The Great War Symphony CD

PRAELUDIUM introduces two main themes which appear in different guises throughout this movement and beyond, while the use of Big Ben (sounding a deep E natural) dictates that the Symphony is in the key of E major. The chorus lead us through the outbreak of war, the early optimism and then a sense of harsh reality. The tenor soloist represents the fighting man who comes to realise that everything turns to ‘waste’.

MARCH draws the listener more fully into the conflict, concentrating on particularly significant events at Jutland, Gallipoli and the Somme. The soprano soloist makes her first appearance, singing of the heartache of mothers, daughters, wives and fiancées at home as well as those women who witnessed the war first-hand.

The devastating third year of the war saw little movement on the fronts, and ELEGY is similarly more still as well as reflective. We lament with all those who feel the full pain of bereavement as the choral lines become more lyrical and the soloists share their experience of love and loss with one another.

The FINALE begins with the apocalyptic ‘Dies Irae’ and the tenor soloist’s complete sense of desolation until there is eventually the call for war to cease. ‘Calm fell’ and the end of the Symphony becomes, in effect, an act of remembrance. The Last Post is played against iconic words from Laurence Binyon’s ‘For the Fallen’ before chorus and soloists together promise to wear the poppy in honour of the dead and ‘teach the lesson that ye wrought in Flanders Fields’.”