Goodbye to the Battlefields
A song cycle with words adapted from the work of various poets writing about the aftermath of the First World War, for baritone and piano
Dedicated to the memory of Fred and Digby Marriott
The Marriott brothers were commissioned as 2nd Lieutenants in the Rifle Brigade in 1914 and were killed within a few weeks of each other in Flanders in 1915. The composer is related by marriage to the Marriott family.
This photograph was taken in about 1909 at their family home in Cotesbach, Leicestershire. Both were educated at Uppingham and Bradfield, and Fred represented Brasenose College, Oxford, in rowing, cricket, hockey and football.
Not all the poems used in this Opus have a direct connection with the First World War, and some of these works are untitled and fragments. The extracts used have meaning in the context of the theme of the Opus and not all were written in the period following the War.
1.
Carl Sandberg
An American poet and one of seven children of poor Swedish imigrants, he was the author of the famous historical novel “Rememberance Rock”. He authored a noted biography of Abraham Lincoln as well as many poems, and there is a faint echo of his political views in this poem.
3.
Richard Aldington
An English author and poet, and a founding member of the Imagist movement. He served in the army during the First World War and the trauma of trench warfare has a profound influence on his poetry, as is evident in this retrospective poem.
5.
Walt Whitman
This famous American poet was involved as a nurse in the American Civil War, and this retrospective poem shows how deeply it affected him. While this poem has no direct connection with the First World War it is appropriate in this context.
7. - 8.
Robert Nichols & T. P. Cameron
T. P. Cameron was the author of the well known War poem “Magpies in Picardy”. He was killed on the 24th March 1918. A short extract if this poem is used and combined with poetry by Robert Nichols who served with the Royal Artillery from 1914 – 1916. Nichols was invalided out, suffering from “shell shock”, and his poem reflects the sense of guilt some men felt at having survived when so many did not.
2.
A. E. Housman
An English classical scholar and poet, he perhaps best known for his cycle of poems “A Shropshire Lad”. The text in this song is associated with the First World War rather than any earlier conflict.
4.
Wilfrid Gibson
An English poet of the Georgian School, this poem is a lament for the millions of young men who lost their lives in the War.
6.
Ivor Gurney
An English poet and composer he sang as a chorister in Goucester Cathedral and enlisted as a private soldier during the War. He was wounded in the shoulder in April 1917 and gassed later in the same year. As a result of his experiences his mental health deteriorated and he spent the last 15 years of his life in a psychiatric hospital. This poem speaks for itself.
Threnody
Anon.
An inscription written on the grave of a British soldier in the cemetry at Ypres by his French wife or lover.
“Tu ne viendras plus à moi. Un jour j’irai à toi“
