S2.E112. Music for Remembrance Day. Elgar For the Fallen, Mendelssohn Dmi Trio, Schubert Littany for All Souls, Handel Music for The Royal Fireworks.

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Hello. It's not difficult for me to choose a music for this episode, because this weekend brings together a number of different commemorations almost all at once. First, we had the Feast of All Souls in the Christian calendar last Monday, and we have Remembrance Sunday tomorrow, the 8th. On a more cheerful note, even if the original event itself was anything but we commemorate the foiled gunpowder plot of 1605 with fireworks. So, no prizes for guessing how we will conclude today. But let's start with something which I suspect will be far less familiar. Elgar's For the Fallen is the final movement of a spirit of England written between 1914 and 1917. It's a setting of the most iconic verse of Lawrence Binion's poem. The music moves from a quiet reflection to stirring choral grandeur and then draws us back to grief. The famous promise, They shall grow not old isn't treated as an easy comfort. The music honors the dead, while keeping the sorrow of those left behind close at hand. Overall, it's unquestionably solemn and ceremonial, but it's also warmly lyrical, with a gradual swell from intimate mourning to stirring communal remembrance. The fourth verse is well known, but it's one of seven which rarely get heard, so I hope you don't mind if I give you its context and read the rest of it before we listen to the music, performed here by the Halle choir and orchestra, with soprano Rachel Nichols conducted by Mark Elder. With proud Thanksgiving, a mother for her children, England mourns for her dead across the sea. Flesh of her flesh they were, the spirit of her spirit fallen in the cause of the free. Solemn the drums thrill, death august and royal, sings sorrow up into immortal spheres. There is music in the midst of desolation, and a glory that shines upon our tears. They went with songs to the battle. They were young, straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow. They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted. They fell with their faces to the foe. They shall grow not old as we that are left grow old. Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them. They mingle not with their laughing comrades again, they sit no more at familiar tables of home. They have no lot in our labour of the daytime. They sleep beyond England's foam. But where our desires are and our hopes profound, felt as a well spring that is hidden from sight to the innermost heart of their own land, they are known as the stars are known to the night. As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust, moving in marches upon the heavenly plain, as the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness. To the end, to the end, they remain. Or any other road, come to think of it. But there's actually a very good reason for this. People who close their eyes when listening to music don't hear it any better than the rest of us, of course. But they do have one distinct advantage. They are free from visual distractions. This enables us as listeners to certain pieces of music to dwell in our own conscious dreams. It allows us to see whether music takes us, which can be every bit as enjoyable as the musical experience itself. So that's what I would encourage you to do now, subject to the opening risk warning. The second movement of Mendelssohn's D minor piano trio is quite simply, gobsmackingly, outrageously downright beautiful. There's really no point me saying anything else. The words of the poem by George Jacoby. It's something in German by Britain Topell. And once more, I'm going to give you the English translation because there will be something in this for everybody. May all souls rest in peace. Those whose fearful torment is past. Those whose sweet dreams are over. Those fitted with life. Those barely born who have left this world. May all souls rest in peace. The souls of girls in love whose tears are without number, who abandoned by a faithless lover, rejected the blind world. May all who have departed hence. May all souls rest in peace. And those who never smiled at the sun, who lay awake beneath the moon on beds of thorns, so that they might one day see God face to face in the pure light of heaven. May all who have departed head. May all souls rest in peace. April the twenty-seventh, seventeen forty-nine was the first time on which Handel's music for the Royal Fireworks was performed. It had been commissioned by King George II to celebrate the Treaty of Ayla Chapelle and the end of the war of the Austrian succession. For some reason, his majesty didn't want any fiddles, so it was scored for pretty well everything except string instruments. The event itself was a complete disaster. A 410-foot wooden pavilion caught fire as a result of rainy weather, causing many other ten thousand fireworks to misfire. Chaos was the outcome that the ever-popular music has endured, and let's listen to it in full. Nowadays with a more complete orchestra played by the English consort combating by Harry Brigitte. I will be back, I hope, in a couple of weeks. As I hope for you. I leave you with the usual podcast first reminder to check out those links at the bottom of the episode. As well as my heartfelt thanks for listening. Until next time.