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Doomed Youth
A song cycle of poems from the First World War, for baritone and piano
A tribute to a lost generation

This song cycle is not a political statement, but a tribute to the men of all the allied armies who had to endure the unspeakable conditions of trench warfare and live with imminent death.

The deeply moving sculpture is the work of James Butler MBE RA. The sculpture was commissioned by the Croix Rouge Farm Memorial Foundation as a tribute to the 42nd “Rainbow” Division of the United States Army, and especially to the 167th (Alabama) and also the 168th (Iowa) Regiments. In July 1918 these regiments founght in the Battle of Croix Rouge Farm, “with a gallantry that I do not believe has been surpassed in military history.” ( General MacArthur).

The quotation from the Orchestral Rhapsody, “A Shropshire Lad”, was composed by George Butterworth in 1912. It appears in several places in the Cycle as a kind of idee-fixe: As with A. E. Housman’s poems, its sense of foreboding seems to prefigure the cataclysm of August 1914, as does Thomas Hardy’s “Channel Firing”.

Channel Firing

Thomas Hardy

Written four months before the outbreak of the Great War.  A very premonitionary and rather surealistic poem.

In Memoriam (1915)

Edward Thomas killed at Arras April April 1917

This poem, written at Easter 1915, was one of the few that he wrote that directly concerned the war. His poems were noted for their attention to the English countryside.

The Coward (1917)

Rudyard Kipling

Originally a supporter of the leadership of the Great War, Kipling’s verse became increasingly bitter after his only son, a Lieutenant in the Irish Guards, was killed at Loos in 1915. This poem could be ironic.

Anthem for Doomed Youth (1917)

Wilfred Owen 1893 - killed at Joncourt November 4th 1918

Considered by many to be the finest of the War poets, Owen was postumately awarded the Military Cross. This poem was written as a lament for the unnecesary loss of life in the War, and a comment on Owen’s rejection of religion.

Rendevous (1916)

Alan Seeger - killed on the Somme July 4th 1916

In this poem Seeger forsees his death without any bitterness. After studying at Harvard he went to live in Paris and joined the French Foreign Legion three weeks after the outbreak of war. He was one of a group of forty Americans, most of whom were killed in a machine gun enfilade on the Somme.

In the Ambulance (1915)

Wilfrid Gibson

Gibson was an established poet by the time of the Great War, and was one of the founders of the “Dymock Poets”. He met and became friends with Ruprt Brooke in 1914, and served in the ranks in the front line for a short time.

Suicide in the Trenches (1918)

Siegfried Sassoon

Sassoon became one of the leading Great War poets, and served with distinction awarded the Military Cross just before the Battle of the Somme. A close friend of Robert Graves he also knew Rupert Brooke, and later Wilfred Owen.

War (1920)

Leslie Coulson 1889 - killed on the Somme October 7th 1916

Served as a non-commissioned officer in the Royal Fusiliers, and before the War was a well known Fleet Street journalist. He was 27 when he was killed.

War

by Ancel Newton | Simon Lepper & Bradley Travis

In the Ambulance

by Ancel Newton | Simon Lepper & Gavan Ring

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.