For when the guns fall silent...music for remembrance.

A podcast of this blog, with musical excerpts, can be heard at Talking about music - music for remembrance

There comes a point in October or November when I become aware of the poppy sellers. I rarely carry cash or change these days  but since the collectors now have card readers it hardly matters. This year, I noticed for the first time that they also carried alternatives to the usual poppy, such as pins and wrist bands. I couldn’t help but feel this helpful development lessened the emotional power of the campaign. There was a certain poignancy and dignity to the simplicity of a lone volunteer, their red collection box and the paper poppy, which feels diminished by turning their tray into a shop window. Maybe it’s me and this is what happens when you get old?!!  On Remembrance Sunday, assuming I’m not playing for a church service, I like to watch the broadcast service of remembrance from the Cenotaph. Is this the one un-changing tradition left to us? The faces change but the ritual, the music, the Bishop of London’s address all stay the same. I find this comforting in a strange sort of way, a fiercely guarded anchor to the past which both honours and warns.

Composers have always written music to mark the passing of people, loved ones and major figures. Settings of the Roman Catholic requiem mass date back many hundreds of years, sometimes written out of duty and sometimes for an individual. Purcell’s Funeral Music for Queen Mary is an example of music written for a public occasion which has entered the common repertoire. That may be less common than one might think. The bloodshed of the twentieth century prompted many composers to write music in protest as much as in remembrance. Not surprisingly, the two world wars provided a depressing inspiration to many. Vaughan Williams’s Dona Nobis Pacem was composed in 1936, certainly looking back to the First World War but also, possibly, anticipating a future conflict sparked by the actions of Nazi Germany. The only one of Vaughan Williams’s nine symphonies to be completed in the midst of a war was his 5th – his most serene and transcendental. Shostakovich, in his 13th Symphony (Babi Yar) set poems by Yevtushenko which comment on  the conditions within Soviet Russia but which also, in the first movement, lament the massacre of Jews in 1941 by Nazis at the Russian town of Babi Yar and antisemitism more generally. Some works have acquired an association with remembrance through circumstance. For example, the Adagietto from Mahler’s 5th Symphony was performed at the funeral of Senator Robert Kennedy in 1968 and a link between the music and mourning has existed in some people’s minds ever since. Other pieces, such as Barber’s Adagio for Strings, have no programme and have not, to my knowledge, been used for any particular public occasion but have been heard as a piece of mourning as a natural reaction to the music.

I don’t feel the idea of a programme of music for remembrance is in any way in poor taste or overly sentimental. I suppose I might just have easily described this blog as being “music for a hope of peace”, or “music for reflection”. But the composers of the twentieth century responded creatively to the events and tragedies of their time in a way that most of their predecessors had not. (I have to be careful here because one of the most celebrated symphonies of all time, Beethoven’s Eroica, has strong connections with Napoleon Bonaparte and his political ambitions but this piece is something of an exception). Their responses have particular relevance to our modern history and, as such, can withstand being ‘grouped’ with the work of their peers.

My first suggestion may be one of the most misunderstood pieces in all music: Vaughan Williams’s Symphony no 3 – the Pastoral Symphony. For this reason, I’ll spend more time on this than the works which follow. The listener who comes new to this piece should not bring with them any expectation of a ‘sequel’ to Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony. Neither should one be duped by the title into expecting an extended Lark Ascending. The scorn and dismissal of this piece by many commentators (including composers) is almost certainly due to such misperceptions. The symphony’s gestation took place in France during the First World War. Vaughan Williams was not only a great composer, but also a great human being (the two characteristics do not always go together) with a strong sense of civic responsibility. Consequently, when the war began and he found himself, at the age of 42, old enough to be excused active service, Vaughan Williams enlisted as a medical orderly – a harrowing role for a man from such a cultured background. His war was spent retrieving men, some alive and some not, and parts of men from the battle fields. He never wrote or spoke publicly of this experience but the symphony grew from it.

The Pastoral Symphony is, then, Vaughan Williams’s War Requiem. The composer himself said:

“It’s really wartime music – a great deal of it incubated when I used to go up night after night in the ambulance wagon at Ecoivres and we went up a steep hill and there was wonderful Corot-like landscape in the sunset. It’s not really lambkins frisking at all, as most people take for granted.”

He might easily have borrowed the poet Wilfrid Owen’s words, when prefacing his war poetry:  “My subject is War, and the pity of War.” But this intent is not always recognised by listeners who hear a symphony in four movements, mostly slow and much of it quiet. The quietness is deceptive: beneath some very beautiful sounds are some crunching dissonances which almost go unnoticed. Had the music been played loudly, one might wince at some of the clashing chords and notes. Instead, whilst there is great beauty in the music, there is also a sense of unease arising from this harmonic tension.

