Robert Winston's Musical Analysis - Ivor Gurney

Series in which Professor Robert Winston explores the relationship between the music and the medical conditions of composers who suffered mental and physical illness. Robert investigates the tragic case of English composer and poet Ivor Gurney, who died of tuberculosis in the City of London Mental Hospital, Dartford, in 1937. For many years he was thought to have been the victim of shell-shock as a result of his service in the trenches of the First World War, but that diagnosis is now discounted and there is even evidence in his letters to suggest that the physical activity and comradeship of military service may have been a saviour to his mental health. Robert hears from Gurney biographer Pamela Blevins, chairman of the Ivor Gurney Society Anthony Boden and singer and Royal Academy of Music researcher April Frederick.