Page 26 - Church Music Quarterly March 2018

WALTER HUSSEY DOYEN OF ARTS
THE VERY REVD NICHOLAS FRAYLING
Leonard Bernstein and Walter Hussey outside the Deanery in Chichester.
The centenary of the birth of Leonard Bernstein
in August 2018 might seem a slender reason for the editor of CMQ to seek an article on Dean Walter Hussey, who commissioned the Chichester Psalms. Although the best known, Bernstein’s piece was one of more than 30 musical commissions from Hussey, outnumbering the artistic works
for which he is usually remembered.
Born in 1909, Walter Hussey was the son of
Canon John Hussey, the Vicar and Patron of
St Matthew, Northampton. After Marlborough, Keble, Cuddesdon and a curacy at St Mary Abbots, Kensington, Walter succeeded his father as Vicar in 1937. The 50th anniversary of St Matthew’s in 1943 was the catalyst for Hussey’s earliest artistic commissions, which were astonishingly ambitious: Rejoice in the Lamb from Benjamin Britten, Madonna and Child from the sculptor Henry Moore, and, shortly afterwards, The Crucifixion from Graham Sutherland. In addition, there were concerts by George Thalben-Ball on the fine Walker organ, Britten and Peter Pears, Kirsten Flagstad, and Adrian Boult with the
BBC Symphony Orchestra.
Hussey’s reputation as what Sir Kenneth Clarke described as ‘an indomitable persuader’ brought him to the attention of Bishop George Bell of
Chichester, and he was appointed Dean of the Cathedral in 1955. He was to remain there until his retirement in 1977. These were years of rapid liturgical reform in the Church of England: Series 1, 2 and 3 leading to The Alternative Service Book in 1980 and later, Common Worship. As long-familiar texts gave way to contemporary language, Hussey became increasingly convinced that the arts offered a different kind of language. Indeed, he wrote in his autobiography – Patron of Art (1985) – ‘Artists are peculiarly precious and can speak powerfully to many ... to whom the language
of theology often means little.’
At any rate, he persuaded some of the finest
artists of the day to produce works for Chichester Cathedral, whose largely unaltered Romanesque interior provided a perfect, if unlikely, setting for works of outstanding quality by John Piper, Graham Sutherland, Geoffrey Clarke, Ceri Richards, John Skelton, Cecil Collins, Marc Chagall among others. Hussey’s musical commissions, apart from Britten and Bernstein, included works that have remained in the repertoire by Gerald Finzi, Michael Tippett, William Walton, Bryan Kelly, William Albright, Lennox Berkeley and more.
Walter Hussey is remembered as a shy and irascible man who, although he had a wide circle of friends, was acutely lonely. He was a great talker, a gifted raconteur and a hilarious mimic, but he was unable to talk about personal matters or the deep things of his own life. This has led some to make unkind posthumous judgements about him. It has been suggested that art and music, rather than the redemptive message of the Gospel, came to characterize his faith, and left him largely indifferent to the needs of a Christian community. Many who experienced his ministry in Chichester, or worked closely with him, regard such judgements as unfair. It is certainly true that Hussey was not by nature a serene person, and that he found solace and a measure of fulfilment
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