Tag Archives: Ivor Gurney

The Cloths of Heaven is a song composed by Ivor Gurney, (1890-1937) set to a poem (Aedh wishes for the Cloths of Heaven) by Irish poet W B Yeats ( 1865-1939). In the video above Anthony Hopkins reads the poem.

Below is the song interpreted by Ian Bostridge.

Gurney led a tragic life. He passed his final 15 years in mental institutions, dying at 47 of Tuberculosis, in an asylum in Dartford, having been moved there after an escape attempt, far from his native and beloved Gloucestershire. His decline seems to have been triggered by his experiences during World War I. Continue reading →