kitty werner

“I have been like a blind man groping in the dark, and you have opened my eyes to the splendour and beautiful truth of a love, which I felt but dimly as in a dream, until we met…”

For over 70 years the secret romance between the famous Sir Granville Bantock, a British conductor and composer who traveled the world giving concerts, and Muriel Mann has been exactly that—a secret. The year, 1936, had Sir Granville traveling the East Coast of the United States holding examinations of music pupils for Trinity College of Music in London. That he happened to be the examiner, that Muriel’s daughter, Sis, was one of the examinees, and that Muriel herself was an accomplished pianist, brought them together
in Charleston, South Carolina for a moment that sparked a four-year romance that included a “betrothal” and “honeymoon.”

Muriel had a tremendous influence on Bantock’s compositions during this time that hasn’t been known, until  now. He wrote Memories of Sapphire after visiting with Muriel at her summer home in Sapphire, North Carolina. His score of his third symphony, The Cyprian Goddess, was written with her in mind. His renewed interest in Negro Spiritual music was a direct result of Muriel’s invitation to a Revival Meeting during his first visit. M.A.B. at the top of his future compositions was for Muriel Angus Bantock.

Bantock’s letters and visits helped Muriel survive an extremely rough time in her life as she raised three teen-age daughters alone during the Great Depression after her husband abandoned them the year before. Bantock called her “courageous little woman,” but she was courageous because he believed in her and their ultimate future together.

What they did not count on was another world war…