The centenary of the outbreak of the First World War looms heavily over everything at the moment, and Thursday’s Three Choirs concert provided a moving memorial to all those who suffered as a result of that hideous conflict.
It included one of the finest, most worthwhile premieres I have heard in many years, A Foreign Field by Torsten Rasch, born in 1965 in Dresden, which remained ravaged as a result of ruthless Allied bombing very near the end of World War II 20 years earlier.
Like Britten’s War Requiem, this substantial work (43 minutes) blends Latin liturgical texts (Old Testament here as well as from the Latin Mass of the Dead) with vernacular poetry. Where Britten used poems by Wilfred Owen, here Rasch draws upon some of the Dymock poets as well as the Austro-Germans Trakl and Rilke. The result is a gripping melding of frontline verismo, the tearing-apart of lovers, and desperately-needed compassion.
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The scene of domestic grief lies at the heart of the work, charting the parting of Edward Thomas from his wife Helen as he set off for the Western Front, and unfolds over a fantasia on The Ash Grove. There are other musical references too: not only the general homage to Britten (not least in the use of a children’s choir in addition to the full adult chorus), but also, towards the consolatory ending, hints of Strauss’ Metamorphosen (themselves lamenting the destruction of Dresden) and Mahler’s final, Nirvana-evoking symphonies.
Often reassuringly tonal, A Foreign Field moves away at the beginning of its final movement, Et in Arcadia Ego, into the world of aleatoricism, where Arcadia is, in fact, ironically Hell, until at last resolution is achieved.
The children’s choir (here singers from die Kantorei der Kreuzkirche in Chemnitz, where the work is to be repeated next year) is perhaps over-used, to the detriment of the full chorus. Certainly the children have some memorable moments, not least when they are occasionally accompanied by an evocative solo trumpet, and when they add the fearful words of a boy trapped in a Chemnitz air-raid shelter in 1945 as a backdrop to the sorrowful Edward Thomas duet: Mussen wir jetzt all sterben? (‘Must we all die now?’).
What work it is given was more than adequately covered by the Festival Chorus, assiduously prepared by their chorusmasters, and entering warmly into the spirit of this formidable piece.
Soprano Yeree Su sang devotedly, if not always audibly in this acoustic, but baritone Roderick Williams ticked all the boxes yet again, singing with engagement, impassioned eloquence, and himself bringing a composer’s insight to this demanding but effective solo part.
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Baldur Bronniman conducted with authority, and drew (probably on very little rehearsal) alert and well-placed playing from a Philharmonia on excellent form.
The concert had begun in similar mood with Elgar’s The Spirit of England, three Laurence Binyon settings actually composed during the Great War and premiered on October 4 1917 under Appleby Matthews in Birmingham Town Hall immediately upon completion. Though the music cannot help but move in its anguish and its withdrawn sorrowing, the performance here favoured the orchestra in balance with the chorus, and, though the use of a tenor was certainly sanctioned by Elgar (usually when sharing with a solo soprano), tenor Peter Hoare appeared strained here as the sole protagonist. It seems to work better with a soprano.
Between the two came almost everybody’s favourite, Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending, its otherworldly pastoralism somewhat underprojected by violin soloist Matthew Trusler.