There is no programme for the Pastoral Symphony – no description of intent or meaning behind the music and so the listener must approach the work as a piece of absolute music – music written for its own sake. And yet…knowing the background to its composition it is tempting for the listener to attach an extra-musical idea to each movement. The provocative, but always interesting conductor Sir Roger Norrington apparently feels each movement relates to a different season. My own take on the symphony is that the first movement evokes an English landscape, robbed of a generation of men, and left with a sense of gloom and unease. It opens with undulating woodwind chords (suggesting a murmuring brook) as a four-note theme enters discreetly in the basses. Although unassuming in its presentation, this theme becomes a major component of the movement, often preceding a sighing pair of chords. Snatches of melody pass between solo instruments (which can give the impression of wandering and an unstructured approach to composition when, in fact, the music is very tightly organised) building to an impassioned climax.

The second movement was said to have been inspired by a bugler practising at dusk. There is a sense of encroaching darkness throughout the opening of this movement and the horn solo suggests (to my ears) a warm breeze blowing across the landscape. Later in the movement, there is an extended trumpet solo which starts with the interval of a fifth – the same pair of notes which starts The Last Post. This solo has a similar power and feels like an elegy for the fallen. I puzzled over the third movement for many years. I could not understand how it ‘belonged’ with the other movements. Since I assigned my own ‘meaning’ to the music, I have found it made more sense. This galumphing dance has come to represent, in my mind, the movement and fire of artillery.

The last movement may be the most moving of the four. It begins with a wordless soprano solo which may have been inspired by a nameless girl singing while the composer was in France. This gives way to a gently aspiring theme which appears to move towards (to borrow a phrase) “sunlit uplands”. The music leads to an impassioned unison statement of the soprano’s opening solo from the strings before building to a cathartic climax which suggests regret, release and hope. The music subsides and fades away, leaving the soprano to lament a lost generation.

Each of Vaughan Williams’s symphonies has its own unique character. This means that there is not so much a progression between each one but a complete departure from what the composer has done before. That may make it more difficult to assess which, if any, is the ‘greatest’ of the nine (not that that is important). VW lovers will often vote for the Fifth – as perfect and beautiful symphony as you’re likely to find. But I think the emotional power of the Pastoral wins out. Indeed, I think it is one of the most important symphonies of the 20th Century. It’s certainly in the running for the most misunderstood! I have included the first two movements from the symphony in my accompanying playlist and if that, or my ramblings, have whetted your appetite, do try the whole piece. But, as with any great work, understanding or appreciation does not necessarily come on the first encounter and I would urge you to give it more than one listen.

Although I will not be including any excerpts in the playlist, I must mention one of the great masterpieces of the Twentieth century and an essential listen for the time of Remembrance: Britten’s War Requiem. When it was first released, the premiere recording fast became a best seller. Few contemporary works since have managed the same feat. In fact, the only ones I can think of are Karl Jenkins’s The Armed Man (about which, more in a minute) and Gorecki’s Symphony of Sorrowful Songs. This latter work became immensely popular in the 1990s thanks to a superb recording which was strongly promoted by Classic FM and eventually sold a million copies. It is certainly striking in its gloom and, having heard excerpts on the radio, I went out and bought the disc. On the first hearing I was bowled over by the dark atmosphere. On the second hearing, I started to find it a little repetitive. After the third, I became a little impatient with it, finding it unrelentingly miserable and I had a really uneasy, depressed sleep. I didn’t listen to it again for years. This is a key difference between a decent work and a truly great one: the decent work is exhausted after a few encounters, the listener has heard all there is and can learn little more about it. The great work continues to fascinate and to reveal different layers and possibilities after a great many hearings. I would imagine this is true in all forms of art.

Back to the War Requiem. Britten was a pacifist. Indeed, he had attracted considerable criticism for remaining in the United States during the Second World War and not returning to the UK. In the late 1950s he was approached to compose a work for the reconsecration of Coventry Cathedral, which had been destroyed in 1940 in a night-time bombing raid by the Luftwaffe. The new cathedral, jointly designed by Basil Spence and Arup, stands alongside the remains of the previous structure. Britten’s response to this commission was a major choral work which sets the Latin requiem mass but which also incorporates  settings of texts by the war poets, sometimes to jarring effect. It is very much an anti-war requiem. With this in mind, when ‘casting’ the first performance, Britten sought out an international trio of soloists from some of the countries involved in the Second World War -  a Russian soprano (who was, at the last moment, not allowed to sing), an English tenor and German baritone.

