Instrumentation SSATB choir and piano
Timing ca. 5’30”
Composed 2018, rev. 2024
Texts by Leslie Coulson, Albert-Paul Granier, Jack Stratford and Franz Marc, adapted by Jeffrey Ryan with R.H. Thomson
Commissioned by Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra (Alexander Shelley, Music Director) and The World Remembers in honour of the Centennial of the Great War. Choir and piano version for the Amadeus Choir of Greater Toronto.
World Premiere November 2, 2024, Eglinton St. George’s United Church, Toronto, Ontario. Amadeus Choir of Greater Toronto; Lydia Adams, conductor
Related Work Also available with orchestra
Programme Notes
La guerre est dure comme une tempête…
Commissioned to mark the centenary of the end of World War I, the short choral work Song of the Soldiers draws its texts from the writings of four WWI soldiers and focusses primarily on fragments from letters by Canadian Jack Stratford and German Franz Marc. One returned home, the other died in battle. Though they never met, their words contrast and complement each other while running in tandem and frequently intertwining, with Jack sung by the tenors and Franz sung by the basses. The sopranos and altos act as a kind of Greek chorus, singing from afar the words of the French soldier Albert-Paul Granier. Underneath, the piano marches deliberately forward, slowly building in mass and volume, until the sound explodes. The full choir comes together in British soldier Leslie Coulson’s famous Who Made the Law?, the question asked repeatedly in English, French and German, until we hear a final good-bye from the letter-writers.
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