The Mad Boy, Lord Berners, My Grandmother, and Me by Sofka Zinovieff
Authors: Sofka Zinovieff
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musical mentor to the thirty-three-year-old Englishman, and their correspondence illustrates their increasing familiarity, opening with, ‘Dear Friend’, ‘Dear Friend Tyrwhitt’, and Gerald signing off as ‘Your devoted Gerald Tyrwhitt’. Gerald’s penchant for pranks and jokes was already in evidence when he sent Stravinsky one of his characteristically doctored postcards – a painting of Brahms that was adjusted so he was surrounded by naked women and clouds. The caption reads: ‘Why all of these nude women? I was always assured that Brahms was chaste.’
Stravinsky advised Gerald about composing, but the latter’s style remained quite different from the former’s, albeit displaying the odd Stravinskian fingerprint, such as the use of repeated rhythms and phrases, or surprising the listener with the sudden development of a melody in an unexpected direction.45 Gerald tried to assist Stravinsky with practical issues concerning performances and even payments. The letters show him to be more than willing to act as go-between in the famous composer’s dealings with the Ballets Russes, the dauntingly demanding yet brilliant Diaghilev, and even government authorities. When Stravinsky had problems taking a Picasso portrait of himself back home from Rome to Switzerland, it was Gerald who arranged for the painting to be carried in the diplomatic bag and saw his friend off with delicious mandorlati figs.
While Gerald was mixing with the great artists and musicians of the day, an interest in popular theatre, pantomime and song had already taken root and would remain for life: years earlier, Gerald had admired Mozart’s The Magic Flute for being ‘just like a pantomime’. In 1917, Gerald wrote to Stravinsky: ‘Near my house I have discovered a tiny, dirty little theatre-music hall, which I want you to see when you come. They have a variety programme and an orchestra à tout crever [that could raise the roof]. I took Picasso and Cocteau there the other night, and they were thrilled.’46
Jean Cocteau, like Gerald, was a man of varied talents who was in danger of being seen as a dandified dilettante. The apparent simplicity and succinctness of their work did not always endear them to cultural heavyweights. Gerald liked his compositions (and other people’s) to be entertaining, even escapist; nothing too long or too serious was permitted. As he wrote in his novel Far From the Madding War, ‘The English have a tendency to judge art by size and weight.’ In his work, he always aimed for brevity, and frequently levity – not to mention parody. According to his future friend and collaborator, the composer Constant Lambert, Gerald ‘was the first to introduce into music the Max Beerbohm type of sophisticated satire – a mordant wit combined with classicism of style’.47
Gerald’s major influences were not English but European. His Three Songs in the German Manner are settings of poems by Heinrich Heine which sound like versions of conventional lieder, but subvert the traditional themes so that, for instance, one is addressed to a pig instead of a fair young maid. In his 1920 Three English Songs, the playful words of ‘The Green-eyed Monster’, by E. L. Duff, are just the sort of ironic take on an emotional theme that appealed to Lord Berners the composer.
James gave Elizabeth a Dodo,
He only offered one to me –
The loveliest lemon-coloured Dodo,
With the greenest eyes that you could wish to see.
Now it isn’t that I’m doubting if James loves me,
And I know that he would ask me out to tea,
But he did give Elizabeth a Dodo,
And he never even offered one to me.
Nevertheless, there was feeling behind the flippancy. As Constant Lambert said in a BBC radio tribute to Lord Berners, ‘though his tongue was often in his cheek, he could wear his heart on his sleeve’.48 His clever, facetious wit did not undermine the deep emotions in his music, and while he did not create a huge body of work (thirty pieces in
Stravinsky advised Gerald about composing, but the latter’s style remained quite different from the former’s, albeit displaying the odd Stravinskian fingerprint, such as the use of repeated rhythms and phrases, or surprising the listener with the sudden development of a melody in an unexpected direction.45 Gerald tried to assist Stravinsky with practical issues concerning performances and even payments. The letters show him to be more than willing to act as go-between in the famous composer’s dealings with the Ballets Russes, the dauntingly demanding yet brilliant Diaghilev, and even government authorities. When Stravinsky had problems taking a Picasso portrait of himself back home from Rome to Switzerland, it was Gerald who arranged for the painting to be carried in the diplomatic bag and saw his friend off with delicious mandorlati figs.
While Gerald was mixing with the great artists and musicians of the day, an interest in popular theatre, pantomime and song had already taken root and would remain for life: years earlier, Gerald had admired Mozart’s The Magic Flute for being ‘just like a pantomime’. In 1917, Gerald wrote to Stravinsky: ‘Near my house I have discovered a tiny, dirty little theatre-music hall, which I want you to see when you come. They have a variety programme and an orchestra à tout crever [that could raise the roof]. I took Picasso and Cocteau there the other night, and they were thrilled.’46
Jean Cocteau, like Gerald, was a man of varied talents who was in danger of being seen as a dandified dilettante. The apparent simplicity and succinctness of their work did not always endear them to cultural heavyweights. Gerald liked his compositions (and other people’s) to be entertaining, even escapist; nothing too long or too serious was permitted. As he wrote in his novel Far From the Madding War, ‘The English have a tendency to judge art by size and weight.’ In his work, he always aimed for brevity, and frequently levity – not to mention parody. According to his future friend and collaborator, the composer Constant Lambert, Gerald ‘was the first to introduce into music the Max Beerbohm type of sophisticated satire – a mordant wit combined with classicism of style’.47
Gerald’s major influences were not English but European. His Three Songs in the German Manner are settings of poems by Heinrich Heine which sound like versions of conventional lieder, but subvert the traditional themes so that, for instance, one is addressed to a pig instead of a fair young maid. In his 1920 Three English Songs, the playful words of ‘The Green-eyed Monster’, by E. L. Duff, are just the sort of ironic take on an emotional theme that appealed to Lord Berners the composer.
James gave Elizabeth a Dodo,
He only offered one to me –
The loveliest lemon-coloured Dodo,
With the greenest eyes that you could wish to see.
Now it isn’t that I’m doubting if James loves me,
And I know that he would ask me out to tea,
But he did give Elizabeth a Dodo,
And he never even offered one to me.
Nevertheless, there was feeling behind the flippancy. As Constant Lambert said in a BBC radio tribute to Lord Berners, ‘though his tongue was often in his cheek, he could wear his heart on his sleeve’.48 His clever, facetious wit did not undermine the deep emotions in his music, and while he did not create a huge body of work (thirty pieces in
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