Song of Summer


Song of Summer is a 1968 black-and-white television film co-written, produced, and directed by Ken Russell for the BBC's Omnibus series which was first broadcast on 15 September 1968. It portrays the final six years of the life of Frederick Delius, when he was blind and paralysed, and when Eric Fenby lived with the composer and his wife Jelka as Delius's amanuensis. The title is borrowed from the Delius tone poem A Song of Summer, which is heard along with other Delius works in the film.
It stars Max Adrian as Delius, Christopher Gable as Fenby, and Maureen Pryor as Jelka, with director Russell in a cameo role as a philandering priest. The cinematography was by Dick Bush, and the editing was by Roger Crittenden. It was shot on black-and-white 35mm film.
It has received wide praise since its first screening, and Ken Russell himself said it was the best film he ever made and he would not have done a single shot differently.

Book

Song of Summer was based on Eric Fenby's memoir Delius As I Knew Him, which recounts his experience of offering his services in transcribing Frederick Delius's music from the composer's dictation. The 66-year-old Delius, who lived with his wife Jelka and their servants at Grez-sur-Loing, 70 kilometres south of Paris, had never even heard of Fenby, a struggling 22-year-old composer and theatre organist living with his parents in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, but he accepted Fenby's unsolicited offer. Fenby stayed with the Deliuses at Grez, on and off for six years, until Delius's death in 1934. He had immense difficulties in dealing with the cantankerous, irascible and impatient composer. Neither party had ever worked this way before, but Fenby was immediately expected to keep up with Delius's fast pace when dictating, and to make sense of his out-of-tune singing. He was also required to read for long stretches to Delius, the composer's favourite books being Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer. Fenby was a devout Catholic and Delius hated Christianity, even going so far as to say that Fenby should not go to the local chapel but visit one further away. On his first visit home, Fenby had a nervous breakdown and lost the use of his own legs for two weeks. Later, Jelka needed to go for treatment for stomach cancer, and Fenby virtually became Delius's nurse for a month. Delius died only two days after Jelka returned.
Eric Fenby coached actors Max Adrian and Christopher Gable in their roles and regarded their portrayals as "absolutely true to character" and the film as "disturbingly lifelike". However, he did not attend the actual filming, in order not to distract the director, and also on request from Christopher Gable, who was making his first film. Max Adrian was a favourite actor of Ken Russell's. Adrian told Fenby that he had more difficulty in ridding himself of involvement in the role of Delius than he had ever experienced with other roles.

Reception

The film has often been described as the best of the biographical films Ken Russell made for the BBC in the 1960s. Words like "subtle", "sensitive", "exquisite", "moving", "beautiful", "poignant", "magical", "exceptional" and "tour de force" recur in critiques of Song of Summer. The acting by the principals was universally praised. When he saw the finished film, Eric Fenby was traumatised, for it brought to the surface feelings he had been suppressing for decades, and he suffered a severe nervous breakdown which took him a full year to recover from.
In 2001, a slightly shortened version was released on DVD, as Delius: Song of Summer.
Kate Bush's song "Delius ", the B-side of her 1980 "Army Dreamers", is an appreciation of the composer as portrayed in Russell's film.

Music

Song of Summer uses the music of Delius throughout, except for a passage where Percy Grainger calls at Grez, and Country Gardens and Handel in the Strand are heard, and another in which Delius has a record of Jerome Kern's "Ol' Man River" played. The original film starts with an excerpt from a Laurel and Hardy film, and then shows Fenby improvising music on an organ for the theatre patrons. In the DVD release, copyright permission for the Laurel and Hardy film could not be obtained, so the introduction was cut from the release; however, the music credits still include Eric Fenby.

Details

A theme that is quite overtly explored is the dichotomy between a composer who is an egotistical and tyrannical monster and womaniser, but who writes ravishingly beautiful, lyrical, sensitive music. Fenby himself comments "I can't reconcile such hardness with such lovely music".
Russell explored the possibility of making the film at the Delius home at Grez, but that proved impractical. Budgetary considerations meant it could not be made in France at all, so it was filmed mainly in Surrey, with extra scenes in Scarborough and the Lake District.
The gramophone used in the film was Delius's own, and Jelka's scattering of rose petals over Frederick's dead body from her wheelchair was exactly what she did in real life.
One scene shows Fenby attending a church and discovering the parish priest making love to a girl in a pew. This episode apparently occurred, but it was not mentioned in Delius As I Knew Him. Fenby told it to Russell for his ears alone and was shocked when he saw it in the film.

Inaccuracies