph Walker, wrote in his diary: 'Received this day a letter from Mr Elwes, the Squire of this Parish saying that he and his family had joined the Roman Catholic Church.'
It was a bit of a blow to the Rector, as we can imagine, but was a great boon to the Catholic Church which, only 45 years earlier, had been granted rites under the Catholic Emancipation Act 1829.
In 1921, the year of Gervase Elwes's death, his brother The Reverend Dudley Charles Cary-Elwes was consecrated 5th Roman Catholic Bishop of Northampton. That must have been the icing on the family cake!
Gervase (who later dropped the 'Cary') was born in Billing Hall in 1866.
After attending The Oratory School in Birmingham, he went up to Oxford and was aiming for a career in the Diplomatic Service.
While he was in Munich improving his language skills, he came home and married Lady Winifrede Fielding, daughter of the Earl of Denbigh.
In 1891 he was appointed attach to the British Embassy in Vienna and while there he studied singing.
After a spell in Brussels he left the Diplomatic Service and concentrated on singing.
He studied in Paris and London and gave his first professional performance in 1903. He rose to stardom quickly and in 1904 was chosen by Elgar to sing in the world premier of his Dream of Gerontius.
Gervase went on to sing the title role 118 times and became totally associated with the work.
In 1916 he even gave six performances on six consecutive days with Dame Clara Butt!
He was no stranger to performing in America either.
The New York Times called him 'One of the most distinguished English musicians to have visited the United States'.
In 1909 with the New York Oratorio Society at Carnegie Hall, he gave the American premier of Gerontius and also sang the narrator in Bach's St Mattew Passion, another work with which he was much celebrated.
He returned to the USA for a triumphant concert tour in 1921.
While in Boston he had a dreadful accident: he was retrieving an overcoat belonging to another passenger that had fallen from the train and he fell between the platform and the train and died of his injuries.
He was 55.
Elgar wrote 'my personal loss is greater than I can bear to think upon, but this is nothing compared to the general artistic loss – a gap impossible to fill – in the musical world'.
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Saturday 04 February 2012
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