Remembrance

Many of my most powerful memories are of musical performances, and the centenary this weekend has reminded me of some.

In yesterday's Times, there was a rather moving obituary to the poet Wilfrid Owen. It reminded me of what has, for many years been the most outstanding musical performance I have ever been part of...

It was in King's College chapel in Cambridge, with CUMS under the baton of Phillip Ledger with the boys of the Kings College chapel choir acting as the boys' chorus. It is such a fantastic piece. Here are a couple of recordings you can find on Youtube:

South Bank Centre in Nov 2014 with hundreds of young performers under Marin Alsop commemorating the centenary of the outbreak of the war.
An unattributed performance displaying the score.

The highlights of the performance I remember included the sight of a boy in the front row, probably aged about 11. He seemed completely absorbed by the music and, at the climax of the Libera Me, looked completely terrified.

That is followed by the wonderful recitative for tenor and bass using the words of Owen's Strange Meeting, with the last words "Let us sleep now" taken up by the full chorus and soloists.

The final amen, done so beautifully in the first performance linked to above, starts ppp and diminishes to nothing. The ensuing silence in Kings Chapel was such a poignant moment. You could have heard a pin drop. And the respectful exit from the chapel of those hundreds of members of the audience in complete silence was, somehow, more appropriate and appreciative than any enthusiastic applause could have been. The memory still gives me shivers down my spine.

More recently, with a new generation, I have been in the audience for some performances of the Suffolk Youth Orchestra (which Sarah and William play in) at Snape Maltings that are also memorable.

Last year the orchestra participated in The Battle of the Somme Centenary Tour. (That is them playing in the picture at the start of this post - and that is them on the front of the home page). The project was born out of a a restoration of the original 1916 film...

"The Battle of the Somme is the jewel in the crown of the Imperial War Museum’s collection: It is a compelling documentary record of one of the key battles of the First World War and the first feature-length documentary film record of combat. Seen by many millions of British civilians within the first month of distribution, The Battle of the Somme was recognized at the time as a phenomenon that allowed the civilian home-front audience to share the experiences of the front-line soldier and was seen by mass audiences in allied and neutral countries, including Russia and the United States. It is the source of many iconic images from the First World War, which remain in almost daily use 100 years later. "

The Imperial War Museum commissioned Laura Rossi to write a new score for the film for the 90th anniversary of the battle.

"The re-mastered film was screened to a full house at the Queen Elizabeth Hall with the world premiere of Laura's orchestral score, performed by the Philharmonia Orchestra. It received excellent critiques, including a 5 star review in The Times"

The Somme100FILM project ran from July 2016 to July 2017, and marked the centenary of the Somme battle by organising 100 international screenings of Geoffrey Malins and John McDowell’s original 1916 film with Laura Rossi’s orchestral score.

The Suffolk Youth Orchestra  gave two of the performances, in the Apex in Bury St. Edmunds and Snape Maltings. The project's archive page of the performances includes some pictures, a video clip and a the text of a letter from one of William's friends to the composer. You can read the programme here. And there is a great interview with the composer about it here.

It was spell-binding and Sarah enjoyed playing it more than any other concert she has played in. There is no recording of the performance available, but in the summer following their tour to Poland, they played at the Snape Proms and reprised the introductory piece from that concert, a lush arrangement of the song Roses of Picardy.

The concert also included a piece they had taken on tour, Panufnik's A Procession for peace.

I'll say no more. The music speaks more eloquently than I can.