Song of Summer

This TV film from 1968 about the last 5 years in the life of composer Frederick Delius is a moving and memorable experience thanks to director Ken Russell and the three stars.

Max Adrian is astonishing as Delius, a man crippled and blinded by disease. Despite his afflictions, his mind is sharp and his musical talent undiminished. Also excellent are Christopher Gable as Fenby, the young man who comes to Delius' country home to help him finish his work. And matching these performances is Maureen Pryor as the devoted wife, Jelka.

The household is truly odd with musical genius Delius at the center of everything. To him, nothing matters but his music. Fenby becomes a devoted member of the household as he loses his orthodox views about religion and marriage and becomes a member of the family. Jelka maintains the home and the semblance of normalcy, but it is revealed that she has sacrificed her own talent as a painter to serve Delius.

Russell gets very close to showing us the inner core of creating art, rather than just playing Delius' music. We see that this creation is a struggle against chaos and against the humdrum daily needs of life. With Fenby and Jelka as his buffers, Delius is able to work.

All three stars worked with Russell in other film projects. Most notably, Pryor was in THE MUSIC LOVERS, and Gable and Adrian were in THE BOY FRIEND (one of Russell's best films). Max Adrian was nominated for a British Oscar for the latter film. In SONG OF SUMMER, all three stars give award-worthy performances, and Russell shows us just how good a director he could be.

This is a must-see film for art and music lovers and ranks with CLEOPHAS AND HIS OWN as among the great art films.

Yes, once upon a time Ken Russell was in control and was actually able to turn out a beautiful and sensitive film bio--how perfectly appropriate here, since the subject was composer Frederic Delius.

Max Adrian was superb and SO believable. I once saw a TV interview with Russell who related that, while filming this picture at the actual site of Delius' house at Grez-sur-Loing, Eric Fenby himself showed up to observe the day's shooting, and broke down into tears as he beheld young Christopher Gable playing FENBY HIMSELF, seated at the side of Delius in his wheelchair, taking down musical dictation. Imagine the overwhelmingly bittersweet shock of that event for Fenby!

Sometime in the early '80's, I met Eric Fenby in Chicago; he was here as part of a Delius Choral Festival. The Film "Song of Summer" was screened--but just barely! The BBC, at the last minute, decided NOT to send the print to Chicago and it was only through a combination of pleading and good luck that they finally agreed and sent it. I spoke with Fenby about the filming, but he seemed to wish to avoid his deeper feelings about it.

Prior to that, I had seen the film in May of 1971 on the local Chicago PBS station. To my knowledge, it is not available in any format, and probably never will be. A great shame.

A middle-age composer is struck down by paralysis and blindness brought on by syphilis. All the music still living inside him must remain there forever, or so it seems, until a young man volunteers his time to bring that music to life. Such is the remarkable but true story of Frederic Delius and his amanuenses, Eric Fenby.

In 1929, Eric Fenby was a young man living in England, a frustrated musician earning money by playing background music for Laurel & Hardy films. One night, he reads in the paper of Frederic Delius' tragic plight and, possessing a young man's impulsiveness, decides to go to Grez-sur-Loing, where Delius lives with his wife, Jelka, and offer his assistance.

When they first meet, it is NOT a meeting of the minds. Delius (played so wickedly wonderfully well by Max Adrian) says he wants to compose and he starts humming. Fenby, in frustration, realizing the uphill battle he has taken on, asks, "What key is it in, Sir" and Delius loses patience with the well-meaning young man. An uneasy start, to be sure, but by the end, previously unheard music finds its way onto paper and into concert halls.

This is a wonderful little film, part of a PBS series titled "Biography." The series had been narrated by Lady Antonia Fraser and she did a wonderful job introducing the film and understanding just what a miracle had occurred in 1929 when Fenby decided to help Delius.

But this movie is far from being maudlin and you do NOT end up feeling sorry for Delius. Despite being blind and paralyzed, he is not without talent and he certainly isn't without wit.

When Fenby asks him what he thinks of certain composers, he says of one, "He would have set the entire Bible to music if he'd lived long enough." He also decides to act as a father to Fenby - not having children of his own and being so much older than Fenby, it probably was natural in the course of their relationship. Being an atheist, he suggests Fenby get rid of his "great Christian blinders" but Fenby, being a devout Roman Catholic, ignores this suggestion.

But, later in the film, Fenby ends up being the "parent" as Delius becomes sicker and Jelka develops stomach cancer and requires surgery. He had served as a confidant to Jelka and it is from her that he (and we) learns what Delius was like as a young man - his incredible womanizing, the brutal way he treated Jelka and finally, his contracting syphilis from the women with whom he had slept.

And in the end, no matter how tragic their plight, Delius and Fenby together brought to light some incredibly beautiful music - the music that inspired the title and the picture. It runs like a thread throughout the film and gives it a joy and a hope you would not expect considering the subject.

This wonderful movie is well worth a look if it ever appears on TV again. It's available on British DVD but not on American DVD or VHS. That's a shame. However, the music that inspired it is available on CD and is also well worth listening to. And viewers will be amazed at what Fenby gave up - and what we all got - as a result of his service - which lasted for 5 years until Delius died - to a great composer. We are all blessed by the sacrifice.

Just caught up with this wonderful piece again. I too met Fenby once (briefly) ~ a lovely man (and a bit shorter than Gable, if I recall).

Am I wrong, or is the film clip Chris G is seen accompanying at the start not 1937's Way Out West? Or does that dance appear in an earlier, silent film by L&H?

And it's always intrigued me that Melbourne's Percy Granger is not given an Aussie accent. Okay, he was of English stock and spent some years there but by the time of the story he was living in the States and was a US citizen. And I know he was a fitness freak but he doesn't look 24 years older than Fenby here! In fact David Collings and Christopher Gable were both born in 1940. The best link between Collings and Granger is that both were born in Brighton ~ Brighton Sussex and Brighton, Victoria respectively.

Enough trivia. My main fascination here is that this film expresses most succinctly what I have often called "(Ken) Russell's Paradox" ~ a question he later asked about Gaudier-Brzeska, Tchaikovsky and many others. How can some great artists live such sordid or cruel ~ at least self-obsessed ~ private lives and still bequeath those moving, inspiring and downright humane works to us mere mortals? Or, as Fenby puts it here "I can't reconcile such hardness with such lovely music?"

Ken Russell Song of Summer is a sweet and beautiful composer biopic that was made for television but seems better suited for the cinema.

In fact it is a better film than most of his theatrical releases (Maybe excluding my personal favorite Mahler), with sensitive performances, humour, and an affection for its protangonists. (I know what your thinking - no bloody corpses? Writhing nudes? Swirling visuals?) No there's not much of Russell's trademark shock tactics - but the film is all the better for it.

A film I deeply respect. Try and track down a copy and you won't be disappointed. 9/10.