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“No man is but an island entire of itself. We are dimished by the death of any man because we are of mankind. Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for us”

Taken from John Donne

Ancel Newton was born on 17th January 1927 and spent his early childhood in rural Derbyshire where he had an early interest in forestry and conservation. He was a chorister at St Michaels College, Tenbury Wells, and completed his education at Repton School.

Encouraged by his mother, he studied the piano and briefly the violincello, and in addition to his developing skills as a musician was a skilled artist.

Ancel Newton studied composition at Trinity College of Music, London where he won the Bantock Composition prize. He studied with Douglas Mews, Wiliam Lovelock, George Oldroyd, and after completing his degree with Arnold Cooke and Lennox Berkeley.

After university he lived in the Derbyshire countryside, working in forestry, woodland conservation and music.

All his early compositions were destroyed in a house fire, but on reading poetry written during the First World War in the early years of this century he felt compelled to return to composition, re-writing some compositions from memory, and writing new work for piano, baritone and mezzo-soprano.

This resulted in the song cycle “Doomed Youth”, and further work, “Goodbye to the Battlefields”, by way of a sequel.

To think of the slaughter of thousands upon thousands of young men during the First World War is so overwhelming, that it is difficult to accept other than as a cold statistic. Some letters discovered left in a Trench at the end of the war and published under the title “The Love of an Unknown Soldier” scale down the enormity of the killing to just one man and help the mind grasp that such contempt for life is the ultimate obscenity, there is no glory in war, other than displaying the bravery of man; otherwise “War is hell” (Gen. W. T. Sherman 1820 – 1891).

The song cycles, “Doomed Youth”  and “Goodbye to the Battlefields”, were written with the principle in mind that ‘Music’ begins where words stop, knows no frontiers and can transcend their limitations and when appropriate realise their full potential, and as with other means of communication, the sky is the limit and the pits in the opposite direction.

Words are not a row of pegs to hang a tune on, their meaning comes before all else and is not the means for the composer, pianist or singer to display his or her cleverness, virtuosity, beauty of voice etc.

The singers, Bradley, Anna and Gavan accepted the principle with total understanding and generosity, well supported by Simon Lepper,

The songs are the centrepiece, not the writer, and while there must be a “label” to take responsibility for the “product” and as a possible future reference, the current celebrity culture is both vain and a misuse of talent.

The piano is written to be of equal importance to the vocalists, the songs should be thought of as a dialogue between them, on equal terms, and the piano played with an orchestral sound in mind.

Ancel Newton graduated from Trinity College of Music, London, in the mid 1950's, studying composition under Douglas Mews, and after graduation, with Lennox Berkeley. A few years ago on re-reading some of the First World War poets he was compelled to return to composition, resulting in these collections of songs.

He is currently writing new work.