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The Search for Thomas F. Ward, Teacher of Frederick Delius

1997; Music Library Association; Volume: 53; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2307/899737

1534-150X

Barbara Henry, Don C. Gillespie,

Musicology and Musical Analysis

The Search for Thomas F. Ward, Teacher of Frederick Delius. By Don C. Gillespie. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1996. [xvi, 180 p. ISBN 0-8130-1398-4. $29.95] Thomas F. Ward Catholic Musician (b. Brooklyn c.1856-d. Houston 1912) Teacher of English composer Frederick Delius at Solano Grove, Florida, 1884-85 night has gone comes day, The dark shadows will fade away. So reads memorial stone that Don Gillespie was able to have placed on Thomas F. grave site in Holy Cross Cemetery, Houston, in 1993. While this may seem a bare minimum of information, journey Gillespie took to find grave and information is nothing short of miraculous. The book is aptly titled, for it is search (almost more than Ward himself) that is most compelling, and it reads like a detective story. Gillespie builds a biography of Ward by recounting how he found his information. He searched every imaginable source, called, wrote or visited anyone who might have any knowledge of Ward, followed every lead, no matter how slim. At every difficult juncture, dormant seeds of research that he had planted would blossom, enabling him to carry forward story of life a few more years. Gillespie (vice president and director of special editorial projects with C. F. Peters Corporation) had been fascinated by Frederick Delius and his music since his college days, but Ward remained a blank page: missing link of Delius's biography. To bring him out of shadows, to reveal mysterious musician Delius considered major influence on his artistic development, (p. 11) became an obsession with Gillespie. Prior to publication of this book, Ward had been a man of mystery. He was known only as musician who taught Delius in Florida from 1884 to 1885. Delius himself had said that Ward's counterpoint lessons were only lessons from which I ever derived any benefit (quoted on p. 8, from Eric Fenby's Delius as I Knew Him [London: G. Bell, 1936], 168-69). From material that Fenby and Philip Heseltine gleaned from Delius himself, Gillespie knew that Ward had been a church organist in Brooklyn, that he was the son of a Spanish priest and an Irish kitchen maid (quitted on p. 7, from Heseltine's Frederick Delius [London: John Lane, Bodley Head, 1923], 17-18), that he had tuberculosis and moved to Florida for his health where he met and taught Delius, and that he died of tuberculosis, after spending last years of his short life in a monastery. This was about all Gillespie had to go on when, in early 1980s, he began his search for Ward in Brooklyn. By means of newspapers, church ledgers and baptismal records, federal and state census records, city directories, and school records, supplemented later by a letter found in St. Augustine Historical Society, and material in Swisher Library at Jacksonville University, Gillespie discovered Ward, active and competent Catholic church musician, in Brooklyn during 1870s and 1880s. Ward was born there in 1856, very probably illegitimate son of a priest. He was raised in St. John's Home for Boys by Sisters of St. Joseph, and was a student in first class of St. John's College. He often appeared both as piano soloist and as accompanist on school programs, and became a church organist and choirmaster in 1876. He probably contracted tuberculosis early in his life and in 1884 he moved to Jacksonville, Florida, for his health. Here, Gillespie fills in much information around known meeting with Delius and time two spent together, by means of continued searches in city directories, census records, advertisements and music reviews in newspapers, parish histories, and hotel ledgers. Ward had continued to be a church musician, to teach private students, and to accompany local singers. After his time with Delius, there is little trace of him until 1891 when he turns up at St. …