A Tribute to David Fanshawe
Composer and Explorer
19th April 1942 - 5th July 2010
Our much loved David Fanshawe died peacefully on 5th July following a stroke. He was one of Britain’s finest musicians, composer of African Sanctus and many other notable works, and a tireless recordist who travelled the world rescuing music which would otherwise now be extinct.
I had the honour to get to know David and his wife Jane when I was looking for someone to help me with the Suite Guernesiaise. They lived not far from me, and they gave me invaluable help and advice, without which the outcome for my father’s music would have been very different.
David was as fine a man as he was a musician: open-hearted and generous, he conveyed a sense of spontaneity and freedom which is rare in someone in his position in the world, and he will be sorely missed. A memorial website has been created for him at www.davidfanshawe.com.
This is the comment he sent me for the premiere of the Suite Guernesiaise:
Suite Guernesiaise is a musical gift, ranking with the very best of the established English repertoire. The fact that it was re-discovered, ‘mouldering away’, at the bottom of a dusty cupboard, beggars belief. It is incredulous that its composer, John Crossley Hayes, died without ever hearing this charming work performed live by a symphony orchestra.
In 4 Movements the composer displays a formidable technique; he is a natural master-craftsman of composition. Here is a symphonic suite of very endearing qualities, composed under the German Occupation of Guernsey in 1942 during the depths of WWII. As Ildiko Hayes, the composer’s daughter, so rightly states: “The Suite Guernesiaise is a happy, exuberant and tuneful work”… I would like to add: a patriotic, romantic, and nostalgic gem, which deserves to be performed, broadcast and recorded for us all to treasure in perpetuity.
David Fanshawe, Composer & Explorer
August 2009