Composers have set the requiem mass for hundreds of years. The ‘earliest’ to be regularly performed is that by Mozart. Since he wrote his incomplete setting, requiems can often be classed as being either consoling (such as the Faure or Duruflé requiems) or dramatic (Mozart and Verdi). Britten’s setting falls firmly into the latter category. It is, however, very much a 20th century work. For example, where Verdi’s celebrated setting of the Dies Irae (the day of wrath – a vision of the end of the world) offers biblical thunder and lightning and seismic eruptions, Britten transports us to the battlefields of the First World War. Verdi’s trumpets herald the Day of Judgement. Britten’s send us ‘over the top’ into battle. The effect is terrifying in its realism.

I can’t write a long programme note on the War Requiem here (and there will be plenty of detailed ones available online) although I may come back to it in time. But this is one of the greatest works of the 20th century and an essential work for the time of Remembrance. Indeed, performances of the War Requiem at this time of year are to be expected just as surely as those of Messiah or The Nutcracker at Christmas.  The poetry settings do, perhaps, take some time for the listener to accept (that was certainly my experience) but the piece as a whole grips from the ominous opening bell to the gentle but by no means reassuring chord which closes it. I have attended a few live performances and been, from first to last, gripped, moved and, at times, frightened. At the time of writing, there is a BBC Proms performance from 2024 and also a black and white broadcast of Britten himself conducting in 1964, both available to watch on BBC iPlayer. I would urge you to make its acquaintance.

Having talked about a masterpiece, I feel a bit guilty moving on to my next suggestion, which is not a masterpiece, although it is a very good piece of music – Karl Jenkins’s The Armed Man. Nailing my colours to the mast early, I confess that I don’t think Karl Jenkins is a great composer. But I do think he is a very good composer (and that’s no bad thing – plenty of good composers have written marvellous music). My reason for  this opinion is due to Jenkins’s compositional process. He has an enviable gift for melody and for creating a sense of great momentum, allied to an imaginative use of instrumental colour. But, to my ears, although he frequently generates tremendous atmosphere and excitement, he never reaches a climax. This being the case, the music never actually goes anywhere. Having built up a great head of steam, instead of resolving or releasing the tension and giving a sense of catharsis, he simply starts again, or starts a completely new section. I became aware of this in his first work to achieve real recognition – Adiemus: Songs of Sanctuary. The opening song of this had been used for tv adverts and I don’t mean to sound dismissive it I say that while I don’t think it’s get music, I do find the album to be excellent listening on a long car journey.

The Armed Man is, like the War Requiem, an anti-war work. It is sincere, approachable and thoroughly enjoyable. In the same way that Britten drew on texts from the war poets to humanise the requiem, Jenkins sets words from the Bible, an Islamic prayer, Hindu texts and words by Kipling, Tennyson and Sankichi Toge, who survived the bombing of Hiroshima, to send a universal message of peace. Jenkins’s trademark rhythmic drive is apparent as is his flair for the theatrical, whether in the form of the sound of marching footsteps at the beginning, or the martial trumpets later in the charge to war. This has become a very popular work and deservedly so. If the War Requiem feels too daunting a listen (or even if it doesn’t) this might be worth investigating.

My selections for this blog have been, understandably, sombre. But it feels appropriate to include something more hopeful and Bob Chilcott’s setting of ‘Now the green blade riseth’ seems to fit the bill. Bob Chilcott was a chorister at Kings College, Cambridge, singing the Pie Jesu on David Willcocks’s recording of the Faure Requiem. He has become a much-loved conductor and composer of choral music. His wondrously luminous ‘Shepherd’s Carol’ is one of my absolutely favourites and his setting of the Easter hymn, ‘Now the green blade riseth’ demonstrates the qualities which have made him so popular. Chilcott has composed a new melody for the hymn (often sung to the melody Noel Nouvelet) and adorned it with birdsong, courtesy of a discreet organ accompaniment. The middle section moves away from the home key, giving a sense of exploration and ascension, before the music returns to the reassuring calm of the home key. It’s inspired writing.

I hope you’ll give my playlist a try and that, if you do, you won’t find it unduly depressing. In fact, none of the music I have mentioned is particularly morose. It is certainly sad and undoubtedly moving but it is also all very personal. For that reason, whose you may not like all of it, you’re unlikely to be indifferent to it.

The accompanying playlist is available on Spotify at: Talking about Music - Music for remembrance